Lbforever, I have no idea why you keep refering to me as direct567 in your reply. I do once in a while buy hard to find items on e bay however do not sell items due to issues such as high commission for e bay, hastle of shipping items only to have buyer complain and perfer to sell items I may have at the annual neighborhood rummage sale. I noticed in your reply your demeanor comes across best described as, angry, paranoid, and defensive. With you be a seller of items as you indicated that would be a extreme concern for any customer raising red flags from here to the moon. Another concern reguarding your reply is your feeling about e bay members trying to compete to sell items, however if your a seller of older lawn boy mowers just as omcjunkie wouldn't that make you 2 compete with eachother and not act like your brothers or best friends the way you stand up for him, especially considering the 2 members apears to live hundreds of miles apart???? As for myself I worked in the field of insurance fraud investigation for years and far prior to use of gps devices or hidden cameras and honestly quite disapointing what i have come across incuding people making false claims of cars damaged by a huricane until I found out their credit card was used out of state durring the time proving they were on vacation with the vehicle in question and claim is canceled in no time. My point is people who try to come across as defensive for no reason, or paranoid or despratly trying to change the focus of the subject often indicate the inside of the book does not match the cover. I also have looked at the profile for direct567 and his feedback seems typical for the time hes has the account and apears honest dispite not seeing alot of items for sale recently. The profile for omcjunkie does raise a red flag being within the past few months hes feedbacks gone up like wildfire and nearly all private. As I mentioned before private on e bay creates a honesty concern for all since buyers feel the seller has issues to hide. Also I noticed omcjunkie has another lawn boy for sale however this one he mentioned has a green shroud repainted yellow with painted decals. I give him credit for cleaning up his act a little in the honesty department however I wonder how he could paint the inside of the tank and make is resistant to fuel? My overall intent of starting this message was concern of bidding prices and procedures. If someone wants to pay $500 for a lawn boy with repainted cover and not recomended to be used for intended purpose thats fine. I have absolutly no problem with direct567 or many other e bay members who do a general clean up, paint touch up and mechanicly service of a mower then sell also which seems to be more typcial on ebay or local ads. Honestly id rather spend $250 with shipping for a mower thats fully functional and serviced then spend $500 with shipping for one that looks great but paint bubbles and flakes when put into service. Again i understand everyone has their own point of views on everything in life and respect that. I personaly only drive american cars all my life going back to the AMC days, my son in law eat lives and breaths toyotas, while my neighbor uses his motorcycle as much as possible. 3 differnt point of views but none of us argue or insult who is better then who. As lbforever indicated there is competion in any item or service you may be intrested in so pays to shop around and if the seller comes across as less then friendly then look elsewhere. Best example is when I had the roof on my rental property replaced last year I had 4 estimates and timed them all the same evening half hour apart for each apointment that way when one contractor was finishing the estimate the next guy was pulling in my driveway. It crated alot of evil stares but trust me I got a steal of a deal for being informed and aggressive consumer.

Stress: My husband uses Sta-bl in the lawn tractor, mowers and his chain saws and I think he adds something to the gas tank when he pulls the battery out of his steel mistress and puts it up on blocks for the winter, but the generators are kept ready for use year round and run up monthly, so I don't know if he uses it in them or not. But now I'm curious, so will have to ask. My father-in-law took the engine put of an old Case and used it as a generator. It was an amazing Rube Goldberg sort of contraption and made enough noise to wake the dead and had to be started with a hand crank, but produced enough electric power to run a 40 stall milking parlor, with enough left over to operate the lights and the cooler. It ran whenever he needed it for over 50 years. The cows were smart enough to get used to the racket and it didn't bother them but the hens stopped laying for days after every power outage. My mother-in-law used to say that it took a power outtage for her to get the makings for chicken soup. LOL!

