Post your ebay experiences here

[addict]

Well, I figured that every Vendor Experiences forum needs an ebay thread, since a lot of us purchase stuff from there to save money.
I think it'll be helpful for others to know what to expect from different users/vendors on ebay and thus can get better feedback than what ebay provides (80 characters is not nearly enough to say what needs to be said sometimes).

Anyway, without further ado, here's a few of the vendors I've had the pleasure (and displeasure) of dealing with in the past year.

Good Experiences

newenglandreef - Great experience with this seller. The auction was for a refractometer with immediate payment required, but they shipped it out the next day and it arrived 3 days later (Confirmed Priority Mail). I like it when it's fast and easy...

A to T Lamps - Bought an Ushio 10K Halide through them for a great price. The item was double boxed with bubble wrap throughout... UPS could've ran this box over with their truck and not broken the bulb. Shipping was standard 7-day ground.

saltydoggie - Bought some zoas from this guy. Paid on a Saturday and the zoa's went out FedEx Priority Overnight on Monday afternoon. Specimen bags were zip tied and double-bagged. Zoas opened up almost immediately after introduction to the tank. His auctions come up a bit infrequently, but if you see one, snatch it up... the zoas are usually outta sight.

filterdirect - Bought an RO/DI unit from them and it shipped two days later. Arrived in another three days. Unit was solid though it doesn't have see-through canisters. A great bargain RO/DI (I think I paid $119 for a 5-stage 100gpd unit w/ storage tank). Also quick at answering e-mails.

Bad Experiences

ebaeseller - Quite possibly the worst experience I've ever had dealing with anyone on ebay... took over 2 months to get my combined package from him. The worst part is I was expecting timely delivery since I was setting up my new reef and the items (powerheads, heater, skimmer) were vital. I ordered the stuff about a month before I thought I'd need it. The seller also only responded to my inquiries about shipment after repeated e-mail attempts, every time promising the package would ship the following Monday. He's got great prices, but if you want your stuff in a timely manner (and don't want to be lied to in the process), pass this one by...

seatrademarine - While this wasn't a horrible experience, I thought I'd put this in the bad experience section because of one factor... they used 7-day ground shipping... for Live Rock!
When I bought the box of rocks from them it said "Free Shipping" so I figured what the heck... by the time the rock got to me it smelled really bad. Ironically enough, there were 6 hitchhikers in the box that survived their 7-day ordeal, a cerith snail, 4 red-tip hermits and a hairy rock crab (all of them are still alive too).


Well, those are the ones that really stand out in my mind... I've dealt with several others that were 'average' in performance, but I thought I'd just mention the ones that were either 'really good' or 'really bad'.
Go ahead and list your experiences here as well, so we can get a good list going.
Thanks!

[wooddood]

thanks for the info dave.i also bought my ro/di unit off of e-bay and when i got it the canisters where white and in the pics on e-bay they were clear.so i called them and they shipped me clear ones at no charge and i got to keep the white ones too.may want to give em a call and see.i like to see whats goin on inside the filter.

[Curtswearing]

Interesting thread David.

I had a great experience with Acrylicman for acrylic nano tanks (obviously for my mantis shrimp addiction).

I haven't ordered many other items off of EBAY because of all the horror stories my friends have told me. I'm glad to hear that a lot of people have also had good experiences.

[mps9506]

I had good experience with wpsinfo for their ro system, good customer service too.
I've only had one bad ebay experience and that was about 4or 5 years ago from some guy I can't remember, but I purchased an AMD k6-3 processor. Turned out it was already fried when I got it, but I didn't find out until about 2 months after I purchased it because I didn't test it out until I was ready to put the system togther
Mike

[Gina]

Very good to know! Thanks for posting your experiences!

[reefrunner]

I have only used Ebay once and that experience was awesome!!

nis sales-Shipping was quick, support was outstanding, answered my emails in a better than timely manner.

I've got about 5 minutes left on an auction for an RO/DI unit from filterdirect, I'll let you know how that goes if I win, heck even if I don't I'll buy one from their buy it now option, it's only 5 dollars more than my current bid, but if I can save 5 bucks I save 5 bucks

[addict]

Hey, $5 is half of a test kit...
With all the stuff we gotta buy, saving a few bucks here and there is definitely a bonus. I'd hate to think how much the reef upgrade would've cost me if I had paid retail price for everything...