My first time using eBay Motors. My experience and the ensuing fiasco.

"Coty" (coty) 12/15/2016 at 12:00 • Filed to: ebay, car sales, scams, scam, ebay motors

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My toy for this previous summer. Apparently sale proof.

As I’m sure most of you know and remember, after a few months of little interest on my local Craigslist (it’s a 46 year old rear wheel drive car in a place that will be snowing for the next 4 and a half months) I decided to list the car on eBay Motors to try to get it in front of more eyes, and hopefully in front of the eyes of old men in Florida who would buy it.

(Disclaimer: These are the thoughts and borderline ramblings of an individual who, while being a veteran of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! decided to use eBay Motors completely on a whim while doing no research. I’ve learned of a lot of things I should have done differently since then.)

Listing The Car

I found listing the car to be both easy and frustrating at the same time. It seems eBay has a field to enter pretty much all the information pertinent to potential buyers looking at your car. Year, mileage, VIN, options, even fuel type, which I found sort of humorous when I started thinking about a 1970 Grand Prix with a diesel engine. My first mistake was entering “00000000000" as the VIN, as I didn’t have anything in front of me with the VIN on it, thinking I would be able to edit that later. That’s not the case, so I suppose that’s lesson one. Look over the things you need to enter into the eBay ad, make note of anything you don’t remember off hand and get the answers, and then make your listing.

One thing that I consider an oversight on eBay’s part is not having a “Missing” option for the title. In the state of New Hampshire, where I live (free, and don’t die yet) a title is not required on vehicles more than 15 years old. EBay gives you the options of clear, salvage, rebuilt, rebuildable, & reconstructed, lemon law & buyback, and finally flood & water damage.

Another one that’s my fault is the fact that I didn’t pay attention to the fact that once you receive your first bid, you lose the ability to edit the main listing and instead your edits show at the bottom, which isn’t a big deal but I like my listings to be more concise, and also like the option to fix my mistakes, if any. I understand why eBay does this, but it still drove me a little batty.

I set a minimum bid of $5,000, with a reserve of $6,000. I paid a little more to have a reserve on the auction, and a little more for a Buy It Now, which was set at $8,000. I set it so a deposit of $1,000 was required within 24 hours, and full payment was due in 7 days. The 24 hours part will be important later.

Getting Bids

This is another one of my mistakes in not doing research beforehand, but if you sell on eBay, you really want to set a minimum feedback score that potential buyers need to be at before bidding. I know that sounds like you’re limiting your potential buyer pool, but really the only people you’re weeding out are scammers. Bidders with a feedback score lower than your threshold (I’ve been recommended to use 20, but you do you) can still contact you and if you’re certain they’re really the Nigerian prince they claim to be you can make it so they can bid.

I listed the car on Wednesday, December 7th at 8 A.M. EST (eBay uses PST so it was like 5 A.M.). I think if I were to do this again I would make it so it was in the afternoon because the time of the day your auction starts is also when it ends, and people in California might not wanna wake up at 5 A.M. to bid if they don’t know about automatic bidding programs.

I received my first bid the following Tuesday from a person named 1983elcamino in the amount of $5,100, a long way from reserve. Over the next few days a friend of mine pushed the bid up here and there to get it closer to reserve. On December 13th, the day before the auction, I got a bid for $5,900 from 1983elcamino, and then one for $6,000. I had just happened to be looking at the listing on my phone when it was at $6,000, and then a few minutes later I got an email saying the bid had been canceled.

This was the second time a bid had been canceled over the course of my auction. The first time an account from Russia, that had joined Facebook two days before he bid on my auction, was deleted for not being an actual account, and therefore the bid was deleted by eBay. This is why you want to set the minimum feedback score.

This time, however, 1983elcamino had deleted his $6,000 bid because he “entered the wrong amount”. $5,900 and $6,000 being very similar numerically, his finger must have just slipped, and it just happened to take an hour to notice. Definitely wasn’t trying to figure out where my reserve was set. (This is sarcasm because it apparently wasn’t clear.)

The Winningish Bid

On the morning of the last day of the auction I woke up and immediately checked the auction, which had about two hours left. I was still at $5,900. I was hoping that 1983elcamino and one of the 25 or so people watching the auction would get into some last minute bid war with bid sniping software that would push it higher than $6,000 but in the end the last bid came about an hour before the end of the auction from alexevorkano-0. His eBay profile looks oddly familiar.

