I think I have the answer..... Ebay got their butt kicked by Amazon is sales several years ago . Ebay decided to restructure their business model. Funny thing is they are doing it by copying Amazon's methods. I have been referring to ebay as Ebayzon for a few years now. If any of you know how Amazon operated from a seller's view 3-5 years ago you will be able to see the changes Ebay has made mimic that to a T.
I too have noticed the innacurate search results and think it is stupid to lead a potential buyer astray from what they are precisely looking for.

Thanks for the heads up. I usually scour the description before I buy anyway, but thanks.
Amazon is always my first place to look, then ebay. Just can't give away money when I don't have to. I'm patient and can wait for shipping.

I know what you mean... Ebay flat out sucks now. I tolerated them before, but no more. Pages and pages of crap I'm not looking for. F them...

yup, Ebay has copied Spamazon-dot-com's irrelevant search engine results and its pretty F'd up frustrating, same as yahell's search engine results vomiting up 3+ million results when you ARE trying to be specific to narrow a search. all I can guess is they are laughing all the way to the bank with "haha look how good we can waste peoples time is money and bandwidth hoping the dummies see something else to buy along the way!" its kinda disgusting stupid.

Let me tell you my most recent screw job on ebay...
I buy a used coffee pot grind and brew for $100. It ships and arrives broken. Broken to the point that it looked like the seller took a hammer to it before shipping. Why would he do that you ask, I'll save that for later. Contact seller and he says no problem ship it back for a refund. I ship it back ups for about $20 so I'm in for $120 now. Seller refuses shipment because it is damaged. I ship it back in the exact same box same packing as he shipped it to me and we both knew it was damaged, the control panel was smashed out of it so it would never work or be repaired. I ask for my refund with easy 100% refund promise. Get told to contact ups. Ups denies claim says it was packed poorly. Maybe it was but it was damaged when I got it and I packed it the way it was packed when shipped to me. I ask seller and he says ask ups, of course by now I'm starting to put thing together. He advertised it as working knowing it didn't. Took pix before he smashes the control panel, send it to me saying it was ok when it shipped which was a lie. Now I get it and it's broke, he gets it back, refuses it as damaged in shipping knowing that I have to fight with shipper for a refund and he is Scott free to keep my money.

I put negative feedback up and ebay pulled it down saying the event was no fault of the seller. I'd bet this scumbag has done this before since he was so accomplished at how to slip it past everyone. I contacted ebay and they ignored me completely. I will never use ebay again. I got completely screwed and the seller sold a known broken POS coffee pot for $100.

Pretty good scam isn't it!

Chris Kruger

I've said it before-I'll say it again: Stop Using ebay, be it for selling or buying. Period. I know it can be difficult, but trust me, it's doable. When you sit down & really think about how little respect they have (actually, I'd call it more like contempt) for their customers, it is a no brainer. Amazon is good, forums like this are great for horse-trading. Ebay-not so much.

I buy everything now on amazon. Great selection, prime rules and so does return policy. Ebay just looks scammy too much for me now

When Iw anted to sell on amazon, they told me no. Screw them now.

Too hard to sell anything now when some other chump gets a cut for your hard work and you take all the risks.

Thanks guys for your posts and useful info & cautions.

I've been fortunate on my ebay purchases (and with selling 2 pins) over the years with no problems, but have not used ebay for 1-1/2 to 2 yrs or so now. I keep hearing more and more scam stories, ebay policy changes, etc.
Scammers (and ebay mgmt.) are ruining it for regular honest folks. I don't feel bad at all for not using ebay in the last yr or so.

I wonder if ebay profits and business activity have been going down in the past year or two, or if more customers are still piling in to buy & sell?

I learned my ebay lesson and it cost me $120. Not cheap but not the end of the world.

ck

sucks hearing all these stories, never had any issues so far but lately ebay has been used for cds/books

Great... I just bought a new mattress off e-bay...went well but then I ordered a comforter set with everything....Hasn't arrived yet. I've spent about a grand buying on e-bay and no bad luck yet. Selling has been OK as well minus one or two scammers. To date nothing has had to go to claims or bad feedback.

