eBay - Where daft people do their business

Being shrewd business men, we at TGS like to find a bargain, as I'm sure we all do. What better place to grab a low price bit of retro kit than eBay?

eBay bargain hunting takes a lot more skill than simply entering your search desires, in an ideal world it would be as easy as popping in what you want, but if you let the user dictate their sale item then you will get some odd (to say the least) results.

Take for example this first gorgeous offering from a seller in West Thurrock, Essex:

Title: Sega Game Gear Came (No Box)

Description: THIS IS A GREAT GAME FOR THE SEGA GAME GEAR, BUT UNFORTUNATELY I AM EPILEPTIC AND THE SCREEN ON THE GAME FLASHES TO MUCH FOR ME TO PLAY THE GAME

This carries on for two more paragraphs of painful, shouty reading - yet I did read on, why? Because there had thus far been no mention of what fit inducing beauty of a game was actually being sold.

We don't use eBay to check on the ailments and quirks of it's users, we go on eBay to purchase and sell and perhaps do a touch of research. This user simply got so wrapped up in their sob story they forgot what their main objective was - to sell an unwanted Sega Game Gear game.

Our next offering from a seller we actually snapped up for a stupidly low price - which quite frankly is all the seller deserved after this amazingly bad auction description:

i have a sega game gear as you can see from pitcher it works iv for it running on batters that ar not in cluded it hays pete sampras tennis game with it it has no charger so selling as spare or repair thanks for looking please check out my other items and i have the right to end this auction

Okay, now breathe in!

Where to start on that fantastical journey into everything which is wrong with eBay?

I was hooked at word 12 - 'pitcher'. I can understand certain people have language issues, some have dyslexia but that is no excuse for this road kill of a paragraph. 

I once ran an internet forum where one of our top users was a dyslexic and although he did make many mistakes these mistakes were very obvious ones which were understandable. You could also tell in his posts that he'd made a proper effort, trying to use capital letters where they should be used etc. The above is simply a lack of care, education and sense - put simply, this seller deserved to receive little money from their item.

My next offering comes thanks to the omission of one letter in the auction title. Hilarity ensues.

Yep - a Sega Satan game.

The above shows why eBay can be such a tricky customer - people just don't care enough to spend two whole minutes reading their auction through before hitting the submit button. 

Okay, so you might come across a gem of an auction which no one else has seen as a smart buyer, but think of all the items you desperately wanted which you couldn't find which may have slipped on past you without you even realising?

No one on eBay seems to be able to spell 'Nintendo', so if you are looking for a classic peripheral, or perhaps a game of untold rarity, just type into your search box the oddest spelling of Nintendo possible - You will find something.

So that rounds up our very quick look into the very special world of the eBay retro gamer.

If you have seen anything worse, drop us a comment below or send an email to thegamesshed@gmail.com

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