Why this one didn’t trip eBay’s spam/ scam account filter and the dude who didn’t even make reserve did is beyond me, but it’s obviously not a real account. The best part is that if you look at his join date, it’s the same date as when he bid on and won my auction.

After The Auction

I hunted around a little on eBay and couldn’t find any links that said “Hey guys my car got bought by a Ukrainian scam artist can you guys help me out?” So I decided to wait it out and see what happened. Obviously I wasn’t going to accept any money sent to my PayPal (where the deposit, and only the deposit, was to be sent), but being that I couldn’t find anything to file, I figured waiting couldn’t hurt. I write this 25 hours after the auction ended. I have yet to receive any money, or any sort of contact from the buyer, either on eBay or my email. Despite it being more than 24 hours since the auction ended, I have to wait until tomorrow to be able to file a non-paying bidder case. I will update this post with what happens with them once I get it resolved.

EBay did sent me a message saying that my item had sold, and to not ship the car until I received payment. They also told me I had to ship the car within a day of receiving my payment, using the eBay provided shipping label. I found that sort of interesting for two reasons. One being, I’d love to see the face on the UPS guy when he shows up to get my mail and it’s a 1970 Pontiac with a shipping label on the windshield, and two, I dunno how to make it more clear that I’m not gonna be the one shipping the thing. I know it’s just a form email but still, make it so the “Buyer responsible for shipping” thing pulls that out of the email.

Wow that’s tiny, it says “Vehicle shipping, if any, is the sole responsibility of the purchaser, both as it relates to cost and arrangement. I will accrue no costs for shipping this vehicle, and will assist in no way in shipping the vehicle, aside from driving it on the truck if required.”

The Takeways

I just wanted to recap a few of the takeaways, and give my final thoughts on the experience. The big takeways are that you always want to set a minimum buyer feedback score. I’d consider also setting it so it’s only open to buyers in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, but that’s up to you. Another is to make sure you have all the information you’re going to need on your item before you post it. It sounds obvious but I thought I could post my ad, get it out there, and then just add my VIN in after I stopped and looked at it on the way home.

The view of the car I was hoping to see at the end of the auction. Not really how it worked out.

In the end I don’t think I would use eBay again. At least not for cars. I’m sure it would go better if I relisted the car and used the takeaways I just discussed, but I’ve always used Craigslist and I just know it better. I know how to use it, and I know the scams people are gonna try to rope me into (still not really understanding the scam in winning my auction and not contacting me any way, shape, or form). If you know how to use eBay well, and you can make money at it, definitely keep investing time in it. I think that’s the biggest takeaway of all, find what you like and use it.

Carl (@stuffcarlsays) > Coty 12/15/2016 at 12:11

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Man, things have changed so much in 16 years. When I was selling cars back in the early 2000s, I took on the experimental task of listing some of our used cars on the lot on eBay. We had a lot of success with it, and it made it really easy to sell cars that didn’t have much appeal in the season here in New Hampshire to other parts of the country.

I ended up taking a sabbatical (Or would that be a SAABatical, given the brand of car I was selling) and working for a wholesaler friend who did this full time. It was a lot of fun, to say the least.

Alas, the march of time goes on unabated, as does the global reach of eBay. I think things really went down the shitter for them about 10 years ago when they changed how the feedback system worked and bad actors ended up running rampant in the way you’ve described your new Ukrainian friend.

Coty > Carl (@stuffcarlsays) 12/15/2016 at 12:15

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My previous experience with eBay is limited to a kid making money selling random shit on eBay in the 2002 movie Clockstoppers, and that seems to be how it was going at that point. Even though it wasn’t really related to the movie at all.

Arrivederci > Coty 12/15/2016 at 12:16

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That’s crazy. I’ve bought two cars off eBay... well, my User ID has. The first one was when I was in college and my Dad found a Corvette he wanted, so we used my eBay ID and won the auction (he obviously paid for everything). It was a great seller and car and he still has it 10-ish years later. I also bought my NC Miata off eBay, which was one of the easier car purchases I’ve done.

Carl (@stuffcarlsays) > Coty 12/15/2016 at 12:17

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Imagine working for a bunch of 50-somethings who abhorred the technological transformation that was going on in the late 90s and early 2000s, some punk teenager lot kid turned sales guy launching gently used Viggens all over the country with $6k front-end gross profit. They put a stop to it right quick by adjusting gross into aged units on the lot, hence my sabbatical to go work for the wholesaler instead.

