The Energon Pub

Bonecrusher27 wrote:I've another question.

I was looking at a toy with much interest, and the description confused me. It said that the toy was unopened and 100%, but the packaging is 95% new. What on earth does this mean? I queried but no response.

I've seen that as well. I assume it means that the box has been roughed up a bit(scratched, bent, chewed on, etc.), but the figure inside is undamaged.

publicvisage wrote:

Bonecrusher27 wrote:I've another question.

I was looking at a toy with much interest, and the description confused me. It said that the toy was unopened and 100%, but the packaging is 95% new. What on earth does this mean? I queried but no response.

I've seen that as well. I assume it means that the box has been roughed up a bit(scratched, bent, chewed on, etc.), but the figure inside is undamaged.

That usually means there is shelfwear to the box (minor scuffing or corner dings from people taking the item off a shelf to look at it, etc...). The item, neverbeing opened, is still in 100% mint condition though since it was not removed from the package.

Hope that makes sense

Sure does, guys! Thanks!

Bonecrusher27 wrote:Also C9 is interesting. What means opened, but never touched?
Why open it if you're not going to touch it?

Well, as an example, I have a MIB Tigerhawk which I plan to put on E-Bay. It's been opened, but I haven't removed the figure from the backing box, or undone any of the twisty ties. The reason you might do this is to check everything's there that should be. The packing guys do make slip-ups occasionally, so it doesn't hurt to give the contents a quick once-over.

Thanks Ramrider. It's now very clear to me now. So they put that there to be honest... but how would people know if the box only has been open? Unless it's a multi-tabbed box like Movie leader or Voyager boxes with so many tabs it's impossible not to open without tearing them.

Okay here's yet another problem I haven't been able to find in the FAQs.

I've committed to buy, I'm now trying to finalise. Under country region I choose Singapore, but when I try to put the order through it keeps returning in red, Zip/Postal code is invalid.

Singapore uses a 6 number postal code. I'm wondering if somehow the system is still set up to accept an American postal code, which I understand is 5 figures?

How do I move on now?

I suppose this is up to the seller, but is there a standard for marking something complete or 100% complete.

Looking at one figure marked complete by the seller, I noticed that the bio card and instructions were not pictured. When I asked, he responded:

"Instructions and tech specs are separate items and not accessories. So they aren't factored in when you label an item as complete or not."

However, another seller marked his item 100% complete and included both instructions and tech specs.

publicvisage wrote:
"Instructions and tech specs are separate items and not accessories. So they aren't factored in when you label an item as complete or not."

Man that smacks of bullshit. If everything came with a toy I bought off the shelf, then a resell of that item down the road should be considered complete only if it included everything you would get originally with the toy. Luckily you double checked. I've learnt in the last few days you really need to read EVERYTHING. Thought I could get Unicron cheap but read closely and found out that he'd been taken out the box once before for display purposes.

Bonecrusher27 wrote:

publicvisage wrote:
"Instructions and tech specs are separate items and not accessories. So they aren't factored in when you label an item as complete or not."

Man that smacks of bullshit. If everything came with a toy I bought off the shelf, then a resell of that item down the road should be considered complete only if it included everything you would get originally with the toy. Luckily you double checked. I've learnt in the last few days you really need to read EVERYTHING. Thought I could get Unicron cheap but read closely and found out that he'd been taken out the box once before for display purposes.

Yeah, my BS radar went off as well. Fortunately, there were other options .

Do you only collect MISB? Even if you do, I think Unicron would be worth it.

publicvisage wrote:
Yeah, my BS radar went off as well. Fortunately, there were other options .

Do you only collect MISB? Even if you do, I think Unicron would be worth it.

Well, I do collect MISB only for the Movie 2007 toys. The Unicron is a gift for my bro so I wanted it new as possible. Honestly, I like the way the Movie toys are packaged so that to me, keeping MISB looks good. Whereas for Unicron, even if he looked good, c'mon there's no way I am ever not going to touch this guy! He changes into a planet for God's sake!

However I am always wary when someone says a toy has been taken out the box, whether it be for display, transformed only once/ a few times, etc. I mean, once the ties are out, who knows how many times a toy has been played with? So even if it's to be played with, I prefer to buy it sealed. Especially in this case it was a gift, too.

