Ed: You are absolutely, 100%, right-on about FB on eBay. 98% (long-term) on eBay is awful. 95% is atrocious. That is why eBay sets the "Powerseller" bar at 98 (unless they've lowered it recently, which wouldn't surprise me one bit). Also, check those three columns in the details of the FB - often, a seller can have 99+ overall, but have perhaps a 90 recently - and I count neutrals as a 'negative' incident BTW. Many neutrals are negatives that someone wanted to give, but feared retaliation for, as you stated. I recently got burned after violating my own rule: do not, under any circumstances, deal with a seller that has less than 99% positives (and I'm considering raising that bar to 99.5%), unless you can evaluate and dismiss all his/her negatives as coming from "one-percenters." Also, in many cases, the FB a seller has left for others is even more important than what he/she has received. It indicates how he/she took care of problems that arose, and there is a small minority of sellers that will "go postal" over receiving anything less than a glowing positive. There are even a handful of vintage bike sellers in particular that fall into this category. I run away quickly from their auctions. I recently saw in interesting comment in a listing for a vintage camera I was looking at - "guaranteed to be as described and 100% returnable if not satisfied, for buyers with 99.6% or better feedback ratings." Hmm.... Good idea, I think. It's like lower interest rates for those of us with stellar credit ratings. EBay is relatively simple - it takes lots of homework on our part as buyers, though, and the price of freedom is eternal vigilence! Greg "still an eBay junkie" Parker Dexter, Michigan
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 08:19:47 -0400 From: "Edward Kasper" <doghouse44@earthlink.net> To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Subject: Re: [CR]Original Paramount?
A few opinions on the eBay Paramount:
Seller's feedback is 98.1% The last time I commented on a seller's feedback, a few vocal list members disagreed with my assertion that any feedback rating below 99+% is a red flag. There are going to be problems with some sales on eBay; but its the way that the problems are handled that usually results in feedback. With the Paramount seller, even some of his positive feedback reflects that he doesn't accurately describe his items. And I guess that for every one negative feedback left, there were many others not left out of fear of retaliatory feedback. Of course, there are exceptions, but I don't make major purchases where the seller's feedback is weak.
And on a bicycle related note...the Specialized stem on that bike has a 26.0 clamp diameter, so I'm not surprised if the Cinelli bar was a modern, post 26.4 model. The dating of the GP-4s has been addressed. The Shimano uniglide freewheel in the picture isn't original either...
Ed Kasper
Detroit MI