Ebay mistake. . . What does SP stand for?

[SoFa]

Less he be without a auction buying mishap, cast the first stone.

Theo, I have done the same as you. Jump the gun on a what I thought was a 1 gram silver bar. turned out to be copper bar. If I would have read the description, I would have found that out. I taped that copper bar to the computer monitor to remind me that it is best to read the description than the seller feedback before making any decisions. By the way why would they make a 1 gram copper bar?

I've jumped the gun on a few auctions. Then realized my mistake and waited nervously for someone else to come along and outbid me. Gotta love those last second bidders stealing an auction like that.

[BOHICA]

SP = Suckers' Purchase.

[Mossy]

Need to save a copy of the image to hard drive (and store on CD for backup). These are going to be around for many, many years. We really don't want to get suckered.

[bman]

open a dispute with ebay and Paypal, the item was listed in the bullion category to mislead people on purpose. This guy and the other 47,000,000 like him are why I closed my ebay account.

[Thogey]

open a dispute with ebay and Paypal, the item was listed in the bullion category to mislead people on purpose. This guy and the other 47,000,000 like him are why I closed my ebay account.

That is an outstanding point.

[theo]

open a dispute with ebay and Paypal, the item was listed in the bullion category to mislead people on purpose. This guy and the other 47,000,000 like him are why I closed my ebay account.

That is an outstanding point.

I agree. In fact I just opened a case. I'd be surprised if this was resolved in my favor, but its worth it if it makes our friend sweat a little. Anyway, here is my message to Ebay:


First, I'd like to point out that the item was clearly described in the body of the listing. However his title was misleading stating "1 OZ .999 SP SILVER COIN." "SP" apparently stands for silver plate. This is not a commonly used abbeviation. Therefore bidders who are not very careful (like myself) will bid on these coins or bars assuming they are pure silver not worthless silver plate. The fact that these items are listed in the BULLION catagory adds to the confusion. Silver-plared objects are not bullion.

In my experience silver-plated coins and bars sell for about $10 on Ebay, yet this seller has sold several of these coins for over $30 to buyers who likely thought they were getting pure silver. At least two other buyers bid over $30 in my particular auction.

Finally, this seller knows that his title descriptions are causing confusion among his buyers. Here are two examples of feedback from previous buyers showing that they too were confused:

"poor description in title to make buyer think it was silver. read CAREFULLY" Item number: 310345550747

"Nice coin but not pure silver. Didn't realize sp meant silver plated." Item number 110787848427

Why doesn't the seller simply clarify his title descriptions? I believe its because he benefits from the confusion with inflated bids from buyers who think they are bidding on pure silver. A seller who is aware that his customers are confused and yet does nothing to rectify the problem is not behaving ethically.

[cesariojpn]

wall of text

eBay is pro-buyer right now, which has pissed off many legit sellers. While your auction dispute is justified, there are many unscrupulous a/or just palin dumb bidders who have holier than thou attitudes and abuse the system.

[theo]

Actually, I just received a response. The seller agreed to refund most of my money while I keep the coin, which is now part of my RMO stash. Not sure if he realized the error of his ways or if merely saw me as a nuisence. Probably the latter. I'll be curious to see if he changes his titles or continues to list silver-plated items in the bullion catagory (Thanks bman).