Do You Trust What You See On Ebay?

[Alan Day]

I follow the postings about Ebay with interest.I have never purchased anything on Ebay and after reading so many of "Is this a Scam" postings I doubt if I ever will. To pay out up to £4-5000 on an instrument unseen is to me total madness and the extreme of the limits of taking a chance.Even a concertina at auction unless I take the instrument apart ,take my tuning machine to check if it is in pitch,I assume that it is not right and I bid low if I bid at all.

A good friend has just sent me an interesting story on his auction attempts and luckily it turned out great for him,but just reading the story made my toes curl at what could have been inside the box when he took it apart.

The worrying thing is that most of us here trust one another completely,a concertina player is a friend and there are crooks out there that get up every morning with the intention of ripping someone off for as much money as they can.

You will not have to worry about me bidding against you,I am keeping out of it.

Al

[David Levine]

I don't think EBay is very much different from any other auction, mutatis mutandi. You can't handle the piece being sold but you can ask questions that would help you to evaluate the item. You have to keep your wits about you and be willing to take a chance. Even in a regular auction you can pay too much for a piece because you didn't have full disclosure beforehand or got swept up in a bidding frenzy. It's usually pretty obvious when a scam is going on and even when it isn't obvious there are enough scam cops cops on this site to alert us to problems.

I've participated in enough (hundreds) real-life auctions to know that any auction is a dangerous thing. I did get nailed by a scammer on EBay once, but it was combination of my greed, having the flu, and not reading the warning signs clearly. I have often made mistakes at real life auctions as well, but that's part of the learning process. Any instrument dealer - or antique dealer - will tell you the same thing. The problem is that a one-time bidder might not have the experience to deal with the issues that arise in such blind auctions as EBay's. In which case you'll have to pay full retail and by paying more avoid disappointment. EBay is not for the faint of heart,

I've generally been very happy with my EBay purchases, even though, as in the last instance, I had to spend another €500 to have Wim Wakker do a complete restoration on the reeds on a Bb/F Jeffries. One thing to keep in mind is that on EBay you don't have another 15-20% buyers premium tacked on to the sale price, as you would in a real-life auction, and you don't have to spend half the day waiting for your piece to come up.

[Mark Davies]

I've bought some very fine concertinas via Ebay at,what I consider to be very reasonable prices.Whilst these have not been Jeffries or Wheatstone Linotas,they have included a Dipper baritone,a Dickinson Wheatstone,two Connors and numerous others.My last purchase was a metal ended 30 key C/G Connor with stainless steel ends in pristine condition.For reasons I do not understand I was the only bidder so got it for the reserve price.Whilst Connor concertinas are considered by some players to be very heavy,they play well enough for a player of my standard.Unrestored rosewood ended 30 key Lachenals seem to be up edging up towards £1500 so the Connor was very good value for money in comparison.The key to succesful ebay purchasing seems to be to check the vendors feedback.

[JimLucas]

Do I trust what I see on eBay?

 

I don't trust anything or anyone without question. (Not even myself, which is while I'll use the "Preview Post" option and proofread what I'm writing here before I post it.)

 

But with a certain amount of care and a bit of effort to check on details, I think it's usually possible to determine whether a given eBay auction can be trusted. Of course, there will always be some risk, and each of us has to decide both how much risk we can tolerate and how good we are at judging the risk.

 

Our local (C.net) scam-scanners are a big help, saving the rest of us hours of effort. And we've had other threads discussing things to be cautious of. It's worth a bit of time to Search them out.

[Azalin]

Well, as for myself, I would not trust any shipping company with a Dipper or another high end concertina. The day my Dipper is ready, I will buy a flight ticket to England and going to get it myself. So eBay is not the only problem in my opinion when it comes to very expensive instruments.

[bear]

Hello everybody ya got the bear here. I just happen to be an ebayer. I buy and sell on ebay all the time. Are there scammers running auctions on ebay? You bet there is. There are "millions" of auctions going on every day on ebay. I personally sold over 10,000 items myself, and have bought a couple of thousand items (mostly for resale) and have had a perfect record so far. The key is "common sense". There is an old saying, Buyer Be Ware, people cheating people has been going on since the begging of time.

 

Think about it, like I said there are millions of auctions going on at ebay every day. I you went to that many stores how many of the store owners do you think would try to cheat you? Its not just ebay. Its greed. Whenever money comes into the pichture "Buyer Be Ware".

