Ferrari Mailing List: Re: eBay Advice Sought

[BRIGANDBAR (BRIGANDBAR]

Fillipe, et. al.
 
I am beginning to believe that eBay in general has reached its natural end  
state as being useful. I would have to say that with the rare exception of a  
Patek Phillipe or otherwise difficult to locate wristwatch and a seller whom I  
either know from past experience or through a personally known reference I 
have  relegated it to a research and seeking ground, preferring to deal 
directly 
with  a seller if an item or vehicle I am interested in does not sell. It 
seems like  more than 50% of the time lately, after bidding on an item, I get a 
notice that  the auction has been canceled with the ubiquitous excuse that for 
"privacy  reasons" they cannot tell me why but I can clearly infer that fraud 
is the  reason for the cancellation. Out of boredom while waiting for a client 
yesterday  afternoon I exercised the :Buy It Now" (BIY) option on two Rolls 
Royce auctions  where the BIY price was $9,500.00 yet one car was worth at a 
minimum $50k and  the other very close to that. It took about 15 minutes for 
the 
auction  cancellation to be received. I knew from the photographs and listing 
dicta that  the first car had been hijacked from an earlier listing posted by 
a friend or  mine but I didn't even get a chance to tell him about it before 
eBay had  canceled the auction. 
 
Case in point. Recently I was looking for a vehicle to use to take  Blackhawk 
(my English Mastiff) to the park. The park we go to is about an 8 mile  one 
way drive from my house, and about 3 miles from my office so it really  wasn't 
doing any of my cars, nor the diesel Excursion any good making that short  run 
on a daily basis. Big, tall dog that likes to lay down on a flat surface and  
not get bounced around on a car seat, short one way distances without time to 
 properly warm up the car and low speeds, generally <55mph for the short  
duration trip. My quick solution was to simply buy a used hearse. Those 
vehicles  
were specifically designed for exactly what I needed in a car. After  about 3 
dozen eBay auctions, many canceled, others with opening bids or  reserves 
high enough to make them unreasonable, and the exact one that I wanted,  an 
older 
"3-way" hearse that until recently had been a "throw-a-way" car or  "first 
call" backup car becoming a new collectors/cult car and priced  accordingly I 
just gave up on eBay. A friend of mine builds Eagle hearse  conversions, but 
these new cars are for first line funeral homes, and even when  they are traded 
back in after 2-3 years become the front line hearse for the  second level 
funeral homes and are expensive and were priced outside any reason  not for the 
hearse itself but for the purpose for which I was acquiring it.  Fortunately, 
he 
had just traded back for the second time a hearse that he had  built new, and 
was going to wholesale it but said I could have it if I wanted  it. It was 
perfect for me, not a perfect car yet still suitable for service as a  back up 
hearse at a rural funeral home, a 1990 Cadillac Fleetwood, RWD (I really  do 
hate front wheel drive in a heavy car like these) with 30k miles on it. After  
a 
little paperwork Blackhawk had his own car for use in going back and forth to 
 the park. It does get a stare or two if I take him to the office with me on 
the  way to the park if there is work to be done, but short a few comments 
about  being prepared in case I have to recover some really old nitroglycerine 
again,  its not much of a problem.
 
Back to the case of eBay. Once again I was there with cash available to buy  
a car and all that I could do was watch as the auctions were either canceled 
or  cars being passed out because of the failure to meet either an initial bid  
requirement or the reserve price.  I wasted far more time than it was worth  
but decided to "shop at home" and not to put up with the eBay hassles.
 
eBay's name should be changed to Caveat Emptor to the "x" power @ eBay,  
IMNSHO.
 
Dr. Steve  



1964 Rolls  Royce Silver Cloud III 1975 Pontiac GV Conv.
1980 MB 450SL 1982 RR  Corniche
1988 Rolls Royce Silver Spur 1990 Cadillac"Eagle" Hearse
1994  F-350 Powerstroke 4x4 1995 Ferrari 348 Spyder
1996 Bronco 2000 Lincoln Town  Car 
2004 Excursion + Audrey's 2x MB's

Dr. Stephen B. Spies,  CES, CFI
Director, Forensic Sciences Laboratory
Explosives Engineering  Technologies

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