gliptitude

Hmm. Honestly your comment becomes more intriguing each time I read it and I really wonder what you are committed to. You definitely do not seem to be enjoying yourself. I don't see how the philosophical aspects of my statements constitute a deception or an imposition or a conflict of any kind and I know that some participants besides myself have enjoyed the discussion. I certainly do hope to keep it interesting for others and I think it's pretty impressive that a conversation of this nature has sustained as much participation as it has. A couple people have PM'd me about it. I'm not arguing that "consumer protection is tyrannical" as a blanket statement. I can't tell if you are misrepresenting me on purpose or if that is actually your interpretation. I'm not talking about everything. I'm talking about the things I'm talking about. At least that's my intention. In your vague and insinuating way you seem to be threatening me with peer pressure and some sort of moral reckoning. I'm not sure what kind of person I am but I think it's pretty underhanded for you to make these insinuations. I think it is to my credit and not to my detriment that I have been able to frame such a minor situation in a way that it seemed relevant to other people. Isn't the volume of participation evidence of that? That it is relevant to other people? That it isn't just about my $19? That's not even what it's about to me. Obviously I would be happy for you to avoid buying from me and that's nothing for you to sass me about or expect me to be offended by. My ebay username, if you don't see it on the item page, is staple2559. My name in real life is Jason Dellinger. I don't want to be dealing with people who don't want to be dealing with me. Maybe I need to communicate more clearly to my potential buyers.

It is NOT an inexpensive process. It is a FREE process to the buyer and it is effectively a free process for eBay, provided the sellers have done the math and realized it just doesn't make business sense to stand up for yourself in these disputes. It is only an expense to eBay if the seller wastes their time disputing it, enlisting the intervention of human customer service agents. Otherwise it is merely the software fulfilling its algorithms, which all sellers here, even those who don't seem to agree about the manual writing issue, seem to me to have demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt, have been designed to pigeonhole sellers. It is not a free nor inexpensive process for the seller and it also is not an actual resolution to a dispute. It is an automatic default judgement. The moniker "Resolution Center" is a perceptual deterrent, i.e. only the fear and belief of its existence among the uninitiated has some effect of curbing scammers. Does it make sense that THE ONLY party who ever pays for this process is THE ONLY party who doesn't stand any chance of ever winning these disputes? Do you really have a contrary way of describing that? Is that really a binary dispute to you? The shipping is a significant part of the product, (especially on low cost items).. Obviously eBay agrees on this because they charge a sales commission on whatever you charge the buyer for shipping, just like they do on the listed item itself. In fact I believe it is an identical commission, so there is no capital distinction whatsover between item and shipping. The way my listings have been set up, which is a way I believe I was encouraged and even pressured and yes also tricked into setting them up, I can't even account for the money I lost in this transaction. My personal property will have taken a two week long trip around the country, based on what is really only a CHANCE that John Lis will spend $30, about 19 of which would have been mine after the sum of fees and expenses, but in the end is a $10 or $12 expense to myself instead. .. Of course that $19 I would have netted wasn't all profit because I spent money to acquire these games in the past, (probably on eBay) and can longer account for that amount. Is the $10 or $12 lost a lot of money to me? No not really. But it is over 50% of my expected interest in this transaction. eBay would not have made an investment under those terms. If I re-sell these at the same price and terms in the same market I will have paid to ship these three times. $30 - $3(eBay) - $1(paypal) - $15(absolute minimum 3x shipping, probably more) = $11. That is the maximum I will personally net under the same terms and it is still only a chance. If I fail the second time, my investment has vanished completely, 100% loss, third try would only be a CHANCE to break even, (provided "the market" has correctly determined the value to be $30). I now know that it was a dumb risk on my part and I am not going to be offering these items under the same terms in that market again. Basically I charged atariage prices but I bypassed the atariage seller protections, which for the most part is just the assumption that anyone you deal with here is your peer on some basic level. I think eBay also was previously set up as a community of peers, albeit a much less specialized one (altogether unspecialized), but it has quite decisively moved away from that. The clearest sign of that to me is the progressively declining transparency of the identities of buyers. It is practically anonymous and eBay has changed things to make it feel that way even more than it actually is that way, to the point where the buyers don't even know in their own minds whether or not they are accountable. I am particularly sensitive in this case because they are Vectrex items, which I have a deep and protracted experience with. So I am kind of proned to take it personally when a stranger disregards what I know to be the value of these things, not just monetarily but also in terms of usefulness and the qualities of enlightenment that I know them to contain. I don't see how you can even be in the market for these items and not know that. I believe that this buyer has disregarded me and also that he has disregarded the true value of these items and the service entailed in providing them to him. Having now challenged him and had a public debate and a scrutinizing evaluation in an actual community of peers, including that individual himself, it is now my belief that this person disregarded me without intending to, that this person generally disregards other people and that this person was trained to do this without his knowledge. He was trained to simultaneously have unreasonably high standards and then also have no personal agency in attaining these high standards, expecting to attain them simply by choosing them. He was trained to do this by eBay. Now he is waiting for eBay to tell him what's right. eBay is not an oracle. eBay is a perfect machine for the global devaluation of material goods and services. eBay reduces the value of material in terms of capital, by pitting virtually every merchant on the globe in competition with every other merchant on the globe, to the audience of virtually every potential customer on the globe - instantaneously. The intended absolute authority of value based description and categorization, uniformly searchable on eBay, has led to an unprecedented empowerment of consumers. Coupled with the culture of Free Shipping and Free Returns, it has led to a tyranny of consumer entitlement. eBay is not the sole inventor of this concept but they are one of the biggest contributors to it and have been formative in this outcome.

