Five Mule Team 18's on eBay for $900?!
Not sure why the name was different than the sellers name, but the response came from austin_elliot45 if that means anything. Banning him or them from the forum won't really do anything to prevent the acquisition of future mules. As with the forum knife, it's already hard enough to enforce the limit, and Spyderco can't be expected to go to silly lengths to prevent this. Unfortunately it's just the product of a free market, and honest people are just going to have to deal with the dishonest ones like always. I hope things such as this don't prevent too many people from enjoying their mules, and I really hope it doesn't someday hinder the mule program itself.
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MachSchnell
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Strong-Dog
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I know how you feel, as I absolutely hate PayPal....almost voted worst company in America, if that tells you anything.MachSchnell wrote:He's got six, cause one is listed as a traditional style auction.
As with selling anything on eBay, the fees are outrageous; and if you aren't selling items at a 100% markup, you're just barely making a profit, and sometimes breaking even. These will be eventually split, because who in their right mind would ever buy five at $900? That's $180 a piece with no room for further profit, presumably if someone buys them and wanted to split and resell. Even if he does sell the lot, he'll be paying at least $150 in fees and shipping.
I was going to sell, and listed my spare MT17 and MT18 as a pair/combo. But, to **** if I'm going to grease eBay's greedy palms (I ended the listing without sale.) You have to double the MSRP of any item and then some to offset eBay's 10% fee, PayPal's 3% fee plus $0.30, and shipping and handling fees; all just to make a measly profit, and trash the intended purpose of items like these. And the end purchaser likely won't even use them.
eBay should omit and prohibit knife sales altogether, as I see them as the forerunners for skewing the market and feed into the aspiring "scalpers" thereafter. But that'll never happen, because they must reap quite a lot of profit just from the fees of their total knife sales.
I for one will never sell anything on eBay again, and will try my best to avoid purchasing there. PayPal on the other hand (entity of eBay) will be far harder to ignore and avoid altogether. I can not stand how they'll hold your funds in purgatory when selling, even after the items have been tracked until delivery; and even a couple weeks after they've been received. (they must hold your money in order to receive interest.)
Phew... went on quite a rant there. :p
"For a second, I thought I was dead, but when I heard all the noise I knew they were cops. Only cops talk that way. If they had been wiseguys, I wouldn't have heard a thing. I would've been dead."
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MachSchnell
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TheWeatherman
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MachSchnell
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My guess is that it would make it a little harder. Probably depends on how they work the system, but if they get multiple friends or relatives to order for them, or if they log in multiple times with different account names, then having to do it 6 times vs. 3 times, all the while that the rest of the world is trying to buy the same limited number of knives, the potential scammer might only be able to buy 3 or 4 instead of 6.JNewell wrote:If someone can abuse the system to get six (we know) or nine (we hear) when the limit is two per customer, how on earth would a limit of one per customer change anything at all???
Buying 2 each doesn't seem like that many, but it means that half as many people get to order them. My first mule order was the XHP, and I only bought one because I really didn't need two. I did buy two of the K390's, my intention being to possibly trade the K390 for a past mule that I had missed.
I've been vocal about the scammers in the past, and Sal has said that he doesn't like the practice either. Spyderco is wondering how to address this and they have considered making larger runs so that there would be more to go around. Unfortunately who knows how much demand there will be. The most recent mules have sold at unprecedented levels. I remember when the PM2 sprints might take a week to sell out the preorders, today it would likely be a few hours. OTOH the S90V Manix2 XL took a long time to sell out, maybe hasn't sold out yet.
Delivery Confirmation my friend, delivery confirmation.MachSchnell wrote:Someone should buy them and claim "Items not received" haha, because eBay is a buyers market and utterly disregards the seller. There's plenty of horror stories out there.
Been selling on eBay since 2006, never had problems. One time when I did, I was protected as a seller.
You have to be careful, and the fees have escalated, but theres still some good.
Only a very little. Look, it's not that hard to scam the system, and once you've got the plan running it's just a very little harder to expand it.bdblue wrote:My guess is that it would make it a little harder. Probably depends on how they work the system, but if they get multiple friends or relatives to order for them, or if they log in multiple times with different account names, then having to do it 6 times vs. 3 times, all the while that the rest of the world is trying to buy the same limited number of knives, the potential scammer might only be able to buy 3 or 4 instead of 6.
Buying 2 each doesn't seem like that many, but it means that half as many people get to order them. My first mule order was the XHP, and I only bought one because I really didn't need two. I did buy two of the K390's, my intention being to possibly trade the K390 for a past mule that I had missed.
I've been vocal about the scammers in the past, and Sal has said that he doesn't like the practice either. Spyderco is wondering how to address this and they have considered making larger runs so that there would be more to go around. Unfortunately who knows how much demand there will be. The most recent mules have sold at unprecedented levels. I remember when the PM2 sprints might take a week to sell out the preorders, today it would likely be a few hours. OTOH the S90V Manix2 XL took a long time to sell out, maybe hasn't sold out yet.
The only limit that would stop this kind of stuff is to limit buyers to zero (0) knives each...
It may not stop it, but it will make it harder. Here's an example. You can't have all your friends order two and then resell the extra one to you for flipping on the bay. Or sell them both to you. You need twice as many friends. So it slows things down. And more importantly, it keeps knives out of safes and in the hands of users ...JNewell wrote:If someone can abuse the system to get six (we know) or nine (we hear) when the limit is two per customer, how on earth would a limit of one per customer change anything at all??? The answer is: it won't. If someone is willing to go to the trouble that requires, you are simply not going to stop them with ANY limit.
Gordon