teh_speleegn_polease Wrote:Raging because the Audio Technica ATH-AD700 headphones are pretty much discontinued, and the only way to buy them is through ebay with a significant risk of them being used. -___-
They were literally the perfect headphones for me, unless I was going to win the lottery and start looking at the $1000+ ones.
*Checks on ebay*
>36 new
>1 used
lolwut
Edit: Nobody is going to pretend a used item is new. There ratings would go down. And your could easily get a full refund from ebay if they listed the condition as new when it clearly wasn't.
On ebay.co.uk, only one new pair of ad-700 (not ad-700x), at 220 quid. That's, like, more than twice the normal price and the amount I'm willing to pay.
On ebay.com... Oh wait, newly listed pair at only 140 bucks, with a damaged box (who gives a crap)! I didn't see that before.
Other than that, there's another pair for 170 bucks with an obviously old and worn box, and only 13 ratings (of which 3 as a seller). And even with the rating system, it's still easy to scam people - make a new account, sell some genuine worthless stuff to get a dozen positive feedbacks, then make 150 bucks out of a scam and create a new account. Or even sell two or three dozen genuine articles, scam someone with a valuable one and repeat on the same account, watching your rating go down by 0.2-0.3% at most.
Other than that one 13-rating guy, the next cheapest one is like 300 dollars.
Edit: That newly listed one on ebay.com only ships to US. Getting someone to receive it for me, then ship to UK, is possible, but it's really not worth the hassle (I'm not even taking import duty etc. into account, which I'd be willing to pay.)
Sorry I didn't realize that you were in the UK.
I think you're being a bit paranoid about ebay though. Especially with the ebay buyer protection in place. If they try to scam you just file a report and ebay will transfer the money back to you. That's why so many sellers hate ebay. Because ebay almost always takes the buyers side in any dispute. It's much easier to scam somebody as a buyer than as a seller. And nobody is going to go through all that work over months for a scam with little potential payout and high risk (if the buyer reports you then you get nothing from the sale). Plus if you're really worried about it just look at the comments for the negative ratings on the sellers feedback page. People generally don't keep their mouth shut on ebay if they get scammed. And if you keep making scam accounts from the same address you'll be banned pretty quickly. So they would have to keep moving around. So no, scamming on ebay is much harder than you think and the potential payout is extremely low. That's why there are so few reports of them. That and the fact that believe it or not most buyers/sellers are genuinely nice people.
I've bought so much stuff on ebay over the years that simply couldn't be purchased any other way (or at such a low price) and I've never had problems with any of the dozens of sellers that I've interacted with.
Have you looked at any alternatives to the ad-700?
Yeah, well, the point is that returning an item to the US will be too troublesome and expensive. And ebay.co.uk has no good deals.
Well, ok, that was not my point, but it is now. =P
And yes, I actually already have the sennheiser (cba to look up the spelling) hd580s. They're not exactly bad, but I would definitely have preferred the ad700s.
Edit: I mean Hd558.
They don't always take the buyer's side. If the goods aren't shipped after payment they tend to label it as 'No transaction occurred' and therefore won't offer a refund.
AnyOldName3 Wrote:They don't always
And that's why I didn't say always.
@teh_speleegn
So you already bought a different set? Then why did you ask?
(03-22-2014, 11:00 AM)NaturalViolence Wrote: [ -> ]@teh_speleegn
So you already bought a different set? Then why did you ask?
I didn't ask; this is the rage thread, not the help thread afaik. So I raged. =P
Also, I'd still be willing to return my hd558 if I can miraculously find a deal for a new pair of ad700 available for purchase from the UK at a plausible price. At least during amazon's return period (which is 30 days I believe).
Meh. You'll be happy with them. No rage needed here. I would add a post here about my recent experiences with a god awful online retailer but they've done so many things wrong it would literally take me the entire afternoon to cover all of it.
(03-23-2014, 03:21 AM)NaturalViolence Wrote: [ -> ]Meh. You'll be happy with them. No rage needed here. I would add a post here about my recent experiences with a god awful online retailer but they've done so many things wrong it would literally take me the entire afternoon to cover all of it.
Hopefully. They sure look dumb and boring though.
And was it on ebay?
No.
http://www.reefs2go.com/
They're at the top of any google search related to buying corals online so I figured they would be ok. Man was I wrong. The fact that their prices are so much lower than anywhere else should have been my first hint that something was wrong. They invest heavily in search optimization, ads, and other marketing materials and skimp everywhere else. The result is that like most businesses that do this they flourish despite piss poor service and organization. And despite the countless public and private complaints filed against them by organizations and individuals who have had to deal with them. Doing a google search for them (which in hindsight I should have done before buying from them) reveals a staggering number of complaints against them all saying the same things. Oh and you will notice on their website that all of their reviews on every product are universally positive despite the exact opposite being true about them on every other website. What accounts for this you might ask? Well apparently any product reviews on their website have to approved by them. And they simply don't approve any negative reviews. Every time you buy something from them at least some of the animals will arrive dead, I guarantee it. And when you have to contact them about a refund they will not pick up the phone and it will take weeks for them to respond to any emails (and often their response will just be "I don't understand" prompting another response and another 2 week wait). Even though they have time to create two new elaborate marketing emails and custom promotions every day (thus prompting even more orders which generate even more support emails that they can't keep up with). When you finally get the refund it will be in store credit since that is the only type of refund they offer. Since you need to spend at least $65 to get free shipping (shipping normally costs $35) this means that you need to basically reward them for their poor service by buying even more things from them in order to not waste your store credit. That order will in turn contain DOA items, which will prompt another refund, which will prompt another order. The cycle will continue endlessly until you decide "fuck it, keep my refund money". Which is about where I'm at now. Shall I continue?