I will be more vigilant in reading all the small print for any future dealings.

Thanks for the post/warning.

We were almost in and out of the pinball hobby due to an Amazon purchase. Shortly after getting our first machine my wife and I started looking around for refurbishment parts. There is nothing in our area and Radio Shack is worthless (funny, I remember buying all kinds of electronic bits in Radio Shack back in the day before they became a second-rate cell phone store). Knowing how the scammers are on ebay, and being very new to this hobby, I insisted we stick to the brand name online stores.
On Amazon we found a seller called Transon Amusements LLC. which claimed "Finally..........a complete and comprehensive repair and refresh kit with everything you need!!!!!!!!" (exactly as it reads on Amazon)
The listing of included items was impressive so $88.59 plus $13.99 priority shipping seemed fair, especially with Amazon Buyer Protection.
I expected more. I expected a complete kit. I expected parts that were not bought from the local ace hardware. I expected someone who could count past three.
We ordered on April 25th 2014, expecting "Priority shipping" as advertised. It finally left the sellers double wide trailer house on May 2nd... and got here on the 6th. According to the "money back guarantee", I had 15 days from purchase. That left me with only four days to complain. Neat! Very good planning with the slow shipping.
In the box we got:
Three steel balls... okay, good - We are new to the hobby so I couldn't tell you if they were substandard or not.
A bag of rubber rings... we WILL come back to that.
A home printed copy of the owners manual from the internet pinball machine database. Many pages are shrunk down and illegible. I already have an original copy of the manual and a copy of the PDF file on my computer, so this is trash.
Shooter springs and tip... also good, except the rubber crumbled after a week.
Leg levelers.... These are generic leg tips from a crappy hardware store (4 for $2.00 bargain bin) and do not resemble in any way the originals.
Novus plastic cleaner with a loose top. It either partially leaked out on shipping into the ziplock baggy and evaporated or the bottle was partially used.
Two fuses from an assortment collection for use in cars. My machine takes a variety of SEVEN slow blow fuses, not two ciggy lighter fuses from a 1979 Ford Fairmont station wagon!
Twenty 555 bulbs and three 10 packs of 44 bulbs. Our machine ONLY uses 555 bulbs... and a LOT more than twenty!!! What complete means to this guy is twenty of the right bulbs and three packs of the wrong ones.
Two tin light sockets for 44 bulbs. More garbage.
Two very soft plastic tubes allegedly for solenoids. Trash.
Four business cards with his double wide trailer pictured on it. YAY! This must be the "BONUS GUIDE!!!" as advertised on Amazon because there is nothing else in the box.
Next up... the rubber kit.... I said I would come back to this...
So we get to the rubber kit and we find that Mister Doublewide can't count. Even when he has a photocopy of the playfield showing ALL the rubber rings, with notes written in pen on how many are needed. Two rubber parts are missing.
We did what we could with what we got. After using the machine for roughly two weeks, we noticed that the new rubbers were breaking down and leaving scraps everywhere on the playfield.
I can't stress enough how bad this purchase was. We filed a complaint with Amazon, Transon told us to return the parts, at our expense, for a refund (minus shipping). So either way we'd be out almost $30.00 for a crap order.
We looked at several online sellers, including Big Daddy (paypal only, so there was NO way in hell) and Marco Specialties, which is constantly out of stock on certain bits we'd like to replace.
At this point, I was thinking that this was a bad hobby with no reliable or trustworthy outlets of parts. My wife refused to give up though, and we eventually (and cautiously) ordered from Pinball Life.
When the order arrived, the first thing I said was "So this is what new rubber rings are supposed to look and feel like!!!" We were happy with the purchase for the most part, except for a pair of substandard clear-blue flipper buttons that stick and can't be taken apart to fix them... but what did we expect for $3.00?

I think we need a noob list. All the sellers and retailers that are good and bad, both on ebay and the internet in general. That way we don't end up scaring others out of the hobby before they begin like we almost were.