Cranky’s Guide to Being a BAD Gunbroker Buyer

[crankyoldlady]

I am a bad buyer. I admit it. But, you too can be a bad buyer by following these 4 easy steps. Just do as I do.

1. I trust too much. When a seller lists a Pachmayr grip adapter for a K Frame S&W revolver I believe him. I neglect to send a question asking, "Are you sure this is for a K frame?" Because if I had asked he surely would have told me it is for an I frame. And, he doesn't make mistakes.

2. I get easily disappointed. I am too thin skinned. When the seller sends an adapter for an I frame, I feel bad. I have wasted time and money. But wait, he has a return policy. I can return the item at my expense and get a "store credit" for price less original shipping charge. Only a bad buyer would expect a full refund.

3. I don't spend time reading the negative comments and the seller's responses. I just look at the number of negatives. This way I don't learn what a nasty name caller the seller is whenever a customer is unhappy. The seller never makes a mistake, he just has buyers who are "liars, cheats, flim-flams, jerks, thieves, and have a bad attitude." But this is my fault for not wading through 50 pages of feedback to see what kind of seller he is to deal with if there is a customer service issue.

4. I am impatient. I send polite emails once every 2 days asking the seller for assistance. I would like an answer before 6 days have passed. But I am too impatient. Maybe he is in the hospital on vacation. Nope he is busy listing new auctions and leaving retaliatory feedback for unhappy buyers who dare tell it like it is.

If you sell on gunbroker, you better hope I never bid on your item. I am a bad buyer. And I am also...


Cranky

 

[willy]

I feel your pain.
I have always been treated very well by sellers on gunbroker but I've been stung by shisters on e-bay.
You should do just like you would if you got ripped off with car repairs.
Don't go back to that garage. And tell all your friends about WHO RIPPED YOU OFF!
This way the garage not loses the chance of getting anymore of YOUR money it also loses all your friend's money.
So seeing as we are all friends on the S&W forum save us all from this seller.
Give us his name!!!!!

 

[crankyoldlady]

Willy, I am just here pouting. I have no need or desire to "out" this seller. He does have many happy buyers. I wanted to be one of them.

Had I read his feedback left for others before bidding I would not have bid.

Lesson learned.

 

[mstuhr]

Howdy

Howdy,
There are a lot of folks that either don't know what the sell or think people are stupid.
I saw a Ruger MK I .22 pistol from WWII earlier today on G.B..
It had to be true as the seller listed it as such.
I'd bet someone around here might trade you or have interest in the I frame adapter.
Best of luck
Mike

 

[three-five-seven]

Bad buyers.....

I like the Ruger 22 from WW11. Was it a rare Bill Ruger/Alex Sturm toolroom prototype with Elmer Keiths inspector stamp from the Ravenna Arsenal? I also saw Kaiser Wilhelms Luger carbine that he hunted wild boars with in the Black Forest after WW1. Or was it red deer?

 

[stantheman86]

I have had bad experiences as both a buyer and seller on GB. If you use GunBroker enough you'll run into an oddball here and there.

I will "out" one, Military Gun Supply was probably the worst I had ever dealt with. I bought a bunch of rifles from them, and they stuffed 3 or 4 rifles into one box, with no packaging material, so the rifles beat against themselves the entire time during shipping. When I emailed them, the response was "Sorry, don't care" This still burns me up to this day........

I describe my stuff 100% when I sell, and price according to condition. (i.e. not the "I smoke crack" prices sometimes seen) and I'm not a dealer, sometimes I sell a rifle or two to fund a handgun purchase. I will admit, I usually take a loss when I sell a rifle, or at best break even. I doubt I have really "profited" from selling any of my rifles, but it allows me to use the cash to add more of what I want to my collection, rather than have some rifles sitting around that I will probably never fire.

Which burns me up even more, I sell my stuff for a fair price, a guy gets a decent shooter grade Swiss 1911 rifle for $250 or so, and then wants to pick me apart because it doesn't shoot his handloads as well as he would like.......I'm like give me a break guy......

I agree, the seller's response does say a lot. You can't judge a seller solely on the "bad feedback", but by the responses they give. Every seller on GB will have bad feedback, you really can't please everyone and sometimes you get some oddball who's gonna ding you with "F" feedback because he's just a wierdo who's PO'd at the world.

 

[Engineer1911]

Joe Stalin's Nation Match Mosin Nagant rifle from Camp Perry 1938 High Power Rifle Match?

Lenin's Nagant National Match Revolver form Camp Perry 1936 2700 Pistol Matches?

 

[4011]

I had a seller sell a 1908 Colt in his store after I hit the buy now button. Didn't know I was a loser until I contacted him the next day. He said he forgot to check his listing before he let the gun go. He had it priced REAL GOOD. Complaint to GB did nothing. Cranky also.. Then their was the 37 Airweight with the square butt harret grips. When it arrived I found out I had bought a round butt. Seller never responded to my complaint. I know I should have looked better at the picture. Yeah it was a good price also. Time for a Dr. Pepper now.

 

[410bore]

i buy and sell quite a bit on GB......have only had a few problems......the most recent one was when i was shopping for some HKS speedloaders....the seller had a good price on a dutch auction for hks 22wmr speedloaders...it stated that shipping would be calculated after the auction (this was a large store and they had a website you went to in order to pay and calc shipping) the speedloaders were, i think, $8 each. i bought 2. so i figure shipping will be about $5-$6.....so im in the speedloaders for around $22....well, the "handy dandy shipping calculator" said it would cost $15.00!!!!!!!!!!!!!.....i immediately exited the payment screen and sent a message to the seller stating that i wasnt going to pay $15 to ship $16 worth of product that could have been shipped in a padded envelope for $5.........or less


then they give me a "C" and state i didnt pay.....and i waited too long and couldnt post a response to it........thats what burnt me up.....

 

[Fkimble]

My biggest rant on GB/Ebay is the "once you bid it's a binding contract, but if we get a buyer in the store for out asking price, screw you, we're gonna sell it!" Yea some say they will sell if no bids, thats ok. Some say they pull stuff off the store shelf to prevent accidentally selling an item listed on the NET. I actually went to a local gun shop to eyeball a new, in box, unfired K14, older model. They actually had it on a shelf in the office. It was "as advertised" as best I could tell in a quick look. Would not even talk to me about selling it in the store since it already had bids. I bid a couple hundred $ more than I planned before stopping. Funny thing was I was bidding on a "collector gun" when I was looking for a "shooter".

 

[Win75]

I hate it and get cranky when I have a question about an item, send the question 3-4 days before closing and get a curt answer the day after the auction closes.

 

[GregG]

I'm a bad buyer.

I mailed a postal money order with delivery confirmation the next business day after the auction ended. I also snapped a pic of the money order and delivery confirmation and e-mailed it to the seller.

When I got no response to indicate he actually saw the e-mail rather than it going to his spam box I pinged him again, asking if he had gotten my last e-mail.

He got angry and talked down to me pretty hard, said that I had insulted him.

I was just trying to be a good buyer by demonstrating that I was following through quickly.

 

[Erich]

I've done a decent amount of buying on GB, and only had a couple problems that I can recall. One was just not the fault of the seller (he was a great guy and completely honest about what he had - he just couldn't have known that some idiot had played with the innards) and the other was a seller who seemed to be having issues and took three weeks to ship something.

Overall, though, I've been really impressed at how hard most people on GB strive to make the deal work.