Buying a bike off Ebay: The Good, Bad and Ugly

Definitely purchase insurance. It is not very expensive. Unfortuantely no matter how well it is packed, things do happen in transit. It is not the sellers fault if something happens once it leaves his hands if he packs properly. If you have the insurance for what the bike is worth, that is the only way you will get your money back if something does happen.

I sold on ebay for years,always packed things so carefully and securely and unfortunately sometimes things broke in transit. I always encouraged buyers to purchase the insurance so they would be covered.

Enjoy your new ride

The UPS DHL Fed Ex race sems to be regional.....In Maine they told us UPS was by far the most reliable and safest...

In any case I would DEFINATELY buy insurance for a higher priced item.

and BTW...I just bought a new Bianchi on ebay with no problems....although you might want to have your LBS give it a once over....

Yay!!! I am so glad it worked out for you :D

Congrats on winning the auction! Such a pretty color too. I use esnipe too, and usually set it for 4 sec (once I was outbid at 6). I don't think its cheating, there are no rules against it, its a service like anything else you choose to pay for and use or not, everyone has the same opportunity.

Definitely purchase insurance and definitely go UPS over fedex ground (or fedex home delivery which is the same as fedex ground but for home deliveries). UPS allows you to really insure it for what it is worth, and then claim that as long as you set up the insurance correctly (but check w seller since it seems in auction he specified $100, tell him you want it insured for price you are paying him). Fedex ground (ground not express) lets you pay to insure it for whatever value you declare but then has a max allowed claim of $100 regardless of what you thought you were insuring it for. I know this cuz they 'lost' my husbands trek 5500 for a couple of weeks. Turned out an employee stole it and it was recovered, but only cuz we had a friend call a friend that works for them who researched it for us. UPS is safer cuz all workers are real full time employees w benefits, etc.. Fedex Ground (which is run differently from fedex express) uses contract drivers and other temporary workers so its harder to control theft. I will never use fedex ground again for anything worth >$100 or with sentimental value. They also ruined my husband's bike trip......... And then they had the nerve to charge us for the shipping (they removed the charge when we called, but that is the procedure, they charge you and you have to ask to have them credit your credit card).

Fedex Express is fine though, but very expensive for a large item like a bike. Never insure a bike for more than you will be able to document value though, that is just throwing money away.

Congratulations!

One word of caution, if it looks a little more than one time used have the LBS check it out. Why? They are in College Station and the only true mountain bike trail I know of there is a sand pit. It might need a once over to make sure it is clean, maybe not just my husband ran into a lot of mechanicals over time from not realizing what that trail did to his bike. This is probably not going to be an issue but you know buyer beware.

It sure is a pretty bike you must be thrilled!

Nice!
I hope it gets to you really really fast!

If you look at completed auctions, you can see that your seller was on his third try at selling it.

If you look at his feedback, you can see that he sells bike stuff, and one fb is for a rather high ticket item.

If you look at the time stamps on the bid history, you can see that your counter bidder was nibbling to get at your proxy...but your proxy had the moxy!!

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Originally Posted by bluebug32

And (this is always a shot in the dark), but have you contacted the buyer with an offer? Some people don't mind selling early if they know they will get the price they were looking for. Good luck!

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"Some people" are breaking ebay rules if they do that. Sellers are not allowed to offer an item for auction on ebay and then pull the auction, cancel existing bids, and sell "off ebay". It's just not allowed and is extremely unethical. Now, if they have an "or best offer" attached to their fixed-price listing, that's a totally different thing. Or, if their item doesn't sell and they hear from someone interested after the fact who wished they'd bid after all, the seller can re-list the item with a Buy-it-now so that the buyer can then do the BIN. But they definitely can't pull the auction and take a private offer in the middle of an auction. :eek:

Cherinyc, congratulations on winning the auction! That's a beautiful bike! :p

Emily

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Originally Posted by malkin

Nice!
I hope it gets to you really really fast!

If you look at completed auctions, you can see that your seller was on his third try at selling it.

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malkin - how did you see that he had tried selling it 2 times before? Gosh I am such an Ebay rookie.

I hope it gets to me really really fast too! :p (but safely of course)

Congrats but OMG NOOOOO to DHL! When I worked at T-Mobile we used DHL for a very short time period. After months of "I didn't get my phone," or "I swear on everything holy that I sent my warranty phone back" and the awful service experience it created we dumped them like a hot rock. Mind you a lot of the shipments were DHL @ Home and I think they f'ed up the hand off process to USPS a lot but I have nightmares when I see those trucks.