[Marien]

The buyer beware is quite properly placed in this concertina forum, as there are relatively much concertina scams going on. It is not like selling old cloths or movie posters (small amount items like for 2 to 25 dollars), but concertinas sometimes are sold for 4000 pounds on ebay, and it seems that scammers have discovered this and they do put scam offers up at ebay. So it is good to warn people that there are concertina scams.

 

I did buy some nice concertina's on ebay, and it depends on the question whether the seller is trustworthy. Until now I have been "lucky", but I always ask the seller questions before I place a bid. A reliable seller should have at least have a certain percentage of positive feedback as well, and you can check the negatives if there are any. But you will have a toe curling feeling with some concertina offered which you think you may have seen the month before (and it happens regularly). Furthermore, it does not make you confident when you don't get any answers at all to questions. Also, if you get answers like "It is a lechanel concetina. I have selling this fo ra fiend, and I dont knwo any thing about consetinas but I will despatch immedietaly after acceptmnet of paypal transfer". The seller does not have to be malicious and may just be dyslectic. But still, if there is uncertainty, well, like Alan, I will not drive up the price. Eventually if the answers are at least a bit reliable, but the inside of the instrument could still be gamble. In that case I sometimes place a low bid for the case there are things that have to be repaired or replaced, but this does not make sense for top end concertina's I suppose, as I will be outbid in all occasions (by whom?).

[Anglo-Irishman]

I haven't bought anything as high-priced as a Wheatstone on Ebay yet. The higher the price, the more cautious I would get.

What would worry me in bidding for a concertina specifically is not the morals of the seller, but his expertise, or lack of it. So often you read "Sounds lovely" or "All buttons make a sound". Often, a prospective bidder asks if the concertina is at concert pitch, or in tune with itself - and the seller doesn't even know how to find out!

 

I have bought several stringed instruments on Ebay, but that's different. Any cracks, separation of joints or warping can be ascertained by a non-expert with normal vision. Even a question like "How high are the strings above the 12th fret?" can be answered with a bit of good will and without musical knowledge. Of course the strings may be old and "dead", and they'll definitely be out of tune, but tuning is done on a daily basis anyway, and new strings are needed periodically (even or especially on a new, shop-bought instrument).

How do I know how "lovely" it really sounds? Well, certain makes from certain periods usually sound good, and you can see what they are from photos.

 

The problem is that concertinas have reeds, not strings, and if even one or two reeds are stuck/loose/out of tune, you've got to spend money on a tuning job (at least). And then there is the action, with its springs, pads, bushings - all things that can go wrong without the non-player noticing them.

 

So I would be much quicker to buy a mandolin or banjo off Ebay than a concertina! I have several Ebay autoharps and a mandriola, and I'm very happy with all of them. It wasn't just luck - but with a concertina, it would be.

 

Buying from a known reconditioning workshop is, of course, a different matter - but those offers are not cheap!

 

Cheers,

John

[Daniel Hersh]

Chris Algar sells on eBay and is just as trustworthy there as he is elsewhere. And there are a few c.net participants who are eBay concertina sellers who I would not hesitate to buy from, even for an expensive instrument.

 

Spending thousands with an unknown seller, especially one who doesn't know concertinas or music, is of course another matter. I suspect that some of those high-end sales are going to buyers who have had an opportunity to pay a visit to the seller and check out the instrument.

 

I've bought a few concertinas on eBay, but not high-end ones. The most expensive was a $500 Chemnitzer, where the seller was willing to send me all the interior photos that I asked for and to test out all the notes and give me a report. In general I've been satisfied with my results, but I've only been risking relatively small amounts of money. In all cases I was buying instruments of types that I couldn't find elsewhere or could only find elsewhere at significantly higher prices.

 

Daniel

 

I follow the postings about Ebay with interest.I have never purchased anything on Ebay and after reading so many of "Is this a Scam" postings I doubt if I ever will. To pay out up to £4-5000 on an instrument unseen is to me total madness and the extreme of the limits of taking a chance.Even a concertina at auction unless I take the instrument apart ,take my tuning machine to check if it is in pitch,I assume that it is not right and I bid low if I bid at all.

A good friend has just sent me an interesting story on his auction attempts and luckily it turned out great for him,but just reading the story made my toes curl at what could have been inside the box when he took it apart.

The worrying thing is that most of us here trust one another completely,a concertina player is a friend and there are crooks out there that get up every morning with the intention of ripping someone off for as much money as they can.

You will not have to worry about me bidding against you,I am keeping out of it.Al