Ebay crap!

Hmm Cliff..and I thought I was the only one that thought like that...Whats even funnier is seeing some sellers trying to sell used parts for more than what can be bought new...and not for items that are NLA either!!

 

I agree. I'm just happy that the search results don't get cluttered by Peugeot 308 items!

 

Actually they're not the same. Porsche typically uses a 7 or 11mm spacer between the caliper halves, whereas Ferrari uses a 9.3mm spacer. Granted the price is a bit over the top though...

 

Yeah, I usually get kind of excited when I see 1247 items come up for Ferrari 308 and only about twenty that I am interested in...then I lose my enthusiasm.


PDG

 

Yeah I recently purchased what was advertised as an original edition of Paul Dunstall's performance modifications for the Norton Commando motorcycle. I even sent the seller an email asking if it was an original - NOT a scanned copy. "Absolutely original," was the response.

Since I wanted an original circa 1972 edition, I decided to buy it for 25 bucks. Yep, you guessed it, a printed out copy that you or I could have done on the computer. When I complained he acted considerably insulted, pointing out that every word/diagram was original and that therefore he was selling "original" editions. Further it was NOT a scanned copy, it was a printed out copy from "the original" PDF file. When I suggested that there were no "original" PDF files in 1972, our discussion went completely south!

I do a lot of Norton Commando stuff and it's the same now - most items are silly. Models, tshirts, flags, cups, etc. There are some parts but as you noted re Ferrari, they want more money for them then the replacement new parts that are easily available.

 

Few people have the nutt to spend fair-market-value for parts on ebay, it seems everyone wants to 'steal' something for pennies-on-the-dollar instead. Or at least think they can (auction entitlement?), then complain when reality bites them on the behind. I have a couple of new, unused 308 turn-signal assemblies from Carello that are NLA - I put them on ebay for $50 less than I bought them for a year ago, and nobody was interested....really?

Then again, I think a lot of 'used' parts are not being offered for a reason - they're not inside the engine of a car because they're worn-out and no good to begin with. Some parts I have to part-with could use a bit of 're-conditioning' before I'd feel comfortable offering them to someone else to install in their car, but I'm probably one of those few people who would even think of making any kind of effort to do that. A lot of the 'used' parts I see on ebay look like they've been sitting exposed on a garage shelf for decades, and haven't even been dusted-off. I wouldn't trust a lot of that junk for high-performance applications.

 

"Few people have the nutt to spend fair-market-value for parts on ebay"

But what is fair market value? It's simply what someone will pay. There's no scale for fair market value. If no one will pay the seller's minimum of say, 500 dollars for an item, than 500 dollars is not its "value" except in the mind of the seller. If no one will pay more than $50 for that part than the value of the part is no more than $50.

 

E-Bay is an electronic Flea Market and thus, you get all types of things offered with wide range of prices. It is like going to your local Flea Market and seeing a bunch of socks priced at $1.50 followed by the words…”Today ONLY!” So, you buy them thinking that was a good price and later find out the same socks were available at Walmart for $1. Chalk it up to a learning experience.

Market price is whatever someone is willing to pay.

 

I had the same happen with a Ferrari Parts manual several years ago. Seller was likewise "incensed" when I called him on it. I just reported it to eBay as a Ferrari Copyright infringement. I got my money back and spent almost 3 times that on a real one 2 weeks later. Apparently the seller had the real one but was more interested in selling copies. Since then I've seen several items I wanted but were listed by the same person so I just ignored them and bought them from other sources. This guy lost a lot of future business over not being able to admit/correct his problem when it happened.

On the other hand, I recently bought on eBay what I was sure was going to be a copy of a set of homologation papers for the Lotus Cortina from a guy in Australia. Turned out to be an original printing... pretty tattered for sure, but original. We were stoked!

Rick

 

it is funny how a few years back entering ferrari 308 in the search netted you 150-200 items tops.... relevant ones too... now there is indeed nothing but crap. AND parts that do not work on the average 308... amazing!

 

I remember when searching "Ferrari 328" pulled up about 5 pages on eBay. Now it's about 12 pages and most of it is junk. eBay needs to tighten down on this for sure.

 

I was totally interested in those lights. I saw them on there, that's the first set I've seen in a year. I guess I'm that guy, though, not willing to pay fair market value. I sure thought about it a bunch during the week though.

 

I doubt the guy posting 17 listings in a row for generic power antennae is reading... LOL

 

I agree that there a ton of garbage listings on eBay. However, I have gotten around this problem using eBay RSS search feeds and Google Reader as a news aggregator. Now I can quickly peruse all the auctions at a glance. Best part is that once I've seen a listing in a search, I don't see it again.

 

There is so much knock off and low quality crap there much of it being represented as Ricambi Originali maybe we should have a sticky here for the good and bad sellers. I do not think it should have any price opinions, just is his stuff the real deal or not? I have gotten burned a couple of times by people selling knock off crap.

 

As long as there are buyers there will be sellers. So you don't want a Forza issue
or a Ferrari flag - no one is forcing you to buy it. I've never sold Ferrari stuff on
eBay but I've done thousands of sales of stuff many people would consider crap,
and made a TON of money from that ONE GUY ON EARTH who had to have it and
was willing to pay whatever he had to in order to possess it.

Fair market value for anything - crap included - is determined by the buyer, not the seller.

Just my 2 cents


Jedi

 

You are absolutely right and I have been one of those people that paid STUPID money for something because I really wanted it (lets don't talk about Ampex professional tube recording equipment)!

 

this is a pretty funny thread...considering just recently the majority of 308s for sale on ebay were thought as fantastic cars. Wasnt there a thread not to long ago about 20K 308s on ebay were GREAT cars ? So, the cars on ebay are great drivers, but the secondary stuff for sale is crap ... hmmmm...interesting

 

Absolutely. I am also sick about all the reproduction cars that come across the real ones.

When I am searching a Countach I don't want to see all the POS Fieros ...


They should create a specialized section about reproductions ...

 

They have that - there is a "replica" section on eBay Motors...

They just don't police replica cars in legit sections.


Jedi

 

I think you can set up your ebay account so that whatever sellers you want to exclude will be excluded from your searches. So if there are 5 or 10 (or whatever) of these junk sellers, you can clean up your searches by excluding them.

 

Don't forget that you can hide results containing certain words, too.
Add a "- (xxxxx,yyyy,zzzz)" format to your search. Such as:

ferrari 308* -("owners manual", "parts manual", not, shield*, pin, "key chain", "key ring","money clip","wallet")

Create a saved search and then when you find a new annoying listing, you can add it's unique term to the "minus list" and re-save.