I’ve been noticing an Ebay dealer by the handle "skillful_sailor_japan" selling some good kit at exorbitant prices. Sponsored listings so they come up in your searches. Be careful out there especially if you’re not used to buying online/ebay. An example is a Jelco 250 (retails for $350) for $2000.
The Jelco 250 they have for sale is $999.00 or best offer with free shipping. The 750D is listed for $1980.00 or best offer & free shipping. None have sold for these prices and most of their offerings are BIN or best offers. While these are high asking prices, the items that they have sold seem reasonable. I don't see the scam, one can ask anything they want, if it sells at that price is another issue.
They are selling at such hyper inflated prices that it's comical. Yes, they can sell at whatever they want. It's called price gouging. My warning is to those who may fall victim to their extravagant pricing and hyperbolic descriptions.
I have often seen items on ebay with totally insane prices. The items tend to stay listed for years without selling. A lot of times, these are from Japan listings. Gotta wonder what these people are thinking. Examples are something like Krell KAV-280p for $2,000-3000 (street price is $1200). Bryston SP2 for something like $3,000 (street price $1200 or so)
"They are selling at such hyper inflated prices that it's comical." That is what they are asking or Best Offer, not selling. If the price is too high, it won't sell. Take a look at their sold items on eBay. Nothing with a big price has sold.
"Yes, they can sell at whatever they want. It's called price gouging." If nobody buys it, how is price gouging as there is no sale?
"My warning is to those who may fall victim to their extravagant pricing and hyperbolic descriptions." Not all of their prices are out of line, and remember they have a best offer option.
"
Not sure why you are defending their obvious bad practice." I am not defending them, however since all the products have a "Make an Offer" option the asking price is not the last price. By using the offer button one can essentially create their own discount. If they accept your offer, you are paying what you want to pay. If they don't, no deal. I just don't see the scam.
"
Ebay is the home of the big scam or Craig's list if you like getting scammed this is were you go."
I have done over 4000 transactions on eBay since 1999, both buying/selling and hundreds on Craigslist since it started. Also have used, Audio Mart ( including way back then you would get the classified ads in the mail), Audio Asylum, Audio Circle & AudioGon. I have never scammed anyone or have been scammed.
There is a big difference between a scam or price gouging and listing an item at a higher price than you yourself might think prudent or fair or whatever. It’s quite possible that the seller is not sure of what to ask in terms of price so he’s listing it at a very high price to make sure he isn’t the one taken advantage of. It's a common strategy and I thunk a good one, to list high and gradually reduce the price until it sells. Certainly better for the seller than say running an auction. If you think the price of ANYTHING listed on eBay is too high or unreasonable you certainly don’t have to buy it. Get real! The fact that an item - any item - hasn’t sold could mean the price is too high. It all depends. Sometimes things sell for ridiculously LOW prices. Not everyone who lists on eBay is a genius.
"
ebm Ebay is the home of the big scam or Craig's list if you like getting scammed this is were you go."
I
have done over 4000 transactions on eBay since 1999, both
buying/selling and hundreds on Craigslist since it started. Also have
used, Audio Mart ( including way back then you would get the classified
ads in the mail), Audio Asylum, Audio Circle & AudioGon. I have
never scammed anyone or have been scammed.
"
Not sure why you are defending their obvious bad practice." I am not
defending them, however since all the products have a "Make an Offer"
option the asking price is not the last price. By using the offer button
one can essentially create their own discount. If they accept your
offer, you are paying what you want to pay. If they don't, no deal. I just don't see the scam.
Nobody is defending this guy. You are not understanding the fact that there is no price gouging or scam if the original high price is not paid, it is only words, numbers and photos on a screen. All of his items for sale have a "Best Offer" tab so the customer sets the price. Also, if you notice, all his sales have been for lower, reasonably priced items. The high priced items have not sold from his stereo store in Tokyo. Did he "scam" you?
I already explained it. It's not a scam or any such thing. It is a very reasonable strategy for selling on eBay when listing a Buy it Now item. Case closed.
I've noticed this guy pricing Levinson amps at 3-4 times their used value. I emailed him and asked why is he asking these crazy prices and never did answer lol. The OP just asked a simple question and figures someone would make a mockery out of it. If you are selling a high end product such as Levinson I am sure you would have a clue what it is worth.
If you are selling a high end product such as Levinson I am sure you would have a clue what it is worth.
Don't be so sure. There is a pair of Vandy 5s (not 5As) that's been advertised by the same person on this site for several years. $6250; factory boxes and HP-5 crossovers extra!
