Bargains on ebay?

[Techno Commander]

I have only had one dead item from ebay (Aiwa XK 007 tape deck). To be fair, it was sold as "untested" and it only cost me 99p. So I cant grumble too much.

[Reid Malenfant]

It's getting daft - and when you ask why they pulled the auction you can tell, even though they don't say so, that they sold it for nothing.

Recently for example there was a Pioneer set of CT-950 cassette, SA8800 or 9800, TX9800 or 8800 all with wooden sleeves and with a Pioneer record deck, sitting in the system section for £10 start. It ended within two days and when I asked why he ended it and that I was intending to bid £150, he said 'Your bid would have come in handy!' meaning he'd sold it outside of Ebay for less.

That's £600 worth of Pioneer at least (the wooden sleeves would fetch more than £150 alone) snapped up by someone taking advantage of ignorance.

Only thing you can do in the end is to do the same yourself or only the bargains will be filtered out by chancers.

In the case of this auction there is something you could have done to prevent this from happening If only you'd placed a bid on the items As long as there is no mention on the listing that the items can be removed as they are on sale elsewhere you are laughing. The reason being is that the seller can't simply remove them from sale once a bid is placed. Just like you are in a binding agreement to pay for what you win, the seller is in a binding agreement to supply what they are selling (as far as i know).

Now the only way they could stop the auction is say that whatever is was that's being sold happens to now be not working & ebay will contact you & ask if you agree to the sale being made null & void. You must agree though that there is not a lot of likelyhood that all the cassette decks would pack up simultaneously (unless a car fell on them ) so you could refuse to allow the sale to be cancelled & still bag the goods

I may be wrong about the above but by law i think it's probably correct.

I know this process exists as i won an auction for a pair of Krell KAS 2 monoblocks, went to pick them up & gave them a quick test & was gutted to discover (much like the owner) that one was faulty Had to go through this rigmarole on ebay to both agree to cancel the auction, which we both did...

[Alex_UK]

I won't link to the ad, but how "optimistic" is this description, (and it's not the first time I've seen something similar) "these speakers are great sounding and looking the rubbers arround the cones need replacing and are readily available on ebay i just havent had the time to do this HOWEVER does NOT affect the sound unless you turn it up to a stupidly loud level"

Really? No surrounds has no affect on the sound... Don't know why I bother with them then, I never listen "stupidly loud"!

[The Vinyl Adventure]

Aw, why no link?

[Alex_UK]

Aw, why no link?

I just thought it would give him undue advertising! But here it is if you want it http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...#ht_600wt_1137

[colinB]

Im looking at a " Mj acoustics 50 subwoofer" on e bay , sorry , dont know how to post a link. It finishes this evening and its pick up only , somewhere in London.
I thought it would be a cheap way of trying one in my room to see how i get on.
Dont know why but im getting cold feet about it this morning.
If anyone has a minute i would appreciate any feedback. Im thinking i should at least ask him to set it up. Not sure if its been looked after or not.

[Alex_UK]

This one Colin? http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/MJ-acoustics-p...#ht_500wt_1154

[colinB]

Yes Alex. Thats the one. What do you think.

[DSJR]

I just thought it would give him undue advertising! But here it is if you want it http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...#ht_600wt_1137

Alex, have you ever HEARD AE109's??? There's little to no treble because they were often used with the other WTF 5 star disasters of the period - CD63KI Sig and PM66KI Sig and both of these take your fillings out and strip the paint off the walls before any music is played... TDL did the same thing with the RTL "SE" series of speakers, ruining a basically good speaker by slugging the tweeter so. At least the treble can be restored with a resistor and possibly a cap change...

[Alex_UK]

Dont know why but im getting cold feet about it this morning.

Probably this line:
Bought from a auction, hence condition is okay, few scratches here and there

In my experience (and jaded outlook on life!) most ebay condition descriptions need to be taken with a pinch of salt - if something is described as "okay" condition, then I would translate that to "not very good" - certainly cosmetically, as he admits. Also, the other kit he is selling includes pro-audio stuff, (samplers etc.) so it is sensible to assume it has been "hammered" in a pro-audio environment, and as it came from auction in the first place, there is no idea of the provenance, so bid accordingly. Bear in mind a brand new, fully warranted one is available with free delivery for under £300 from an official dealer - I personally wouldn't pay more than £80-90 (bearing in mind you have the hassle/cost of collection on top) on the used one.