Is Agon becoming the eBay of audio?


I realize that this has been dissed before.
FWIW I'm a regular window shopper on Agon and have noticed a trend by sellers to misrepresent their wares and disregarding Agons condition rating guidelines in higher frequencies.  More listins stating item as"new" when item is obviously not and asking for top dollar. As of late for example an ad was placed for an item as "new" when owner admits that it is 1.5 years old and has at minimum 200+ hours of use. This in itself would be rated a 9/10 at best by the Agon rating system. Sellers are more defining and rating their product based on cosmetics than on functionality. For those buying it is increasingly important to do some deep research and close inspection of represenation pictures by enlarging available pictures to avoid disappointment. 
It is my opinion that buyers should not let emotions or immediate wants sway their common sense. At first sign of questionability be prepared to walk away.
Let the buyer beware

128x128gillatgh
All right, something both salient and interesting to this conversation...

I put an ad up this afternoon, and specifically chose 7/10 rating for this listing. After checking it when it went live, still 7/10. Tonight, come back home to give it another look, and it’s now NEW. Go into the EDIT screen, and that’s the current condition. Demoted back to 7/10, and will keep an eye out to see what happens.

As sure as I’m sitting here, I KNOW I initially listed the item as 7/10. So perhaps some of the sellers have not actually done what we’ve discussed here, just the victim of a bug in the system. I’m sure grade inflation still occurs more than it should, but wanted to let everyone know what happened to me today
john1 - eBay apparently is powerless to permanently stop that scammer(s) that you mentioned. Those bogus listings get put up almost everyday, eBay soon removes them, the bad guys re-list (with the same damn photos of high-end gear every time) - rinse, lather, and Repeat....
Bought quite a few items here pre-’09.

Great sellers and priced fairly! I still have *everything* I bought, albeit in the closet. Got into other interests since then but making a comeback, and window shopping again. It seems like prices are a little high, just like the ’bay and I don’t really hassle with selling (not a flipper) so I try and buy sensibly.

I hate dickering so if something’s priced unfairly (to me) I SMH, RMEs and move on, something else always comes up somewhere. I’m thinking either the fees or hedging against low balling clowns have something to do with it.

"Buy the seller FIRST!" I’m more comfortable making offers knowing the seller did like what they have up for sale, so if I didn’t have to haggle or maybe just a minimum, I bite. If it’s something they paid too much for, live and learn, it’s the reasonable thing to do.

Can’t believe the slimy low balling I read about. What a waste of time and energy, trying to take advantage of whatever situation they perceive the seller is in.

Might a "who’s who" section help the Agon community track scammers and lowballing clowns?

Happy hunting all!

I always grade conservatively,   and appreciate the same of other sellers.   I actually have better luck buying and selling locally, whether its from an ad here or other forums when buying or more commonly Craigslist ,especially when selling.  Sure there's a lot of junk on CL but seeing and hearing before I lay down the cash is worth it.  No shipping to worry about or PayPal hassles,  cash.....  There are occasionally some great components advertised locally.   I bought a really nice Thorens 160 on CL for $60..... that doesn't happen on sites like this....
@trelja Thank you for pointing that out I suspected the same thing in my post above that there is a glitch thank you for confirming it.