Video Game Collecting

You know, its been a little over a year since I’ve complained about sellers from ebay.  It’s par for the course however.  If you do a bunch of transactions on eBay you will eventually get screwed.  Some might find this to be discouraging, but it really isn’t.  If you think about things you’ve purchased from national retail stores I’m sure you’ve received less than best in class service a few times.  The point is though that eBay can be aggrevating when a seller is not cooperative.

Take for example a recent copy of GI Joe: Atlantis Factor that I won.  I won it on April 25th.  Here we are on May 11th and the game still hasn’t arrived.  Unless I’m looking to be invoiced (more on this in a moment) I usually pay immediately.  Some times I might win an item from my phone in the middle of the night and won’t pay for it in the morning, but there is never more than a single day turn around for me to pony up the cash.  I waited a week and a half before reaching out to the seller of Atlantis Factor.  I explained that I hadn’t received the item yet and was curious as to when it shipped.  I got some BS answer, then the next day another BS answer that there was ‘something wrong with the address and it was returned.’  I was then told that it would be expedited with “priority shipping”.  This too is BS as I still haven’t received the item.  Of course reaching out to a seller like this is a chore and you know that any answer they give you is not the truth.

Another seller refused to invoice me.  I had won three items, and the description of all three promised combined shipping.  I request an invoice at the end of the sale.  And then again three more times in the day that follows.  Then I requested the contact information of the seller from eBay and called them this morning.  Apparently the number on file was for a cell phone and the seller was certainly caught off guard.  They alledged that they were on a freeway driving home and they asked me to call them in 30 minutes.  A funny thing then happened.  I received my invoice about 15 minutes later.

Both of these sellers have 100% ratings with several items sold.  It baffles me why anyone would risk their score and ranking over something this ridiculous.  I think part of the problem that it frustrates me is that I work in customer service related to the video game industry.  The discourtesy that any of us have experienced when we are the customer is insane.  It makes you wonder why some people are even allowed to breed.

Oh well.  Eventually GI Joe will arrive I’m sure and I’ll post about it.  Eventually the other games will arrive and I’ll post about them as well.  For all you good people who’ve been jaded by an eBay seller I feel your pain, and for you sellers who are asleep at the wheel either get in the game or get out.  Just what ever you do stop wasting everyone’s time.

One last thing.  I’ve never had a single issue with www.pedrogames.com  Congratulations to PedroGames.Com and the launching of their new site.  We wish you the very best!

Earlier I posted about an eBay experiement to win some discounted Nintendo games… so what were the results?  Well  Battletoads had a counter offer of $10.  Maniac Mansion’s offer was declined.  I never heard back on Thunder and Lighting or Clu Clu Land.

Ducktales was accepted, as was 1943, which I didn’t mentioned in the original post.  Each were accepted for a total of 4.99 a piece (including shipping!)

This is good news as it would mean that 20% of the games offered at $4.99 were accepted.  It could just be a foluke, I don’t have a large enough data sample to conclude this… but it is encouraging.  So lets try it again…!

Well it seems that my eBay experiment resulted in crazy results… so what exactly did I win? Hmm find out soon.

Several months back after I added the “Make As Offer” icon to http://www.videogamepriceguides.com/ I had a wild idea of making ridiculously low offers on a bunch of games to see what kind of return or response I would get.

To do this experiment I’ve decided on the following rules:

1. The Nintendo game must have an average price of $5.00 or more
2. Shipping for the game must not be more than 3.99
3. There must be 25 copies or more available
4. The seller must have a rating of 98.5% or better
5. No offer will be for more than $1 unless the price with shipping is less than $4.99
6. The game must be located in the 48 states

Anyways, I don’t have the worlds largest budget so I’m going to limit this experiment to five games only.  The ones I’ve picked are as follows:

Game #1: Battletoads… averages about $10.  Shipping is free, so I’m offering $4.99
Game #2: Thunder & Lightning… averages about $11.  Shipping is $2.92 so I’m offering $2.07
Game #3: Duck Tales… averages about $11.  Shipping is $1.90 so I’m offering $3.09
Game #4: Clu Clu Land… averages about $12.  Shipping is $3.00 so I’m offering $1.99
Game #5: Maniac Mansion… averages about $12.  Shipping is free, so I’m offering $4.99

Best offers can run on for 48 hours.  I’ll post an update after all five offers expire…

I received Toki today in the mail. It was in perfect condition and the envelope was covered in exotic stamps. Not bad for $5.50 with free shipping. This, like most of the other Nintendo Games I have here I got off of eBay using the www.videogamepriceguides.com website to find this and other incredible deals.

I’ve been going back and forth with a seller who is selling Operation Wolf and Cobra Command as a lot. She originally had the lot listed for $20 or best offer. I made an offer of $7 minutes before the auction ended but the seller never accepted it. Then a few days later I noticed it was listed again. So I made another offer. This time for $6.00.

If there is any advice that I’ve learned in life its that whether you’re negotiating over price or principle if someone compromises once, they’ll compromise twice. Such is the case with this lot. I’ve budged to $7.50, but they are still at $16.00. One of the strategies I’ve been using to get this person to come down is to point out that its not fun to have an auction end without a sale. Sure you can re-list an item, but is the time lost really worth a few bucks? Although the seller and I have gone back and forth a few times, I’ve decided to wait and to let the auction expire. I’ll look to see if they’ve listed again and I’ll start the whole process over. I know that unless someone else buys it, or they stop listing it, I will get it for $7.50.