I have been a member of the QXL.com community for over a year now, and would like to share some of my experiences with you so that if you choose to bid in an auction on this site, you know what to expect.
Firstly, I will start by saying that I trust QXL.
I registered, but chose not to include my credit card details first of all, for obvious reasons.
I started by bidding in some smaller auctions, not always successfully at first because I was worried about what would actually happen.
As my confidence grew, I started to tinker around a bit, and use things like "Maximum Bid". This is something where you bid for an item at the price now, but if somebody then bids higher than you, your maximum bid automatically increases to whatever you set it at to try and keep you in front of your competition. This is a very useful, and easy to use feature.
QXL are very quick to send email confirmations of your bid, and if you request it, you can also get SMS messages.
Eventually (after a few attempts) the day came when I won an auction. It's a strange feeling to start with because you don't really know exactly what you have bought, you are just relying on the description given to be accurate.
This is when I realised my mistake. By not registering my credit card in the beginning, I now had to arrange payment with the seller. No big deal really, but after a couple of times, I realised that a.) I now trusted QXL to hold those details safely, and b.) it was much less hassle to let somebody else do the work!
So I registered my payment details and carried on bidding.
I guess you have to take the rough with the smooth. I will be honest, I did have one bad experience where I bid for a digital camera. An excellent buy, and one that surely couldn't be missed. The seller was a business, not an individual, so I thought "It must be safe".
My bid was successful. I contacted the seller, payment was given (this has to be done on trust, before you receive the item), but where was the item. It never materialised. I contacted the seller several times and got words of re-assurance that it was on it's way. Of course, it never arrived!
At this point, I did lose a lot of confidence in auction sites generally, not just QXL.
I contacted the QXL administration team to inform them of this incident, and that seller is now permanently banned from selling on QXL. (Name of seller not provided for obvious reasons, but if you are thinking of bidding for a digital camera on any other sites, and you are worried after what I have said, please email me. I'll be only too happy to tell you the name - I wouldn't want anybody else to fall into the same trap).
QXL also pointed me in the direction of their insurance service to cover such incidents. Unfortunately, this cover only lasts for up to 90 days, so I have left it too long. I will be more aware of this for the future, and will take more care too.
I guess it's safe to say that I will never be fully confident again, but the response I got back from QXL after this incident did help to restore my faith a little, and I have started to place a few bids again.
Things to watch. The reserve price (minimum amount that the seller will accept) isn't always obvious. I recently bid for a PC. An excellent buy. If I wanted to purchase it instantly, I could take the "Buy Now" option for £275. A bargain. However, if I bid for the item through the usual channels, it could be cheaper still. I found out eventually that the seller wanted a minimum bid of £275 to sell anyway, so I may as well have bought straight away!
I feel that I have ended this opinion very negatively. For this reason, I want to finish by saying that I really like QXL, I find the site very easy to use, very friendly and it has an excellent range of products. Unfortunately, I got caught out once. Please don't be put off by my experiences. Contact me if you want any more advice. As an experienced bidder, I am only too happy to help you out.
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I have never heard of this site,to be honest,and I think it was a really lousy thing that happened to you,excellent op,take care,pat.
TheChocolateLady 18.11.2002 16:48
Very nicely done. I'm guessing you've never tried ebay, since if you had, you could have compared the two. From what I can see, there is a much smaller selection here vs ebay.
Advantages: Reaches wide range of potential purchasers, cheap service Disadvantages: Closing the deal isn't always easy - if the purchaser backs out then tough luck
tomc 24.03.2001 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of qxl.com
Nov 18th, 2002
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