E X A C T L Y ! Hello? Anybody in there? Yes I heard what you said and I understand your feelings. But your feelings do not dictate the fuc/<ing contract that we have. It is an wholesale principle failure that eBay panders to buyers to the extent that it does and it fundamentally undermines the buyer/seller/eBay relationship. IT IS NOT A GOOD FAITH RELATIONSHIP. YESSSSSS! THE SCALE OF THE THING MATTERS. I am not fucXing Walmart. I am a man. I am not an image of a man. I am not a digital copy of a man selling digital copies of products. I didn't sell you a picture of Vectrex games and I didn't email them to you. There is a material reality to the situation which is being discounted to the point of oblivion. We know how you feel, (let's say at this point hypothetical manual nazi buyer), and we knew how you felt from the beginning. Want to know how I feel? When I receive messages like the intitial return request I received I feel like I am being exposed to a dirty family secret that is really none of my business. I feel like I am being asked to condone this secret. And when I decline to do so and you appeal to eBay, I feel as if you are attributing your family secret to a software glitch. It is complete madness!

Yes the price is relevant don't be ridiculous. It is a commercial transaction.

When I listed these items I didn't know about the writing. I might look for it when I sell manuals in future listings but I really do not consider it common sense in a listing like this and I'd only be doing it to protect against returns. Selling in a lot like this and shipping for free, and selling at the negotiated price of $30, these manuals are going for something like $1.75 each, and the carts for something like $5 each, (1.75x4 + 5x4=27, ... think I was able to ship these for $3?). Those are unbelievable prices for eBay and I maintain that they do not warrant any further inspection than I gave them.

Are you saying the buyer of my four Vectrex games is posting about the transaction on nintendoage?

Hmm. Most of my eBay selling experience is recent and all of my sales have been designated "no returns". It was an option and I chose it. But I learned more clearly how it works when I had a previous return requested. That one too tested my sanity because the item I sold was practically new. In fact based on his complaint and based on my own subsequent verification after I got the item back, I don't think this cartridge had ever been inserted into a console before! (I hadn't known for sure bc I had two identical copies I had originally bought from the homebrew manufacturer, and I didn't specifically test this one for sale or claim to have tested it or consider it necessary). But among the scores of games I've sold, all used, the ONLY one to not work is T H E -O-N-L-Y- new one?!?!? .. So in fact that buyer was properly entitled to a return/refund, eventhough I designated no returns. And although I was hopping mad and in complete disbelief, I can no longer reasonably deny that it is the case. At any rate I observed that buyer's confidence in demanding a return on a no-return listing, and eBay's coercive and intimidating method of enforcing it, to the point where you really have to be a pretty hardened skeptic for it to even occur to you that you have a choice in the matter. And even then it is really not at all reasonable to pursue this option, at least not from a business standpoint. But even in this case, I don't see why I should pay return shipping. And I think I've noticed that some sellers who do accept returns specify that the buyer pays return shipping. I think I may have also noticed that some of these sellers designate other terms for returns, so you can't just return it for any reason. So if all of that is the case and if there really isn't such a thing as "no returns", I might as well accept returns under my own terms and state those terms in my listings. .. Perhaps buyers like johli64 don't even mess with sellers who are better fortified like this and maybe he wouldn't be requesting a return if he was going to have to pay. And then I wouldn't really have anything to argue about or wonder about or be vague about, I can completely eliminate his possible motive to scam me by accepting returns at his expense and refusing outright any refunds without a return. If I charge for shipping can I also designate shipping charges as non-refundable?

