Regarding E-Bay

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Regarding E-Bay

Postby Anglobritish » Sun Dec 21, 2014 12:04 pm

Hi Guy's,
E-bay got too big to quickly, they do not know what they are doing as far as Slot Machines are concerned, I refuse to buy or sell anything on E-bay. last year I sued them not only for misrepresentation but negligence as well, I had to get my lawyer involved and we sued both E-Bay, Paypal and a debt collection agency. who was chasing me for a payment that I had already paid, and got a good positive feedback who I bought a machine off. I finally got an Apology from Pay-Pal, but not from E-Bay.

Not only do they not know what they are doing, but they also do not know how to even respond in person, they break so many laws every day themselves.

90% of the slot machines that are advertised and sold on E-bay come under the Johnson Act, that act covers the illegal interstate shipping of Gambling Devices, including parts. so when a seller advertises that the machine does not pay out, E-Bay claims that is all that is required to accept a machine for sale.

As we all know most of the Bally, IGT and other modern day slot machines are stepper controlled and retain the hopper pay-out system, that is a gaming device in its self.

A few years ago there was a class action brought against E-Bay by a bunch of European buyers-sellers, E-Bay settled by paying a sum of in access of $1,000.000 as settlement. Pay-Pal as know distanced themselves from E-Bay and E-Bay are laying off, thousands of people.

Chris should go after E-Bay for allowing a seller to advertise a Polk figure using pictures that are clearly the Interlectual Property of Chris, who took those great pictures inside his home, that is also his private domain.

Freddy Bailey
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Re: Regarding E-Bay

Postby terick1 » Sun Dec 21, 2014 3:59 pm

You may not buy and sell on Ebay, but a lot of us collectors and dealers do. I would hate to see them bar all sales of slot machines because of a few unsatisfied buyers. I too have had a few problems, but they all were resolved with Ebay. There always are going to be hucksters out there, but I think by and large the majority of sellers are honest and will back up their merchandise.
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Re: Regarding E-Bay

Postby YourBestBet » Mon Dec 22, 2014 7:55 pm

Freddy - If you have been wronged by eBay, PayPal or any third-party debt collection agency, that is unfortunate. I'm sure that being over a $70 billion company will bring about some disagreements.

Wall Street, along with an individual activist, convinced eBay's board of directors that the two companies are worth more independently in the long term. eBay is an online marketplace and PayPal is a payments and technology company. Makes perfect sense.

In my opinion, I would rather live in a world with eBay than without.

With all due respect, your comments about intellectual property are about as silly as eBay filing litigation against you for libel on this forum.
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Re: Regarding E-Bay

Postby Dave » Mon Dec 22, 2014 11:07 pm

Slots are such a ridiculously small part of ebay they will never care about the fake slots.

The only time ebay cares about fakes are when it affects a big company (e.g., Disney, Nike, etc.). Those companies have attorneys and the means to go after a company like ebay.

I wish they would just admit it instead of the bullshit "we are doing this to help make ebay a fun and safe place for you" to whatever the statement is.

I have never bought a slot on ebay but I have sold a few.
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Re: Regarding E-Bay

Postby terick2104 » Tue Dec 23, 2014 4:44 am

I am sure a lot of you members were around before Ebay when if you wanted to buy a slot you relied on local advertising or the Antique Trader. Then mail pictures to the buyer if you were selling or wait for pictures to be mailed to you if you were buying. Or travel to the Chicago show twice a year to buy and sell. Now we can sit at our computers and buy and sell anytime of the day or night. I think it is a good idea to inform buyers and sellers about repos'. It would be nice if Ebay would hire somebody who is knows slots etc. and could flag the repo machines before they are listed. Until that does or does not happen lets appreciate the convenience we all enjoy by using Ebay, and for you who don't use it don't wreck it for the rest of us.
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Re: Regarding E-Bay

