Back in July of this year I published What’s Inside of the ThingFling $10.00 Mystery Box?.  The idea was to sell the items that came in the mystery box on eBay.  Every time I see these specials offered, without fail, someone will post “I’ll keep what I want and sell the rest on eBay”.  Is life really that simple?  Nope!  Read on for the boring truth, and a bit of scandal.

The total purchase price including shipping was $38.10.  My selling price was considerably less.  I received $19.72 in payment, with an additional $44.98 collected for shipping.  My eBay fees were $3.63.  I forget exactly how much profit I made by overcharging for shipping each item, but $1 for each would be a good estimate.  So lets look at the math.

$19.72 + $6.00 (shipping overcharge) = $25.72  (Money received)

$25.72 – $3.63 (eBay fees) = $22.09 Received

So I paid $38.10, received $22.09, leaving me having paid $16.01 for 2 coaxial cables, a DVI Cable, and an HDMI to DVI conversion cable (the unsold junk).  Some might claim I got $30 in cables for $16.01, but I don’t see it that way.  Cables, remotes, and crappy little accessories that come with major appliances never sell well.  Do you want an iPod itself, or some silly skin for it in an ugly color.  Everyone wants an HD TV, nobody wants the cable left in the box that you didn’t even need to hook it up.  I have an entire filing cabinet of cables I never used.

Scandal!  I’ve always been suspicious of eBay as a clearinghouse for crooks.  As a first time seller, I expected the worst, and found it.  The Gemini Data Sensing cable was a very simple item, a cable with an LED.  Someone bought it for $0.99 and I figured end of story.  Sure enough, the person contacts me asking my return policy.  Telling them I had none as I was very skeptical, I directed them to the manufacturers website for further instructions.  Again they contacted me, pestering me with silly questions that no intelligent person would ask. 

Their mistake.  Nobody wastes that much time unless they are a scammer.   I played my hunch and gave them a firm “NO”.  Good call.  2 days later another person selling the same exact cable tells me they got the same story from the same buyer.  Turns out this scammer was buying $.99 items, then crying about them not working.  They had over 1200 items bought and sold, this clearly was a major fraud case since it involved over $1000 in merchandise if you added up all their victims.  Pretty crappy little scam.  It’s the lamers and scripters that ruin everything.

So I reported it to eBay, as did the other guy.  He contacted more people who confirmed our suspicions.  I wrote eBay asking what their decision was.  They refused to tell me, citing privacy concerns.  I checked eBay today and saw the scammer is still buying and selling, with over 1336 total transactions total now.  Shame on eBay.

What I learned: 

• Never offer refunds.  All sales as is.
• Never respond to emails outside of the eBay system, so that eBay has a copy of the correspondence.
• Don’t waste your time selling small accessories with bids. Use “Buy it Now” for items like that.
• Be aware of shipping costs before listing items.  Do not let buyers switch payment or shipping method after the sale.

Can you make money on eBay?  Yes.  Absolutely.  But then again, you can also make money buying and selling goods from your own website.  A trip to the postoffice cost me 30 minutes in time  I think I could have better spent my time elsewhere than the $1 or $2 I made off each sale.  The stress of dealing with scammers, including idiots who ask if I would ship to some 3rd world country, when I clearly stated I didn’t, took it’s toll.  eBay selling is best left to the pros.  Learn fast if you are going to do it at all.

Mystery Box #1

Mystery Box #2

Mystery Box #3

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