Several times I've been beat out at auctions, and I think it's the sniping software that does it. I don't have that type of software and it annoys me (BIGTIME!) when I get beat out of an auction by someone using it. I'm one that if I really want an item, I'll sit at the computer when it's close to the ending. I know I'm being sniped when I continually up my bid and keep being outbid immediately, especially :02 from the end of the auction. If anything frustrates me about eBay these days, it's that software. I'm sure that for those that use this software, it's a blessing - particularly for auctions that end in the wee hours of the morning. But for me, constantly on the losing end, it's not. I'd like to see them do away with it myself. When I sell, I rarely use a tracking service, I ship mostly usps priority. When I ship with USPS I usually pay the 65 cents to have the web tracking put on it. For the cost, it's a decent service. As a seller, you are waiting for basically two things. One, that the buyer received the item in a timely fashion. Unless you keep nudging them via email, you don't know.** Two, that they are satisfied, happy, or at least, know they got what they bid on. Again, you only get this through feedback. As a buyer, you are doing feedback on how speedily your seller got your item to you, and on whether or not that item was as described. To my mind, the tranaction is not complete until the item has been received by buyer and the buyer is either satisfied, or we have taken care of whatever issue is in the works. How you handle the 'transaction gone wrong' is a definite determination of what feedback is deserved, and again, that determination is made when both parties see the deal as done. Thanks for posting your view. I'm pretty much a realistic buyer with shipping. I pay attention to where the item is coming from and know that something on the West coast takes a long time to ship. If something gets here in a week I'm happy :) I know that not everyone thinks like this, so I can see where you are coming from. As a buyer, I still feel that the seller should give me feedback 1st since I bought the item & paid on time. If sellers are fearful of negative feedback, it can always be retracted. I agree. They should make sure it becomes the rule for sellers AND buyers. If you're going to claim it's broken, you should have to send pictures to PROVE it's broken before you get a refund for the buyer, and before you can cancel a transaction if you're the seller. I agree and think it's a great idea. With the Barbie we got, I took pictures of everything and uploaded them, sent a link to the seller; he could care less; stopped communicating with us. We even tried contacting ebay & fair trade. On an item that cost over $250, it hurt pretty bad to have to make the decision to not send it back to the seller & tie our money up. I've also been seeing cases where the buyer claims the item was sent to the wrong address. Over the years, I've have a number of buyers who wrote demanding a refund and/or another item. I've even ran across one "gentleman" who was using his ex girlfriend's ebay account, -and her checks- to purchase "gifts" for his "sister" halfway across the country. Uh huh. He was livid when the item was delivered to the ex-girlfriends (the address listed on the account -and- the checks), and I refused to send him another, but oh well. Even though he changed the "mail to" address a couple of days after the item was delivered (apparently when he realized he wasn't getting it), Ebay backed me up on that one, no problem. I hope she changed her passwords!

lukiirish - It truly is disturbing. I think the reason prosecutions fail (read: don't happen at all) in these scams is because the people are beyond the reach of U.S. jurisdiction. Technology is such that these people can set up (or more likely clone) U.S. telephone numbers, email addresses, etc., so people believe they are speaking to someone in the United States, but they are actually speaking to someone 5000 miles away, where the costs and logistics of bringing them to the US for prosecution are prohibitive. The crooks know there is zero risk of prosecution, which is why they are so bold. I wanted to state more clearly what I alluded to in an earlier post: It is IMPERATIVE that you learn how to conduct legitimate transactions over the internet before you buy or fall victim to a scam. In my experience, eBay and credit card companies are generous with their protection policies, but you have to conduct the transaction within the company's terms of service, in order to receive the protections. For eBay, that means setting up your account, enrolling your method of payment with PayPal, conducting the transaction ENTIRELY within eBay's borders, and knowing the timeline and process for filing a claim should something go wrong. You cannot conduct any portion of the transaction outside of eBay's domain (PayPal is a part of eBay). If you follow these rules you WILL be protected if the worst should happen. Finally, do some research on who you're buying from before you contact them or place a bid. You want to look for a seller who has a lengthy history on eBay and a perfect customer satisfaction score. I personally will not bid on anything unless the seller has been on eBay for 2+ years and has a 100% feedback rating. Keep an eye out, too, for sellers who have only been on eBay for a short time but have dozens of excellent feedback in that short period of time. That is a tell-tell sign that the feedback is manufactured to set up the confidence game. I know this is of little use to the OP, but I hope it helps someone else avoid being taken advantage of in the future.