Postby SLOT DYNASTY » Tue Dec 23, 2014 2:12 pm

Let us NOT EVER hold our breaths, waiting for eBay to hire an expert in any field of collecting, to police their site. With all the staff that is on their payroll,
they must have a few collectors in the mix, but apparently none that collect coin-op. Even if they did, they are not about to listen to a person, that would
eliminate any GREEN from crossing their palms. With all the complaints that are sent their way on a daily basis, just in our field, nothing ever gets done.
For one instance, take the multitude of "Golden Nugget" Fakes, that many of us despise, and have brought their attention to. How many have been pulled?
None that I know of. That's waaaay too much Green, to deprive them of. I have wondered, if there is an eBay employee, that has caught-wind of this Forum,
and reads what we have to say about them? If so, they are sure to be laughing it off. Are you there? :roll:
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Re: Regarding E-Bay

Postby Midcoast Vintage » Tue Dec 23, 2014 4:28 pm

There are changes going on at ebay.
Who knows whether they will be for the better, or, for the worse.
here is a link to 2 VERY informative sites that will alert you to many things.
the first one is a free daily newsletter (only the newsletter will come, no spam or crap):
http://www.ecommercebytes.com/

The second one is a forum, silar to this, only about ebay, instead of coin-op.
No newsletter, but, a place to learn, and to post.
www.powersellersunite.com
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Re: Regarding E-Bay

Postby Anglobritish » Tue Dec 23, 2014 8:10 pm

Hi Guy's,
Firstly I would like to wish you all a very "Merry Christmas", I also think we should tell Dave what a great service he is providing for all of us.

In my opinion I think sites like this are so important, especially for the novice collectors who have just started collecting coin operated machines. I know there are many experienced collectors and dealers that are members of the CoinOpCollectorForum who offer a wealth of information that is priceless to the novice collector, and all of this for free, where else would you get this kind of top quality knowledge so cheaply, when you have characters like Bill Whelan, advising you what to look for when collecting trade simulators, probably the most knowledgeable person alive on the subject, and Dave who has probably spent more time over the last 20 odd years looking for treasures in the coin machine field than most of you young new collectors put together, you must listen to their advise, as they are the true appraisers of the collectible coin machine hobby.

Some of you seem to think that I am knocking Ebay when I criticize them for the way they treat buyers and sellers of coin operated machines. I don't think that some of you get what I mean, especially those members that sell on Ebay and have very little knowledge of the problems they cause for collectors in general.

I am going to try to explain a little more where I am coming from.

When most of us older collectors started collecting coin operated machines, we would go on the road sometimes for weeks, following leads from people who told us, this guy down the road as some old machines in his barn, there is an old lady who's husband died and he was a coin machine operator in the 1950's, she may have some machines, or after we may have put an add in the local paper, we got an answer to that add, from people saying this guy as this or this guy as that, perhaps we would get a phone call at 7:00 in the evening while we were having dinner, from a person who says they have a very old slot machine they wanted to get rid of, I know that there was many a time, when I would get up from the table grab a few dollars and tell the wife, "I won't be Long" and take of in a van thinking all the time that I was driving to the place, I wonder if it is a Caille, could it be a Liberty Bell, and so on. Only to find when I got their, it was a common Gum Ball machine.
But the excitement was the hunt, hoping to find that one elusive machine that is found perhaps only once in a lifetime,

Although Ebay as made many of those elusive machines come to light, it as also educated those people who did not have a clue of what they have, and still don't, but because they have seen a particular machine sell for several thousand dollars on Ebay, they think they have one that is worth just as much, even if it is only worth a few hundred dollars.

Then you have the scam artist who knows every trip in the book when it comes selling to the honest and unsuspecting public.

And like Slot Dynasty say's, Ebay should have a professional team of people who understand the buying and selling of coin operated equipment, so as to stop the scam artist who offers deals that are so ridiculous that any collector with any knowledge of these machines knows right away that it as to be bogus.