I honestly didn't know about the writing when I listed these games. But had I known I'm not sure I would have mentioned it. In retrospect obviously knowing now about the outcome I would have. But to me this is just a lot of loose and incomplete items, and I priced them that way. When a seller provides only ONE single photo of four items, (or as my buyer seems to count it, EIGHT individual items), isn't it reasonable to assume that the condition of these items is unexceptional? In my opinion these carts and manuals are in FANTASTIC condition and I am amazed that something like this can be bought and sold so easily, 35 years later. As clean and unblemished as these manuals are on the outside, I think it is actually pretty amazing to find high scores written on the inside. And yes I am one who thinks it is really cool to find these. .. But I've learned from dealing with collectors not to make bold claims or try to be too competitive when it comes to condition, rarity, authenticity or completeness. It is a whole bizarre psychological thing I don't want to deal with or even witness honestly. I accept that it exists and that there is some obscure and remote purpose for it, and that vintage items are worth that much more to some people based on these metrics. BUT PERFECTION IS NOT AN ENTITLEMENT. When people start leveraging these variables to the point of nickles and dimes it is no longer a civil relationship. If something in reasonably good condition is "worthless" to you and you expect a stranger to spend time and money shipping things to you and taking their products off the market and absorbing all of the risk, then YOU need to be more discriminating in who you do business with and how you make transactions AND YOU PROBABLY NEED TO SPEND MORE MONEY. .. What really psychs me out is that somebody DID specifically ask me about writing in the manuals. I checked and discovered the high scores and replied to that person with that information. Then the next day suddenly I had my first offer on that item. .. I assumed it was the same person but I didn't realize it wasn't until a week and a half later when the buyer got home from vacation and opened his package. To me it seems like an extraordinary set of circumstances and I wonder if it's even real or if I've actually gone insane. Huh? If you are referring to me I use the same screen name on nintendoage and haven't been there in months. I think I even have the same avatar there.

Yes he was explaining how eBay makes it is possible for an overly entitled customer to lord it over a seller, and that this has been a progressive development. That has been my observation too and it is impossible for me not to attribute the experience I am having with this customer in part to a systemic problem in that community. It is not an isolated incident and the way it is set up ENCOURAGES the domineering OCD tendencies of consumers who are prone to that sort of behaviour. I didn't put four antique video games together in a single photo and sell them for half their value expecting that someone wanted to put them in a fuc!<ing museum. It is a commercial transaction. It is a remote and relatively insignificant commercial transaction. It was a commercial transaction that was made CASUALLY by the buyer and with no prior inquiry at all from that person. THAT IS NOT HOW YOU ATTAIN MINT CONDITION ITEMS, unless you are lucky or.. unless you manipulate the fuc!< out of strangers on eBay. YES I'M THE SELLER! This item shipped like a week ago, while the buyer was on vacation apparently. Now my money is on hold. I am being asked to accept a return, PAY to have the items shipped back to me, and give the "buyer" all of his money back. I didn't charge him for shipping in the first place so that is my expense also. THE RISK IS ENTIRELY ON THE SELLER. Ebay is a risk for sellers. EBay isn't a risk for buyers and eBay isn't a risk for eBay. But THE SELLERS ARE THE EBAY CUSTOMERS. They collect their commission from me. Paypal collects their commission from me. I buy the postage from them. When a buyer requests a return the seller is discouraged from refusing. There is a multiple choice array to choose from: refund the buyer, offer partial refund, offer another item, send the buyer a message.. There is no option to decline the buyer's request. It is a coercive system bent on making the takers happy no matter what, like internet pornography, which I guess is what I'm competing with.

Are you aware of the subject of this thread? Did you read the original post and view the item we are discussing? This thread isn't about every single transaction on eBay. It is about this actual transaction that happened and that does not fit your boneheaded description at all. The item we are talking about was under-described, not over-described. Boom?

The archived item listing that I linked says the item sold for $36, which is not the case. It was a Buy it Now at $36 or best offer. The actual sale was $30, still free shipping, accepted best offer. The detailed pictures of the high score tables were provided by the buyer. In addition to the buyer providing the seller with these photos, I have posted them here.

