No auctions for me.

[Skip Souza]

My worst experience:
About eight or nine years ago (way before Ebay) I had the winning bid on a computer sustem. The auction site checked with my Visa card and put a lock on the amoutn of the bid. A few days later the auction site tried to charge my card for the winning bid amount not using the previously obtained authorization. The auction site notifies me that the transaction is void because my Visa card denied their transaction.

My best experience:
About eight or nine years ago, after placing a winning bid and having the auction site screw up the transaction I contacted the site, raised Hell, and demanded satisfaction. The vendor admitted that they screwed up and sent me the computer for my winning bid.
They never charged my Visa card for the computer.

My last experience:
About eight or nine years ago I pleced the winning bid on a computer.......................................... ................
You get the story.

I don't do auction sites. When the time comes I may deal with our own Marketplace. It will be like dealing with friends and neighbors.
I don't do auction sites.

[FlyingPete]

The worst thing is when you sell something in good working order, and they break it and claim that it was broken when they got it, and demand their money back and send you the now worthless goods back!

Puts me off selling anything decent that might get broken, or I say pick up only, and show them it working before they take it away.

Sold my Motorbike to a guy who flew up esspecially from Christchurch a while back, the guy borrowed my helmet to ride back to Christchurch, that was the last I saw of the helmet, at least he paid in cash, so meeting in person is still no guarantee of no hassels.

[Moppie]

I just sold a pile of car parts, and complete but disassembled kit car on Trademe.
All of it was pickup, after payment, and it was all collected from a storage unit some distance from where I live.
Iv purchased a memory card of an online auction, but it was from someone with a LOT of postive feedback, who was selling about 10 other cards at the same time, and was doing it all out of a proper shop I could go visit if after paying for it didn't show up in the post.
Basicly for a while I will only do things localy.

[CyberDyneSystems]

In the early Hay days of computer parts auctions I made out like a freaking bandit! Auction sites like "deal deal.com" "onsale.com" and "Zauction" were full of great deals... at this at a time when PC parts were a lot more expensive.

I used to get enterprise server SCSI hard drives for less than 1/4 what the cost new... laptops for $400.00 (this at a time when the cheapest laptops available were $2K)

With literally hundreds of transactions over the years,. I've never been burned until this recent E-bay thing.