Coty > Arrivederci 12/15/2016 at 12:18

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I was gonna make it super easy for whoever bought it, but nope, Ukrainian scammer.

Instead of #Kinja’d it’s #Ukrainianscammer’d

Coty > Carl (@stuffcarlsays) 12/15/2016 at 12:19

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I want a Viggen.

Carl (@stuffcarlsays) > Coty 12/15/2016 at 12:22

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I did horrible, horrible things in Viggens when they came out. The state had just finished Route 101, and the long sweeping on-ramps were a new novelty to all of us. One day, the service advisor had a customer complain that the shift linkage on his nearly brand new Viggen was being janky. He sent me out in it to confirm the customer’s concern. That fucker got up to about 120 by the end of the 101 westbound ramp at exit 11 without even breathing hard.

That Bastard Kurtis - An Attempt to Standardize My Username Across Platforms > Coty 12/15/2016 at 12:23

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Two helpful things to enable in the selling options when you’re selling are ‘only allow bids from members with a PayPal account’ and ‘only allow bids from members in countries I ship to.’

I actually sold a car to an American who was working in Russia at the time of the auction. We spoke on the phone, payment was made, everything went fine...but his actual account was American with good feedback, so I had no hesitation.

Coty > Carl (@stuffcarlsays) 12/15/2016 at 12:23

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They’re awesome. You’re friends with Pete Vella right?

Coty > That Bastard Kurtis - An Attempt to Standardize My Username Across Platforms 12/15/2016 at 12:26

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Yeah see, I didn’t even see those options. But yeah, definitely good ideas.

Carl (@stuffcarlsays) > Coty 12/15/2016 at 12:28

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Yes sir. Pete is a gentleman and a scholar... who also likes to make Youtube clips of his mom yelling at him from the back seat. Classic, Pete. Classic.

Chariotoflove > Coty 12/15/2016 at 12:28

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Question: why set a minimum bid lower than your reserve?

Coty > Carl (@stuffcarlsays) 12/15/2016 at 12:29

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I love his 900. It snuck into my Beetle video.

Carl (@stuffcarlsays) > Coty 12/15/2016 at 12:31

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I remember late nights of pouring over screen shots of old Saab manuals to try to figure out how to meld the 1980 CIS injection and hall-effect ignition wiring with the Trionic stuff. That car brings me immense amounts of joy.

Coty > Chariotoflove 12/15/2016 at 12:35

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Lower price draws more attention.

Coty > Carl (@stuffcarlsays) 12/15/2016 at 12:35

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I’m also the one who hauled those two 900s he bought a few months ago.

Chariotoflove > Coty 12/15/2016 at 12:38

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And then hopefully once they see the add, they’ll decide it’s worth it to bid the reserve or higher? Hmm, wouldn’t have thought of doing that.

Carl (@stuffcarlsays) > Coty 12/15/2016 at 12:39

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Yes, and I’m the one who coveted both of those 900s a few months ago.

Coty > Chariotoflove 12/15/2016 at 12:41

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That’s how most live and in person auctions work. If you watch Barrett Jackson you’ll see cars with reserves every now and then, but they try not to do them from what I remember.

Here’s a 1939 Alfa not meeting reserve:

Frank W. Doom > Coty 12/15/2016 at 12:47

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setting a reserve and a high starting bid is wrong. either set the reserve and start it actually low if you want an idea what people will pay for it, or make your starting bid your reserve price.

those cancelled bids were guys probing for your reserve price if you didn’t catch that.

Coty > Frank W. Doom 12/15/2016 at 12:49

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Yeah hadn’t figured that out.

Chariotoflove > Coty 12/15/2016 at 12:53

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I guess my perspective is from exclusively being a buyer so far. My simplistic mind says that if there is a reserve, then I should decide if I am willing to bid at least that. If I am not, then I don’t bid. I always felt like anything lower is just wasting the seller’s time.

Coty > Chariotoflove 12/15/2016 at 12:54

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Yeah, but sometimes you hit reserve and still waste the seller’s time, but maybe that’s just a Ukrainian thing. Frank Doom is right though, it would’ve been better to put $.99 as the starting bid and done my reserve.

Chariotoflove > Coty 12/15/2016 at 12:59

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Yeah, I think he’s also right about people probing for the reserve.

Coty > Chariotoflove 12/15/2016 at 13:01

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He definitely is. People are missing the sarcasm I guess.