I added photos of the writing to the original post. The reason I conceal my identity is because I am considering directing the other party to this discussion page and I'd like to be able to claim that this is a discussion that is not biased or influenced by my position. Honestly I am completely outraged by the dispute and it is hard for me not to lose my temper. And even after saying that I anticipate some commentators here will still be confused as to which party I am. It blows my mind.

Heh, it is really hard for me to resist participating in the debate. But I can't do it without revealing which party I am. So far it seems like folks are split in their assumptions of which one I am, so I guess it isn't obvious.

I don't think I've indicated whether I am the buyer or seller and I had hoped to keep that unknown for the time being.

link to item page added to original post

If you bought a loose game and manual lot of four "used" Vectrex games on ebay for $30 shipped, would you feel entitled to a refund if the manuals turned out to have high scores written in the high score tables? https://www.ebay.com/itm/272985686145?ssPageName=STRK:MESOX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1561.l2649

Well I switched TVs and now I have color. I even got one of the more reliable 2600 carts to load also. I'm thinking it was an RF interference issue like suggested or just less reliable coax socket between the two TVs. They are both tube TVs and very similar style small ones. The one that was black and white has AV inputs also but the one that is working in color with the console does not have AV inputs. .. I probably will still seek out a more simple RCA to coax adapter like recommended. I think the 2600 functionality is unrelated and that it still doesn't work well and only one game worked so far and that one only eventually. .. I'm not sure Ballblazer is actually a good game but the 3D graphics are pretty smooth and slick to my eye, better than any 3D effects I recall seeing on NES. .. I wouldn't call the sound on this game a great strength but it is less of a handicap than the other games I've tried. .. I thought maybe Desert Falcon would have decent sound too since it is also labeled "super game cartridge", but it sounds pretty sad.

K I don't think I have an adapter like that. Maybe I'll look for one.

Yes stock. Original Atari power supply. RF connection with cable to RF box. I tried two different RF boxes. There is a switch on the back of the console with circle and square symbols. One apparently makes the console tune to channel 3 on the TV and the other to channel 2. I have used one of the RF boxes successfully with a different console and different tv before. I guess I could try a different tv, at least for the color. But I am currently getting color on this tv from a different console with AV connections. .. I did do a decent amount of cleaning before firing this thing up, including alcohol in carts and cart slot. I could try some more though. .. Also the 2600 carts that didn't work on the 7800 all worked fine on my 2600.

I am messing around with a 7800 for the first time, which was handed over to me by a mechanic friend after he found it in a car he bought. It is partially functional but having some problems also. The console boots up 7800 games pretty reliably, but they are all in black and white. I have not been able to get any 2600 games to run. A couple of them for just a fraction of a second flashed their initial screens before disappearing. Are these common problems with common solutions? Are these related problems?

Well I did not make these but they are mine and they were each customized to work differently. This Pong unit is now a pair of VCS paddles: There are two buttons added for the paddle buttons which are the little black ones above the knobs. It was intended to maintain function as a Pong console also but I haven't been able to verify that yet. Then this one was modified to work on Vectrex, including all four Vectrex buttons: The button layout is a strain but I'm really happy with the overall look and finish and that all the buttons were made to fit. The paddle control of Hyperchase is very good and I really think that game must have been programmed with a paddle in mind.

Based on the 90's timeframe, I think the real question is how did the 2600 survive and coexist with the NES. The 2600 previously coexisted with technologically superior consoles and computers for years. But the NES was the first decisively superior console to successfully accomplish the same universal appeal and access as the 2600. It was a huge fad and practically everyone had one. Everything between 2600 and NES could be considered specialized to the average consumer and required an initiation that 2600 and NES didn't. The NES and 2600 were toys that a kid could recognize, as well as females and old people - not just teenage boys.

I do not have the box.

I'm looking for HERO, Montezuma's Revenge and the Game Brain module for 2600. Vecmulti for Vectrex. Always looking for high quality or obscure db9 joysticks. 15 pin gameport PC joysticks are of interest if they are small stick styles, (not big grip flight sticks). On the higher end I'd like a "New" 3DS XL system, which is probably worth more than this joystick but could be combined somehow. I've got a non-New 3DS XL with the Circle Pad Pro XL, some other Atari joysticks, Vectrex stuff...

Famously bad joystick for sale or trade. I'm not sure the value so I'm looking for offers. There are a few for sale on non-U.S. ebay in $60-$100 range, with high shipping costs. I'm not actually sure of the function of this joystick either and could use some direction on that. I can only test that it is partially functional on 2600.