My partner recently had to replace her cellphone and chose the Sharp GX17.
In an effort to help preserve its condition I located a Leather Cover on TradeMe.

The TradeMe ad contained the following text:

RRP $ 59.99
Its Original Krusell and its a Genuine Leather Case.

AVAILABLE for Following Model
SHARP GX15
SHARP GX17
SHARP GX25
SHARP GX29
SHARP GX30

PLEASE EMAIL ME WHICH MODEL DO YOU WANT AFTER YOU WON THE AUCTION!!!

And this was the image posted.

I duly paid the buy-now figure of $14.99 and sent an email off to the trader with the phone model type - and asking for an Account Number.

ez1969 came back with confirmation of postage ($5 from Auckland, Courierpost) and asked for Address, which I supplied. Account number was also supplied. I paid via Internet Banking (We're on the same bank; it was basically instant) and I confirmed ....

This was all pretty normal, and the guy got back to me pretty quickly. All good so far.

Cellphone Case made it to Wellington by the next day, delivered to me at work. Problem was... it was not a 'Krusell' type at all.

As you can see its a typical cellphone cover. Its hard to tell from the photo placed in the ad, but you can recognise the 'Access' brand with context. And for comparison, Google Image Search reveals what the cover should look like:

So in terms of the cover itself:

- It doesn't cover the whole phone. Front and back, yes. The sides get naff all coverage.
- Likewise the Corners at the top, which are obviously at risk of damage. Which was the whole point of getting a cover.
- Not alot of elastic on the sides. They could've done better and didn't - smells like 'economy' manufacture.

Ok. Reasons to be nervous about this trader...

1) Contact Details:

1. The sellers contact details are:
Seller: ez1969 (1331 )
Email: elvis_zhng@yahoo.co.nz

Points to note:
a) Use of a Free Email domain (yahoo.co.nz)
b) 'elvis_zhng'. Sounds awfully like something derived from a Chinese name like 'Zhang'. Or worse, a bastardised English-Chinese Hybrid. (Please note; I'm not racist, but we all know that China is one of the worlds biggest sources of knock-off brands.)

2) Feedback Ratings. Seller has a rating of 1331 as of when I write this, right? But then we check further:

--8<--
1472 positive feedbacks. 1371 are from individual members, and count towards the final rating.
34 neutral feedbacks.
40 negative feedbacks. 39 are from individual members, and count towards the final rating.
--8<--

Hmm. As a percentage the total number of negative feedbacks isnt so big. A lot of trades. The guy has been on Trademe for 2 years, so hes not a 'newbie'.

3) Trader History. A closer look on the guys recent trade history. Today being 16 September, I looked at the feedback for all trades since 1 August. some 420-odd of them! Thats a high rate of trades. And over that period, more than 60 trades were either not completed or resulted in something other than positive feedback. (In fact the exact figures were: 61 trades in complete or resulting in negative feedback. Of those, 44 of them were not completed as recorded by Trademe. That leaves 17 trades where the feedback was either neutral or negative.

Then I start looking at examples:

1drunkskunk (12 ) 12 Sep 2006
ez1969 was the seller
Sold for $9.50 (#67289328)

You are a rip off trader... I bought a charger for my nokia 6680 which was stated in the auction, but apon recieveing it, it didn't charge my phone so I requested a refund as you do-they e-mailed me back asking me to send it back(at my cost)so they could check it? How many times do I have to tell you it doesn't charge my phone I WANT A REFUND

Theres lots more like this.

Anycase being unhappy with the purchase I emailed back explaining that the item was not as described. This took a couple of emails to get through - and it was noted that they had to be prodded after 24 hours with no response, just to acknowledge my complaint.

Initially the offer was 'Will refund, send back to [address]'. When I enquired about the cost of postage the response was 'refund of $14.99 only'. This was unacceptable - It'd cost me $10 total (postage each way) on top of the $15 for the unit itself. All because the thing was mis-represented in auction! I bitched again. I basically had to threaten to dob them in TradeMe; to the Authorities; and to plaster the situation across the Internet for all to read. Plus cite half the stats found in this blog entry. Response this time was 'How about $10 and you keep it'. I agreed to this mainly because of the low value of the thing - and the hope that maybe, given that its brand new, i'll be able to resell it for the difference.

This brings me to

4) Communications. Email conversation made it clear that English may have been a challenge. Also despite the Trademe account having the name 'Evelyn' tied to it, the messages I got were at times signed by 'york'.

More details that add up to something less than desirable in an online trader, really.

So thats the current state of play. But what gets me is that this guy/lady/outfit obviously puts a fair amount of business through Trademe. In percentage terms, 61 'invalid or poor' transactions across 420 or so is like 1-in-7 - or nearly 15%. Nowhere near good enough. Feedback from others indicates that products sold are often relatively poor in manufacture quality - keypads and faceplates that make it hard to use the buttons, etc. Cited infact that some of the gear bought is identical to that able to be purchased at the 2-dollar-shop style stores that have popped up nationwide in large numbers.

So if the point has been missed: On TradeMe, STAY AWAY FROM ez1969 if you know whats good for you. You can get what you want elsewhere.