One of my business's is manufacturing video games for the home market, I also design and convert many modern day video games to use the LCD type of monitors, one of my big and most successful conversions was to the Golden Tee Golf Games, while doing these conversions, I would take in part exchange the various older model kit's, I thought it was a good idea to offer these kit's on Ebay, believe me it was a nightmare, I had buyers wanting to know if they could do this, if they could do that, and when I told them no, they argued that so and so said this and so and so said that, I would tell them they cannot do certain things and also they should not even attempt certain things if they were not experienced to do so, I would even refer them to Incredible Technologies, the company that makes the machines, to cut a long story short, they would blow up the board, complain to Ebay, who in turn would tell Paypal to hold back the payment until the seller satisfied the buyer, an impossible task as the seller had blown up a perfectly good logic board, and although we had great feedback from many satisfied customers, we were still the villain, One guy bought a kit, he wanted to do a crazy thing with a bunch of boards, we told him even before he bid on the item, that what he wanted to do was physically as well as technically impossible, he still bought the kit, he paid $450.00 through Paypal, after he blew up the boards, he complained to me, I sent him several more boards at my cost for free, he then still complained to Ebay, who in turn passed it on to Paypal, who in turn took back $450.00 from my account, I then spent several hours going back and forth with ebay, I finally spoke to a supervisor who I asked to look at the 47 e-mails that I had sent to the buyer, after looking at those e-mails the supervisor said it was clear that the buyer was at fault and re-instated the $450.00 back into our account, 3 weeks later they took it back again stating that the buyers credit card company had done a charge back, So that was enough for me, the moral of my story is Ebay does not understand the coin operated machine business. and like Slot Dynasty says they just want their money.

So I closed that end of my business down.

Freddy Bailey
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Re: Regarding E-Bay

Postby Midcoast Vintage » Tue Dec 23, 2014 10:09 pm

Freddy,
I know exactly where you are coming from.
It has happened to more than one of us.
Unfortunately, as bad as it is, it is still the best thing going.
Several years ago, i offered to monitor their coin-op stuff, and alert them to repro, illegal, fraudulent ads, etc.
Their response was something along the line of "WE ALREADY HAVE SYSTEMS IN PLACE TO MONITOR THINGS SUCH AS THAT".
I asked if they had someone knowledagble in coin machines... specifically slot machines... on their staff.
Their response was "WE ARE NOT AT LIBERTY TO DIVULGE SUCH INFORMATION".
So...... we have to live with what they give us.
As smart as ebay (the concept) is... they repeatedly show their ignorance in certain situations.
My feedback is 7971. t shows to be 100%. 3 of my dsr's are 5.0. 1 is 4.9.
Not that my score was always perfect... i had some negative's over the years, remember, you can't always please everyone no matter how hard you try.
I am not proclaiming myself to be flawless or lily white, but, i did my best top maintain my integrity.
So... A year ago, when i was in and out of the hospital for 6 weeks, dying of throat cancer, i fell behind in shipping.
Everyone got their item. no one got screwed, but, because of some items going out late in a short time frame, i fell below standard. in the past i had been top rated.
Ebay in it's wisdom, decided I was no longer allowed to sell on their site, but, said I was welcome to buy from the site.
I explained the situation.
They said they needed proof that i was in the hospital.
No problem. I faxed them copies of the hospital and doctor bills, which co-incided date wise with when i fell behind.
They looked at them, and decided that their decision would stand.
Needless to say, I was not thrilled with that decision, considering I had over $350 thousand dollars in medical bills staring me in the face, and, considering I carried the standard amount of musician's / antique dealers insurance... NONE!
Suffice it to say I am not very thrilled with ebay.
Many folks have nothing but praise for ebay, and I also will say, they are a great venue in many respects, but, I do question their wisdom / decisions at some times.
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Re: Regarding E-Bay

Postby Dave » Tue Dec 23, 2014 11:13 pm

Sorry to hear about your illness. Hope everything is OK.

I personally hate ebay. They are very arrogant and when notified about fake machines they do absolutely nothing. Just send back a canned message stating they will investigate but nothing EVER results in the person selling the fakes being removed from ebay.

There was one example where a clown in the UK was using a picture of another listing. ebay just ignored this report.
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