I see I'm not the only one with my eye on Unicron over at Ebay. Anybody see that Energon Dark Unicron? In the course of twelve minutes, one guy sent the thing from $67 to $99. Nobody was even outbidding the guy... That was an hour ago, and the things still got an hour left.

At two hours away, why would you shoot the price up by nearly $30? When you know for an item like this, there's going to be people that consider $100+ pocket change keeping an eye on him just waiting to to snipe him?

Loose, but complete Unicron w/instructions & Dead End. $55 plus shipping. Anybody think that's pretty fair price?

Ramrider wrote:...I have a MIB Tigerhawk which I plan to put on E-Bay...

You uh... Are going to make a topic about that in the Carbombya forums so that us here at Seibertron can know exactly where it is... Right? I'd take a shot at him. Lord knows he'll probably become "too rich for my blood" but... Hey, those afraid of pain will never know glory, right?

55 bucks for a loose complete Unicron, eh? That's only slightly more than he was new at retail. I don't think a loose figure should be as much as a new figure, but considering the price tag on Unicron NEW on e-bay, I think that's a steal.

How much is shipping?

$12.85

Its one of those "buy it now" listings from Ebay stores underneath all the actual auctions...

DeathNoble wrote:$12.85

Its one of those "buy it now" listings from Ebay stores underneath all the actual auctions...

You mean the "please bend over" section? I have found a few(oh, very few) good deals there, and that is a helluvalot for shipping. Even for a beast like Unicron.

But I guess sometimes you just have to assume the position.

Hey, sometimes all of Ebay is the bend over & take it section. Hence why a lot of folk here refer to Ebay as Evilbay or Epay.

But yeah, its in that section. So I'mgoing to spend the next half an hour or so of my life reading up on FAQs and the like on Ebay to learn all I can, but what can everyone tell me about this "Buy it now" thing? What's up with the bend over section being completely "Buy it now" and then some auctions have a "Buy it now" option on them? What if I want to buy it now but so does some other dude and he hits the button just like me?

~Off to read.

That 'bend over' section is usually the overpriced buy it now section of sellers...but sometimes you get the individual selling something actually worth a lot for mere pennies.

Case in point...I just saw a Primus sell for 8.99 (and 15 bux shipping) because the seller listed it as "Transformers Cybertron figure" no name, no nothing...one lucky bidder got it for 9 bux. (I know you can get one from Amazon for that...or at least you COULD last week; but if you couldn't have this was an enormous deal this Ebayer just got!)

It's those Epay gems that make me laugh...actually fun to look for (even funner when you win 'em )

-B

Near as I can tell, if an auction has a "buy it now" option, and somebody hits it before the auction's scheduled end-time then the auction ends automatically as soon as the buyer completes checkout. If two people hit it at the same time, I'm going to guess it goes to whoever finishes fastest.

And, I know all of E(vil-b(p)ay can be naughty, but as Bhaalistik said sometimes you can get lucky in the auctions. "Buy it now" usually has a fixed price(excluding the "or best offer option, which is really just a load of crap).

Anyway, good reading!

I'm in pain from bending over and taking it... But I hope it all turns out for the best. I just went with the buy it now option for something that just recently popped up on Ebay.

MIB Unicron for $39 with the Buy it now option. Before you let your eyes jump out of your sockets, let me tell you... The bending over was in the shipping. The dude charge $19 for shipping of the damn thing. Yeah... I know, right?

But with a low Buy it now price I figured I'd take it all in stride. Total, it was about $59 and considering that some people are out there winning Unicron's for $100 + shipping.

eBay is great. I have purchased many G1 and other out-of-production figures for my collection on eBay. Many of them are figures I would have no idea where to find if eBay did not exist.

I know that if I ever decide to sell some of my collection, I can readily do so on eBay and get a fair market value for whatever I sell.

I have also been able to buy hard to find figures and resell them on eBay for enough profit to invest more $ in my own collection.

My Transformer collection would suck if it wasn't for eBay.


So, as I read all the eBay gripes and complaints from those using eBay, I thought I'd try to bring balance to this thread by pointing out that eBay is not evil.


By the way, Unicron's MSRP was $50.00. Add a few dollars in tax and that comes pretty close to the $59 DeathNoble paid on eBay for an awesome figure that has been off of major retailers's shelves for quite some time. When your bum feels better you should jump up and down for joy over the great deal you got.

