Collector frustration

[rhettyeakley]

Has anyone tried using ebay's SEARCH FUNCTION lately?

What an unholy mess!

The more terms you add the more items it sends your way (should be the other way around). It is like searching on Amazon (don't even get me started)

They are killing what is left of their brand.

[philliesfan]

Yes that function is horrible! When you key in something specific like 1957 Brooks Robinson, you get everything with 1957 in it, everything with Brooks in it....including brooks and streams, and everything Robinson, including Robinson Caruso and whatever. What a freaking mess!

[Rhotchkiss]

eBay is dogshit. In every respect, it’s a shell of what it once was.

[jamest206]

I will agree. I decided to do the ebay vault on a Red Cobb T206 portrait. Didn’t pay taxes. Did sell it on ebay for 600 more BEFORE taxes. So ebay tells me no worries, they will ship from vault to buyer and in their words, I am good. Well weeks go by, they don’t ship, eat my profit in fees, I have to pay $50 for withdraw, wait three days because FedEx only comes by my place after his lunch break and I work, so can’t sign. Finally get it and have to ship it to authenticator.

Vault is good in some aspects, like saving sales tax. I did get a card off GM that went from his vault to mine, so literally I owned it right after paying. Again, you don’t pay taxes, but ebay is still a cluster you know what.

[ClementeFanOh]

If ebay was a body part, it would be a sphincter. It used to be fun when
it was new, it's gone downhill since the mid 2000s ("the entropy effect").

Trent King

[Fuddjcal]

Originally Posted by Rhotchkiss

eBay is dogshit. In every respect, it’s a shell of what it once was.

LOL That about sums it up!!!

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

Originally Posted by philliesfan

including Robinson Caruso

That is one lonely tenor.

[jayshum]

Originally Posted by philliesfan

Yes that function is horrible! When you key in something specific like 1957 Brooks Robinson, you get everything with 1957 in it, everything with Brooks in it....including brooks and streams, and everything Robinson, including Robinson Caruso and whatever. What a freaking mess!

I tried searching for 1957 Brooks Robinson and I didn't get anything returned that weren't sports cards. I don't think I did anything special so I'm not sure why your results included so many unrelated items but I generally haven't experienced the problems searching on eBay that you and others are describing in this thread.

[BioCRN]

Originally Posted by jayshum

I tried searching for 1957 Brooks Robinson and I didn't get anything returned that weren't sports cards. I don't think I did anything special so I'm not sure why your results included so many unrelated items but I generally haven't experienced the problems searching on eBay that you and others are describing in this thread.

Personally, having terrible issues with Ebay search the past few months. I've cleared my cache/history/etc...checked settings...

As mentioned above, I can do this search string for these 2 results...

matt clement psa = 2,600+ results
matt clement "psa" = 9 results

To add confusion, this search string does this...

michael barrett psa - 39 results
michael barrett "psa" - 39 results

I have no idea why this happens, but once it decides to return a zillion results it seems to continue to do it that way.

[jayshum]

Originally Posted by BioCRN

Personally, having terrible issues with Ebay search the past few months. I've cleared my cache/history/etc...checked settings...

As mentioned above, I can do this search string for these 2 results...

matt clement psa = 2,600+ results
matt clement "psa" = 9 results

To add confusion, this search string does this...

michael barrett psa - 39 results
michael barrett "psa" - 39 results

I have no idea why this happens, but once it decides to return a zillion results it seems to continue to do it that way.

My results for your searches are similar.

Matt Clement psa vs "psa" - 2600+ vs 10
Michael Barrett psa vs "psa" - 32 for both

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by rhettyeakley

Has anyone tried using ebay's SEARCH FUNCTION lately?

What an unholy mess!

The more terms you add the more items it sends your way (should be the other way around). It is like searching on Amazon (don't even get me started)

They are killing what is left of their brand.

The saved search function, though, is pretty accurate in my experience. In other words, when I get notices, they're usually on point. Not sure what the difference is.

[conor912]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

The saved search function, though, is pretty accurate in my experience. In other words, when I get notices, they're usually on point. Not sure what the difference is.

They just haven’t gotten around to effing it up yet. Don’t worry…it’s on the docket.

[55koufax]

If ebay was a body part, it would be a sphincter. It used to be fun when
it was new, it's gone downhill since the mid 2000s ("the entropy effect").

Trent King

tremendously accurate description...and eBay can kiss my sphincter and scrotum!

Yes, and why was a common '64 Phil FB card worth $80 in a vault to begin with?

[raulus]

But you probably already guessed that much.

While eBay has definitely declined in terms of the opportunities for buying stuff, I'm not experiencing the same platform challenges that others are mentioning here.

Part of the problem with the dearth of available auctions for quality stuff is probably the new $600 threshold for 1099s, and the other piece is probably the decline/migration of PWCC off of the platform. Both of which have conspired to leave basically only a lot of BINs at high retail/museum prices.

I'm a big fan of the authentication service. Especially as a seller. I've never had it trigger a problem, and I take some comfort in knowing that a rogue buyer can't just claim that he never got the piece that I shipped to him, or it wasn't in the package or something. Although I can see how it would suck to have a perfectly legitimate piece get bounced by the process, particularly for some nonsensical reason like claiming the piece isn't a trading card.

I have had a couple of times where raw pieces were authenticated, but they found flaws that were not disclosed in the listing. eBay contacted me and gave me the option of accepting the item with the (now known) flaws, or rejecting it. And that seemed like a relatively benign solution - let the buyer decide if they still want the piece if there are problems that weren't disclosed. For anyone who feels like the authentication process is hijacking their purchases, having this option gives you the ability to avoid having your deal cancelled.

[BioCRN]

For those having problems with Ebay search returns giving a bazillion results, put "quote" around one or more search terms.

For instance...

matt clement psa = 2,600+ results

matt clement "psa" = 9 results