Recently in ebay Category

Marketers just love knowing what we all spend our money on, so that they can formulate better ways of getting us to part with our cash. Some people find this disturbing. Personally I don't really mind. My buying patterns have always been a bit odd anyway, though I'm unlikely to to end up on any watchlists:



XKCD - sheer genius! Pity that there aren't that many (if any) ebay sellers willing to ship to Ireland for free...

I use Firefox both in work and at home, so I'm used to using it on both OSX and Linux (Ubuntu). Since so much of what I do is either centred around email or web based systems, my usage of my browser and a few other tools, is quite important to me. Things that make my life that little bit easier are always welcome.

So which addons do I currently have installed:

• Google toolbar - shows a site's pagerank and gives you access to a few other handy little tools
• Zemanta - a handy tool for bloggers which allows you to easily access images and links based on your post's content. You can also use it to easily link to products on Amazon
• Mozbar - direct access to the Seomoz tools
• Delicious - probably the addon I use most. I spend a lot of my time bookmarking sites, so doing it via a web service like Delicious makes sense
• Alexa sparky - gives you access to Alexa data on any site you're viewing
• Ebay toolbar - if you use ebay as much as I do then this makes it a lot easier to track your current bids (I was trying the AIR desktop, but it was annoying)
• Blacknight domain search - allows you to search for available domains directly from within Firefox

Which Firefox tools / addons are you using?

I took delivery of my Tag Heuer watch earlier today.

Here's a photo:

As I've mentioned before, I really like eBay. The range of items you can find on eBay at any given time is simply amazing. Of course that's also a source of frustration.

I currently own a Swatch watch. I've had it for about 6 years, as I was given it for my birthday by a very lovely Italian girl.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, the watch is showing signs of usage, as I have worn it every single day for the last 6 years. The face of the watch is showing signs of wear and tear, while humidity leads to a "lovely" fogginess on the fascia ie. the seals are pretty much gone.
That the watch has lasted this long is pretty amazing - all of its predecessors met with unhappy ends much faster than it has done, so it shows that buying a reasonably good watch does pay off.

Of course now the time has come to get a replacement. I'd prefer to get a replacement now, while my faithful Swatch is behaving, rather than wait until it dies completely and I'm forced to get a cheap replacement to tide me over.

So what kind of watch should I get?

While I was in Paris a few weeks ago a friend was showing off his Rolex. He'd had it for over 10 years and it was practically new, even though he wears it every single day. The problem with a Rolex is, of course, the price tag. You could easily spend several thousand euro on one and that is not something that I am willing to do.

Other brands that have caught my eye are Tag Heuer and Omega.

While the Tag Heuer pieces seem to cost a lot less than Rolex the prices vary a lot.

My main problem and source of frustration is that I have no idea of how much I should be spending on a timepiece. It's not a question of budget. If I decided to spend 300 or 500 euro on a watch that would last me 10 or 20 years I'd see that as money well spent. If you put it in perspective, of course.

Perusing the listings on eBay I can find fantastic looking Tag Heuer watches going for prices varying from a 2 or 3 hundred euro upwards, but I honestly don't know if that is the correct price to be paying for them.

I'm really outside my "comfort zone"!

This year is turning out to be a bumper year for James Bond fans.

The Ian Fleming centenary has acted as a wonderful catalyst for the likes of Penguin, who are releasing a series of new covers, which are simply gorgeous.

Here's the one from Casino Royale:
It maybe new, but it's got that wonderful 60s retro feel.

The full set of books will be available at the end of May, though they haven't announced if they will be making a box set available yet.

Of course there's also the new Bond film which is set to be released on October 31st.

Earlier this year Royal Mail released a set of stamps to commemorate the centenary, while the Imperial War Museum is holding a really nice exhibition.

Of course the main thing behind Bond was the books, so you could do worse than spend some time acquiring some of the first editions. While you can get some of the first editions for as little as 30 or 40 euro there are some going under the auction hammer next Friday for prices ranging from 500 euro to ten thousand euro. More information is available on the Bloomsbury Auctions' site (you can bid via eBay)

Either there's an upsurge in Amazon phishing emails or the phishers only got my email address recently.

I've had about half a dozen phishing emails today purporting to be from Amazon regarding my "seller" account.

To start with I don't have a seller account.

The other giveaway sign is that although the links are similar to Amazon domains, they aren't Amazon domains.

They all seem to be subdomains of by.ru, which appears to be some sort of free hosting solution based in Russia (I don't speak Russian, so I'm only making an educated guess)

Unfortunately, while Amazon do have a facility for reporting phishing emails it is clearly not aimed at the "casual" end user or anyone who is short of time. It consists of a rather convoluted series of web forms instead of a simple email address.

While the likes of Paypal, Ebay and most of the major financial institutions make it relatively easy for even a novice to report phishing emails Amazon dare to be different.

While they may be getting the reports in from honeypots etc., surely it would make more sense to facilitate end user reports?
Am I missing something?

UPDATE: Over 24 hours later I got a reply from Amazon with the email address to use for reporting phishing emails.
In case anyone else needs it the email address is: stop-spoofing@amazon.com
If you forward phishing emails to that address as an attachment they get sent to their security team.

One of the things that drives me mad is when a "cheap" item has a high shipping price.
You know the scenario I'm sure. Item "costs" about 2 euro, but by the time you pay for shipping it's suddenly 30 euro.

If you're using eBay.com from Ireland there's an option to show the estimated shipping cost as part of the display columns. If I can't see a price or it's simply too high I won't bother bidding.

Now there is a difference between "too high" and simply "insane"

Check this out (click to enlarge):







It's obviously a glitch in their system, as the items' listings show a much saner shipping price.

Don't you just love computers?

eBay Ireland have unveiled their helpline for their "most valued customers" ie. those of us who spend lots of money.

The guys in eBay had told me about this a few weeks ago, but I had been asked not to mention it in public until it was ready for primetime.

It will be interesting to see what kind of support levels they are going to offer via this new support service.

I'll have to try it out to see!  (I currently have a couple of minor issues that I'd like to get resolved)

The frontpage of the main eBay site is probably worth visiting every few days, as they tend to highlight special auctions.

If you're a Scrubs fan then the one they're highlighting at the moment is probably a dream come through - a day on the set of Scrubs.

Current bidding stands at just over $1000 and is open to anyone who can work in the US (that's me out so!)

All proceeds to charity, naturally.