You know, I've also seen auctions where the same person keeps pushing up his own bid. It might be understandable if it happened once. You know, if the guy was going to be gone and knows his bid is way to low. But I've seen people do it five or six times. The only thing I can figure is that something fishy is going on.

Susinko wrote:You know, I've also seen auctions where the same person keeps pushing up his own bid. It might be understandable if it happened once. You know, if the guy was going to be gone and knows his bid is way to low. But I've seen people do it five or six times. The only thing I can figure is that something fishy is going on.

I'm not sure what you mean. Are you talking about a buyer increasing his maximum bid?

And, Lapse of Reason, I think this thread has plenty of balance, for all the griping and complaining, a few of us(myself including) are just learning how to use the thing, and things are often irritating before you learn the ins and outs. But, for that, I definitely see e-bay as a good resource.

Susinko wrote:You know, I've also seen auctions where the same person keeps pushing up his own bid. It might be understandable if it happened once. You know, if the guy was going to be gone and knows his bid is way to low. But I've seen people do it five or six times. The only thing I can figure is that something fishy is going on.

That is because they entered an amount over the current bid amount and other bidders have come in and bid, but not more than the first bidder.

For example, say the auction item is at $25, but bidder one bids $50. Bidder one will stay the high bidder at $25 until someone else outbids him. However, say bidder 2 comes along and bids $30. This is more than the $25, but not more than bidder 1's maximum bid of $50. Therefore, it will look like bidder 1 pushed up his own bid but this is not the case. Now the minimum bid is $30 but bidder 1 is still the high bidder. This will continue with every bid until bidder 1 is outbid past $50 or the auction ends.

So far all the stuff I've bought from ebay are Cash on Delivery stuff.. Its pretty much foolproof because you only pay after you actually see the product. But then I live in a small country and I only buy local ebay stuff..

schizophrenica wrote:But then I live in a small country and I only buy local ebay stuff..

Ha, that doesn't stop some crooked people from operating! I've seen a couple of different sellers from my country who openly declare they will charge the same shipping to local bidders ad international! It's obvious to me that a large part of money made by many is by charging exorbitant amounts of money for shipping!

Another guy who listed his product as a bargain US-priced $x toy e-mailed me to inform me that for local bidders, the price was something else, $x + 50! So that suggests to me that how he made his money was to charge international bidders real high for the shipping, which would allow him to still sell them for a lower actual price.

Like I said, COD only.. Heheh.. I've seen some sellers like the one you mentioned, all the more reason to stick to COD..

Lapse Of Reason wrote:

Susinko wrote:You know, I've also seen auctions where the same person keeps pushing up his own bid. It might be understandable if it happened once. You know, if the guy was going to be gone and knows his bid is way to low. But I've seen people do it five or six times. The only thing I can figure is that something fishy is going on.

That is because they entered an amount over the current bid amount and other bidders have come in and bid, but not more than the first bidder.

For example, say the auction item is at $25, but bidder one bids $50. Bidder one will stay the high bidder at $25 until someone else outbids him. However, say bidder 2 comes along and bids $30. This is more than the $25, but not more than bidder 1's maximum bid of $50. Therefore, it will look like bidder 1 pushed up his own bid but this is not the case. Now the minimum bid is $30 but bidder 1 is still the high bidder. This will continue with every bid until bidder 1 is outbid past $50 or the auction ends.

Exactly - that's why it asks for the "maximum bid". A buyer can enter their maximum bid, i.e. the most amount of money that they are willing to pay for an item, but when they enter that maximum bid eBay will only show that bid as being just enough to outbid the current price, rather than displaying the capped value of that maximum bid. I can't count the number of times I've entered a bid higher than the current price only for eBay to tell me I've been outbid, and then for the previous bidder's bid to have increased to higher than mine!

I don't see what's fishy about a buyer increasing his own bid, though. I do it all the time. Sometimes I'll put in a maximum bid of, say, £20.00. Two days later, though, I may think, "Wait, I actually really want this item - I'm willing to pay more," and then I'll decide to go back and increase my own bid to £35.00. Unless, Susinko, you're talking about a seller bidding on their own item to increase the price. Now, that would be poor form.