Chariotoflove > Coty 12/15/2016 at 13:06

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Oh, I did get your sarcasm, just agreeing. Sorry for making it seem otherwise. Also, for the record, nice car. Good luck with the sale.

That Bastard Kurtis - An Attempt to Standardize My Username Across Platforms > Coty 12/15/2016 at 13:07

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They’re hard to find sometimes, with eBay always changing their formats.

Coty > That Bastard Kurtis - An Attempt to Standardize My Username Across Platforms 12/15/2016 at 13:13

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Yeah there were lots of ways to set it up. Seems like something that would take a lot of time to learn. Also probably not something you wanna use thousands of dollars to learn with.

Coty > Chariotoflove 12/15/2016 at 13:14

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Oh you’re good. It’s probably my mid-afternoon brain lapse. Thanks man. I drove it all last summer and to be honest I don’t mind keeping it at all, I just wanna get a different project. I’m always changing cars.

Coty > Chariotoflove 12/15/2016 at 13:24

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Plus it’s in nice, safe winter storage until spring with my other cars.

Chariotoflove > Coty 12/15/2016 at 13:29

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Ooo, nice!

Your boy, BJR > Coty 12/15/2016 at 13:43

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Lol.

My dad had one.

He doesn’t anymore.

It’s an alright car.

Not very reliable.

Not nearly as fast or hard to drive or cool as people make it out to be.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > Coty 12/15/2016 at 14:16

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Thank you for sharing that story. So, is the car still unsold?

I could definitely see buying a car from Ebay, but I don’t think I’d try and sell one that way. I have over 1000 transactions on Ebay, but no cars, though I’ve bought many expensive-ish things such as cameras and laptop computers, always with good luck. You have to know what you are buying and read between the lines of the listing. I like Craigslist a lot, but enjoying CL also requires embracing the Nigerian princes and the people with children deployed to Afghanistan. “Send me your social security number and my agent will fax you a check.”

shop-teacher > Coty 12/15/2016 at 14:33

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Thanks for sharing. I’ve been curious about selling a car on eBay. How much did it cost to list it?

deekster_caddy > Coty 12/15/2016 at 14:48

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I’ve been following along on FB. My only other observation is about your friend who was pushing the price up - if he was doing it because he wanted the car, fine, but if he was doing it to help bump the price up, it’s shill bidding and not allowed - somebody could report it to ebay and then they give you both the big wrist slappy. I don’t actually know what they do, but it’s supposed to be a no-no.

Coty > shop-teacher 12/15/2016 at 15:24

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I know if it sells for more than $2,000 it’s $125 but the BIN and reserve cost extra and I can’t seem to find what it actually costs. You only pay if it sells though.

Coty > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 12/15/2016 at 15:26

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I’m so used to the scammers on Craigslist they don’t even phase me anymore. I try to waste some of their time when the send me messages but to be honest I just see it as the cost of doing business.

The car is unsold. The plan is to get everything resolved with eBay, let the Craigslist ad run for the 20 something days it has left, and just try again in the spring. I’ll also put it on consignment at work where I sell cars for a living, anyway.

Coty > deekster_caddy 12/15/2016 at 15:28

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That’s why I left all of his info out. I suppose they could figure out who it was if they really wanted to, but as for me I don’t think I’ll be using it again so they can do whatever they want to me.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > Coty 12/15/2016 at 15:52

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The car has a diesel engine?

DinoTheDinosaur > Coty 12/15/2016 at 16:56

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If ebay determines a user engaged in (performed, encouraged, or merely accepted) shill bidding on ebay, the user will get no less than a 30 day suspension, and possibly a permanent ban from using ebay.

All of ebay, not just ebay motors.

Suspensions and bans prevent you from selling AND buying, so if a person wants to be able to use ebay for any reason whatsoever in the future, said person should edit whatever public posts they’ve made to remove any statements that indicate they’ve engaged in a bannable activity.

Coty > DinoTheDinosaur 12/15/2016 at 19:03

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Cool.

Coty > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 12/15/2016 at 19:04

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Nope, I was just saying it was interesting to think about it as a possibility.

mn_test347 > Coty 12/15/2016 at 19:25

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“and also like to option to fix my mistakes”

aka “bait and switch”

mn_test347 > Chariotoflove 12/15/2016 at 19:32

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If you set the minimum bid to the reserve, then there is no point in setting the reserve, as any bid meeting your minimum bid will also meet the reserve.

