Ebay Motors Id Sinkimg

[life-is-a-beach]

I see a spiraling circle occurring in the used car vehicle arena of eBay, and, unfortunately, I see it spiraling downward, not up.

I have purchased two vehicles on eBay over the past several years and have had good results with both. But, having said that, I only bought the two vehicles because they were great deals. Great for me, not for the sellers.

I feel that most buyers of used vehicles on eBay are discretionary buyers. That is, if I need a good, quality, used car for a daily driver, I'm probably going to buy locally. Check out the car, drive it, get some sort of warranty and pay fair market value.

If I'm just looking for a good deal, than I'll look at eBay. My first eBay purchase, a 1980 Rolls Royce was a bank repossession in Lenexas, KS. It blue books out for over 15k and I got it for 5k. I need a RR like another hole in the head, but it was too good a deal to pass up. I have spent about 3k in it and it is a daily driver although I usually only drive it on weekends.

The second purchase was a Volvo station wagon that I wanted to upgrade my wife's daily driver. I bought it, had it shipped and worked on it myself a while and replaced some stuff and it's a great little car. But I was "protected" in the fact that we still had my wife's original car in the event that the purchase turned out to be a bust.

So in my situation, and I think in a lot of purchases on eBay, I bid low so that I can't get hurt too much and if it's a good deal, I pursue the car. If it's not, the bidding gets a little steep, I pass and move on to the next good deal. I don't have to buy a car, I want to get a good deal.

So, the prices drop to below wholesale because the market is looking for great deals - not great cars. And, eBay is advertising itself as the place to get great deals at wholesale or lower. Not a place to get great stuff at less than retail.

Now, here is where the spiral starts to take effect. If dealers know that they are only going to get wholesale or lower, they might have the tendency to let a few items "slip" on the inspection or the pre-sale work because they aren't going to recoup that investment. The detailing doesn't get done, the photos that go on the listing might overlook a blemish or two and the A/C that blows "ice cold" might be blowing "refrigerator cold". Not fraud and intentional misrepresentation, just human nature. Might even be subconscious.

Then the buyer gets the car and guess what? The negatives, the "fraud" conversations, yadda yadda, etc. The word gets out in the market that cars sold on eBay is like buying a pig in a poke and the market lowers it's willing price. And on it goes.

I think right now, with the fraud and alleged misrepresentation of used car vehicles, most buyers are only willing to bid what they can afford to loose and this is driving the prices down.

Also, if I can go to my new car dealer and get employee pricing, plus a rebate, plus low interest financing, why would I gamble on a 10k purchase on a car that I've never seen and risk getting a flood, salvage, rebuilt, etc car?

It's very easy to drop in esteem in the market's eyes, and very difficult to rise. I can't see a way out of this downward spiral unless eBay scraps the motors part of it and starts all over again with verifying VIN number, have bidders post bond, maybe some sort of escrow service made mandatory on all vehicle sales, etc.

Sorry for rambling. Just my two cents worth. And, please - don't take this as used car dealing bashing. I know that all the guys that post hear are way above the curve on the honesty issue. But I have also heard many times that a lot of dealers are not selling on eBay anymore because of the low prices and the low bids and the high fees. This is just my take on what's going on in the market place. No one's fault - not buyers or seller, just that eBay has stood back and watched it slip into it's current state and it will take a lot of work to get it back up to where most sellers want it to be.

[life-is-a-beach!]

Who is this fucking idiot?

Why does someone enjoy acting like they're someone they're not?

This was posted somewhere else, I remember reading it word for word recently.

DOC, P_L_E_A_S_E let me now if you can track this person and give me any info that leads to finding out exactly who it is, along with that jmvending character if it's not him!