eBay Rant.

I noticed that all the time----Misspelled words, bad pics, etc. I would think if you truly want to sell the car, you would make sure the ad appeals to your audience and not sound like a 3rd grader wrote the ad and took the pics...

 

I kinda bet the ads are aimed at getting the non-knowledgeable Ferrari buyer. So unless you are someone who has been associated with a Ferrari chat site and is looking for specific wear issues then you can contact the seller. Other then that the tendency is to show the pretty pictures and try to sell it on apearance. My thoughts

 

Often, I'm sure there's a reason why certain pics are NOT being shown.

 

Bingo.

 

My favorite is when the seller gives the history of the company and the model. nothing really specific about the car that is for sale other than it is the "ultimate chick magnet". If they're really on the ball they throw in a few generic performance stats that they pulled from some 12 year old kids web page. I notice this is usually done by flippers or dealers not specializing in exotics.
For shear comedic value these ads can't be beat.

 

This is one of my pet peeves. I hate when the ad has a bunch of hype about how great/fast/rare that kind of car was. I don't need to be told that; I can research it on my own and it tells me nothing about the individual car. What is important is the condition of the one actually being sold.

 

Don't forget the two magic words - "mint" or "pristine" (with pristine preferably misspelled as "prestine") when the car in question obviously isn't...

 

Poor photo quality drives me crazy especially when it's just a random bunch of photos thrown together with no format or flow.

In my experience, seat bolster wear and dash leather shrinkage don't show up well in the 640x480 photo format most listing software provides, especially if the photographer used a higher res shot and the photo was compressed. When I find a car I'm interested in, I usually request a high res shot of the seats, console, carpets and dashboard. This way I can open up the photo and zoom in close, etc.

 

LOL Somebody's been over at Lamborghini chat...

 

I agree, and am dealing with this now as I search for my next Ferrari. Some seller emailed me 20 photos from 20 feet away, with .5 degrees difference in perspective. UGH.

When I eBayed my car, it was awesome. I spelled everything out. I emailed people (on request) 3 megabyte macro photos & a PDF of every receipt in the service history!!!

 

The main reason I don't browse Ebay very much is because of the keyword spamming. If I am looking for a 1985, it does not mean I want to see 1982/1983/1984/1985/1986/1987/1988 that gets included in the search because 1985 is listed in the title when the actual item for sale is a 1982. Another example is I am looking for a XJS and a sellers list his items as XJ XJS XJ8 ect.

I also would like to see Ebay fix the search by price range. If I put a max price of 50K and am searching "buy it now", then I want to see items with a maximum price of 50K. I don't want to see something with a buy it now price of 90K get included because the bidding price is under 50K.

One last thing I hate about ebay. Don't list the SAME item over and over in the search results. If I saw the item for sale once at the top of the listing, seeing it again at the bottom won't make me like it any more.

 

I shorted ebay at 28 and I should have stayed on it. closed it for just a few bucks a share. damn.

 

unfair eBay attack.

it has nothing to do with the medium and everything to do with the sellers.

 

Ebay sets the rules for listing items. It has everything to do with Ebay and Ebay standards. If the standard was set higher, then sellers would have no choice but to abide by those rules.

Why do some auction houses have good reputations and other auction houses have bad reputations?

 

i purchased my 85qy off ebay. the car was as advertised and the deal went off fine, that's the good news. last week i had the winning bid on a vw for my daughter. when i contacted the dealer by phone they answered with a different name than the one in the ad. i spoke to a man who was less than encouraging. the next day i called they answered with another name and i spoke with a woman who didn't know the man i spoke with earlier. on the way to pick up the car we called to be sure they would accept my credit card. they answered with yet another name and spoke with another man. when he told me thay couldn't accept my card we turned around and came home. after contacting ebay the agreed the deal was bogus so we got no negative feedback. caveat empor.

 

I agree 100%. I mean if you really do plan on buying a car without ever physically seeing it then you would want to know the problems not just the upsides. I mean I bought my BMW without ever seeing it. Granted it was through a friend of my dads who owned the dealership but he laid out every single thing that was wrong with the car to me and showed me all of the pictures of the worn parts of the car. Every single little maintenance record etc. If people did that on ebay it would make their sales much easier, but then again I guess they are only trying to sell to the ignorant.

 

It almost sounds like you were trying to buy a car from Luxury Motors in the Chicago area!

 

I have bid on a few cars from that company... are they scammers?

 

There is a big thread about them and their business practices. Many have not had good experiences.

 

Do a search on chat. There's a lot said about them, especially in the 'Chicago' section.

They have one of the worst reputations in the business!

 

one other thing that I see a lot in ads is the infamous: "I'm selling this car for my friend".
That is a big red flag right there and always makes me wonder what the real story is.

 

I fully realize it's easy to rant on the category killer but eBay is a shadow of what it once was. I used to transact so easily re: both buys and sells. PayPal is a gigantic rip off too...way too expensive and unless you have some crystal skull and know some secret password they hold payments for a period of time. Okay..I'm done...now what was the question again?

 

Agree on above.

"She's a beauty", "Get ready to get looks" ..... this is all for the "OMG, I'm going to bid on a Ferrari" buyer.

 

"Hello, I'm ignorant, so the owner trusted me to sell this item which I know nothing about. Are you interested? I know nothing about it, but will be glad to answer any questions to the best of my ability." BTW - All sales are final.

(Yeah, right!)