E92M3 > Coty 12/15/2016 at 19:39

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You can also block bidders with unpaid item reports, during a specified time frame. I always set mine to block all bidders with 2 unpaid reports in a 6 month period. I encourage everyone to report non-paying bidders. That doesn’t prevent same day signups from bidding though.

Chariotoflove > mn_test347 12/15/2016 at 21:44

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Yep, and that is what I’d do.

Coty > mn_test347 12/16/2016 at 06:27

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No, I like the option to fix my mistakes. Usually it’s spelling and grammar stuff I notice later that will drive me crazy.

Coty > E92M3 12/16/2016 at 06:29

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Yeah that’s what this one was, just a random sign up because I didn’t have the feedback threshold set. The Ukrainian will be getting reported this morning when I get to work.

Coty > mn_test347 12/16/2016 at 06:32

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For example I just fixed the exact sentence you quoted. Do you feel:

A. Misled

B. Duped

C. Bamboozled

D. Like an idiot for even bringing it up

By me fixing a simple grammatical error which let you to call me a scammer? Hoping for D if I’m honest.

E92M3 > Coty 12/16/2016 at 08:33

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I really don’t understand why people do this. In the USA (maybe not other countries?), you have to also create a paypal account, with a verified bank account before you can bid on or buy anything thru eBay. Once you get restricted or banned, you cannot use the same email address, bank account, or physical address again when creating a new account, or it will get linked, and terminated within 10 minutes. Seems like a lot of effort just to screw with a complete strangers auction outcome.

Coty > E92M3 12/16/2016 at 13:20

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Does seem like a lot of work.

E90M3 > Coty 12/21/2016 at 13:51

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I guess I missed this when you originally posted it because I was driving a Hyundai half way across Georgia and back again. Good read though.

Coty > E90M3 12/21/2016 at 16:41

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I sell those.

E90M3 > Coty 12/21/2016 at 17:35

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I hope the people you sell to aren’t enthusiasts, because after that drive I don’t think I’d buy one.

Coty > E90M3 12/22/2016 at 08:37

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I like pretty much all the Hyundais, what the hell did you drive, a base Accent?

E90M3 > Coty 12/22/2016 at 10:13

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Sonata, probably a base model. I was constantly having to adjust my steering input to keep it straight on the highway. I had the most basic Kia to drive from San Antonio to Corpus Christi, I think it was a Rio, and it was the worst car I’ve ever driven. Maybe my M3 has just spoiled me.

Berang > Coty 12/26/2016 at 09:38

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It’s weird that you apparently know so much of this stuff about ebay, but then choose the absolute worst time to list/end an auction, a complete rookie mistake.

I also just set the feedback score to 1. If they’ve bought anything and gotten feedback, that’s ok with me. A few years ago I had a bidder who didn’t know what paypal was and didn’t know they HAD to have an account to purchase anything on ebay if they weren’t picking it up in person. After that I changed bidder requirements to having one feedback just to keep the totally clueless away.

Coty > Berang 12/26/2016 at 13:30

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I thought I made it pretty clear that I learned all of this throughout the process but whatever.

Berang > Coty 12/26/2016 at 18:02

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You mention things a lot of people on ebay have no idea about, so I thought it was strange that you must’ve done research, but missed that mornings are a really bad time to have an auction end. But whatever, I suppose.

SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > Coty 12/27/2016 at 15:42

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My only experiences with ebay motors have been on the buying side. I tried buying a couple of CB350s that don’t have any problems off of it, but showed up to a bike with an electrical problem followed by one leaking gasoline. The guy got indignant and made it sound like I was looking for a show bike when it was really that I was looking for a bike that works.

SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > E90M3 12/27/2016 at 15:43

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I think that says more abour the state of the highways in Georgia, which are surprisingly awful for a place that doesn’t have winters.

E90M3 > SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie 12/27/2016 at 15:54

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I drove the rio in Texas, the steering was appalling.

SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > E90M3 12/27/2016 at 16:02

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I don’t know. I’ve driven a few recent Sonatas, most recently over the summer. Every time I’m impressed at how far Hyundai have come. Granted, they’re not enthusiast vehicles and I’m not in the market for one, but they’re as brilliant of a basic generic good car as any Toyota and probably moreso than modern Hondas which have surprisingly harsh rides without having good handling to make it worth it. There wasn’t anything wrong with it. I got in, it did everything the way I expected to exactly as expected, and was comfortable. Pretty perfect generic car for a generic driver.