I'm guessing these kind of pricing is based on the "bigger fool" theory of
real-estate...no matter how much you paid, there's a bigger fool out
there somewhere who is willing to pay more ;-) 'course you see how that
model panned out in the great recession.
Yes. there are some shady people on ebay trying to scam your money. I have been in the market looking for a preamp, mainly for mcintosh preamps. The last six or seven times that i entered a search on ebay, i keep seeing these amplifiers at prices that are way to good to be true. So after watching this go on for a couple of times,(even though i know better), i decided to bid on some of these "probably to good to be true" amplifiers. First thing i notice as i scroll down to the description of the item, is a notice saying that "all bids will be rejected at time of bidding"??? and if you want to "buy it now" just click on to the button below, that is inside of a price sheet that shows if in united states, the price to buy it now is 1000 dollars. And if in the UK, the price is 1500 dollars. And if in Japan 2000 dollars. And so on and so on for other countries. The button obviously links you to the scam artist website. I am not really sure, because i know better than to fall for this, and would never try to break the ebay rules. So i just put in some good high bids to play it out and see what happens. After bidding i check out the sellers "other things for sale". WOW, they have just about every type of vintage guitar ever made for sale, and in just about every color ever made? Honestly i have never seen auction houses or any famous guitarist that retain as many at one time as this site claims to have for sale. Need a 1962 fender strat for 5 dollars opening bid, and the auction ends in 32 minutes. Yea right. Anyways, after seeing just about every amp that mcintosh makes for sale on these guys "ebay store", my curiosity gets the best of me and i start bidding on five or six of them, as i am insured by paypal and ebay, and if by chance this is legit, i stand to make a fortune by reselling them. At auction closing time, i can only watch one item, and every item on this store is closing at the same time. So i watch the mcintosh MC 2102, one of the many that i have bid on at this time. I am outbid and lose out on that one, so i go to check out what happened with my other bids, and get a note on the page that says that the numbers of the items do not match any that ebay has for auction? and to retry entering numbers again, as i might of made a mistake in entering them? I just clicked on to the items by scrolling down a little bit??? Who enters numbers when looking to find out what happened during final moments of auction? Anyways, the other items that i bid on now does not exist as far as the ebay site see's it. I was kind of bummed out at first but not really because of the "If it sounds too good to be true, It probably isn't" theory that is now hanging around my neck with a rope. Since that day, every time i run a search on ebay for a preamp, i get this entity showing the same 300 or so vintage guitars, stereo equipment, and other large business machines, like printing presses, pizza ovens and cloths presses for high end laundry mats. And every time the ebay store has a different name, but has good ratings from ebay? At first they were using names that related to perfumes, like perfumes were their main product. But now the names are different all the time. Always one day or two day auctions, and always offering the same identical pictures and items. and the same offer to "buy it now" by clicking the button that is inside their page, not the one that ebay designates. My biggest curiosity now is, How can ebay keep allowing this kind of stuff that is clearly a scam, to continue on their site? I am sure many others like me have tried to bid on these items and have experienced the same, type of bafflement. I never wanted to be bothered with scams or scam artist in any way, so that is why i never pursued the issue with customer service, but i am sure that many others have. And i would bet that ebay is very aware of what is going on. Sometimes they seem to actually encourage the pirates that copy everybodies products that have copyrights and patents on them, as if our laws (U.S.) mean nothing. As we all see every day that they (ebay) sell and promote these copied items. I do not understand how this goes on like everyday business with ebay? My only guess is that the united states probably is their least amount of customers.
One need look no further than Amazon to see ridiculously high prices for all manner of things, from out of print rare CDs, cassettes, signed tennis racquets, etc. Folks, this high listing technique is not a scam, it’s a sign that the thing is considered - at least by the seller - to have a potentially high value - at some time in the future. It’s speculation. Of course most of these high priced items don’t sell. That’s why they’re are still listed. That’s why you will see the the listening there for a year or two or more sometimes. Some things actually go up in value, so you never know, a thing’s value is what someone pays for it, someone who is not under any pressure to do so. Have you seen what Tesla stock is going for? Apple?
Geoffkait I notice you seem to condone this behavior of trying to scam or ask high prices. Who in their right mind is going to buy for example a ML amp for $7500 that sold for $2000 less new? Or selling for $5000 less on the used market. The OP was simply stating a fact about this Ebay seller.
OK some dude in Japan is trying to lure total idiots to buy high end at inflated prices. It may not technically be a scam however, it is close to it. Are you a conspiracy theorist lol?
