Most eBay Buyers (and this goes beyond just buying off eBay) Level of Intellect explained in one pic:
The last time I bought my car, the car salesman was confused on why I wanted to pop the hood to take a peek at the engine and was looking underneath the car as well. He was like, I’ve never had someone look over a car… I replied with, well, I’m not your everyday buyer, car costs thousands of dollars, I’m gonna inspect every inch of it.
You’ve never found a rare book at a great price? I’ve done it several times. You’re worried someone else is going to buy it before you get a chance to. It’s paid off very well for me.
Reading a description is part of personal responsibility.
That’s a topic that has kind of gone the way of the Dodo in the last few years.
We can’t truly expect buyers to read a description in today’s world before purchase can we? 
No, but I am not an impulse buyer at all. Some family members have hated this part of my personality, lol.
If I found some incredible deal my first inclination is to question why it is an incredible deal. It has saved me many times from making a bad investment.
I suppose given ebays protection to buyers, it does little to deter buy now, ask questions later.
Most of mine were newsstand purchases that the sellers weren’t aware of the significance or difference.
Yup, they want happy customers and know pissing off sellers will make no difference as they know they’re the biggest garage sale on the internet where most people shop for just about anything… The sellers will moan and complain but still come back to sell their stuff.
I just recently reopened my eBay account but have been selling like crazy on Mercari. Book took two weeks to get to New Jersey from Maryland. He had been in contact with me and I back in contact with him several times. He got the book today and said there were several spine tics. I responded I was sorry it took so long but the book was clean when I mailed it. Knowing Mercari postage comes with insurance I told him to report it to Mercari and ask for a return. He responded back he was not looking to return it he wanted a partial refund. Mercari does not do partial refunds and quickly stepped in and gave me a 5 star positive rating. He was trying to get an eBay discount and Mercari told him nope.
Wow…power to the seller? What???
I’ve jumped on stuff quickly and had some great success and some immense fails. I think more success with my impulse of, “This is an amazing price, I’ll buy it and see how it shakes out!”
Some people really are stupid and are doing the very best they can on a daily basis. As a society, we’ve enabled them to continue to be stupid, but I still feel for them and think their life must be pretty hard.
No, I blame lazy parenting. I’m not taking blame cause people are acting like turds out in society. I’m that guy who will “parent” your child if you can’t bother to tell them to stop doing something out in public cause you’d rather spend every second glued to your phone. 
Well right, it’s not YOUR fault in particular. But the fact that we’ve collectively incentivized company’s like Amazon, EBay, hell even REI, except they had to start drawing the line, to treat the customer as always right regardless of circumstances is one factor. Loose consumer credit and relatively few legal or real world consequences for using that credit Willy nilly is another. A focus on low cost over goods over high quality of goods is a pretty huge factor as well. People expect precisely what they want, at cost, with free overnight shipping, and for you to foot the cost if they’re unhappy for any reason.
It’s all a big pile of private social safety nets we’ve given to stupid consumers that have squeezed small
time merchant margins down to very little room for error.
You know one major reason it will be an incredibly long time until I sell my Amazing Fantasy 15? Possible decades? I currently don’t have the type of financial margin of error for that deal to go bad. I’m not risking a buyer complaint on a $10,000 comic when it’s in their hands.
Have you considered one of the big auction houses like heritage where they ship it to the consumer and take care of everything e.g. all the headaches we deal with on ebay?
I think with some of these larger auction houses they also make the buyer pay the fee. Its something I’ve been considering myself with some of these higher priced books.
My concern is shipping it to them and fearing damage or getting lost in the mail. With tracking and signature confirmation i’m guessing its the same as shipping it directly to consumer.
Thanks for posting these. I’ve been on Ebay more than 20 years. Only recently, I’ve had two extortion discounters. Sales have been lackluster. Then with the epay. Friend of mine just got burned for $50. She waited till the payment cleared, and shipped. Ebay returned money to buyer before item arrived.
I have also been on here almost 20 years, but only in the last couple years have I been relentlessly posting comics and other items on a weekly / monthly basis. I got super burned on an Xbox transaction, where the guy purchased, said it didn’t work, I accepted the return. I didn’t hear back, or receive a package, and all of a sudden $225 was sent from my account back to his. I had no clue what happened. I meticulously went through what the person did, and found out they had returned ‘something’ to an address, and it was marked “delivered”. Person opens a claim, calls customer service, gets it expedited through claims, and I didn’t have enough time to do a thing before they sent the money to him.
I fought this one hard, never gave ebay a chance to say they were doing something right. Kept telling them how I had 100% positive feedback and they were going to back someone who just signed up, and that I still did not have the Xbox. After months of just being pissed off, I got a notification that I won, and they sent me my money back. Sellers should not have to go through that pain and stress to sell one freaking item, especially if they are a legitimate business.
I am now trying to ‘ween’ myself off ebay and divert traffic to my own website. I don’t live off the money that comes from my comic sales, so if it takes months / years to do it, its fine…I still have a day job
Yup. My comic and selling things online is my side hustle. It pays for itself. None of my comic purchases are pulled or paid by actual income from my actual job(s). It’s a hobby that now pays for itself while also paying for some vacations as well…
Yeah it makes it more fun too! I’m still pretty new compared to all of you folks, but I really enjoy finding an old comic, even if not a key, I just imagine where its been and who has read it. A lot of these I’m sifting through right now are 60 years old! Thats crazy to me!
Still have a long ways to go to be in that status lol. I buy more then what I sell. One day I’ll be at that level.
Same here, not quite sufficient yet. Buying bronze and silver age keys in today’s market and before it appears on ComicTom costs a little bit more than what i make from flipping. Luckily having been collecting for awhile i bought most of my grails when they were cheap and there is that day job that covers some of the cost 
Some of us do count on Ebay for more than hobby money. Have had some career mishaps, and it was nice to be able to make any kind of money. I’m in a small town, and it’s depressed. Ebay has been one way to get better prices on what would otherwise not sell here. And my friend has gone thru 2 car accidents. Prior to that her husband bailed on her and emptied their bank account.