+1 Geoff and Dill. Because that Japanese seller is not a scammer, seems to me he´s nothing but a seller. It´s his business to sell for the prices he wants. Buyer buys or does not. And life goes on.
I just wonder if OP has been mistreated in some way by that seller. Well, he apparently has already because this thread is against his business. Has he earned it for any reason I just wonder...
As for vintage/used Hi-Fi gear (or anything else) all succesful transactions goes to the point when a buyer and a seller DESIDE to agree, then the final price is practically irrelevant. When both are happy nothing else matters. If I want a certain item for a certain price, be it low (suits me well) or high (suits seller well), I will get it... one way (from seller 1) or other (from seller 2). If a seller wants certain price for his items, be it rare or valuable or not, or the price high or low, it´s OK. If you don´t like his prices you go elsewhere. This is a free world and free market, thank goodness ! And I do believe most and almost all are honest on selling forums, according to my ten years+ experience on eBay. I had ONE scam buyer who actually tried to get a full refund (nearly 2600 € + registered shipping) for my perfectly working very expensive and rare Luxman TT even BEFORE he would have shipped it back and even after my friendly gesture to pay a half of the expensive shipping but luckily eBay eventually sided me after month´s painfull asking and waiting. Well, that jerk left a negative fb and tried to fool both me AND ebay. That was his final mistake LOL. eBay also removed that negative fb. This time I was lucky but it won´t happen again. I´ve learned my lesson. My advice to all sellers on eBay: Be extremely careful with them and PayPal especialy as they almost every time side buyer, be they scammers or not.
^ My advice to all honest sellers, to be exact (edited). Just be extremely carefull with eBay and PayPal. Take lots of very very accurate pics of your item and get a proof of shipping and you are safe.
Some very expensive (and also lower priced) High End stuff stay unsold on eBay for a year and even more... then they disappear. So perhaps an appropriate offer was accepted or maybe a right buyer (who dearly wants the item) at right time buys it. Some years ago I bought NOS Factory Sealed Audio-Technica ANV150 cartridge from Japan for a good price. I had too many carts to listen at the time and I just had no time to try that new AT of mine. So I never opened the sealed box and start selling it on eBay for the same price I had paid for. It stayed for more than a year unsold with few watchers... Suddenly a gentleman from England bought it and instantly paid using PayPal and asked nothing. I received the money I had wanted and immediately sent the unopened factory sealed box to England. A few days later I noticed my buyer had left a full positibe fb w/ a nice comment. I did the same thing for him. One of my rare vintage prog LP albums stayed unsold for seven years on another selling site. Suddenly a guy from a foreign island bough it and paid it and couldn´t be more happy as he had been waiting for that certain album for years for a reasonable price. A nice transaction for both of us.
All comes down to when seller´s and buyer´s interests unite. That is real business. Everything else is waste of time and just irrelevant. Best of luck for selling and buying :)
I just wonder if OP has been mistreated in some way by that seller. Well, he apparently has already because this thread is against his business. Has he earned it for any reason I just wonder...
I’ve already stated that I have not dealt with this person. Nor have I ever been ripped off... except that one time in Paris... Nor have I any ax to grind other than to alert unwary folks to this seller. Some of the respondents get it but others appear to support a caveat emptor free market philosophy. Each to his/her own.
Alert of what ? High prices ? And who ? Lazy communists ? Audio is full of high prices both new and vintage, have you noticed... So you have not been ripped off on selling forums/sites ? You have been very lucky so far. Because there are unbelieveable nasty folks on forums/sites waiting for the right time... to scam naiive people for no reason. You are living in a world of illusions. You have already harmed that Japanese´s business with your ignorance and prejudice. Japanese culture is very different in many ways, thank God. Actually you owe an apology to him. Otherwise you start sounding more like a little troll. Take my advice: do yourself and the Japanese a favour and delete this ridiculous thread and move on. And hell I´m here to defend all honest and sincere sellers. Keep that in your mind. Long live free world, long live free enterprise :)
There is a very beautiful Casio G Shock Frogman watch listed on eBay for $29,000. It is a very limited edition designed by a famous Japanese artist. It is a stunner! But is it worth $29,000? You decide. The Casio Frogman is listed by a store that specializes in Casio watches. One wonders if there is any uh, "value added" simply by listing the watch, more or less free advertising, even if it never sells. Hmmmmmm...
Believe it or not there are some rabid G-Shock collectors out there. I actually made a good bit of money 5-10 years ago collecting and selling them. I haven’t kept up with the market lately, but when I was in it, that G-Shock was easily selling for around 3k+ back in the day, I have no idea what the real worth is today.
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