Hi All, I've bought from Aleya garden a few times would like to add my experience. I have enjoyed dealing with this guy and 'Shady' is the last word I'd use to describe him. I've ordered established rooted plants and unrooted cuttings and am extremely pleased with my purchases and the service I've received. All my shipments arrived in about 4 days (at very reasonable cost), were well packed, and communication was friendly and plentiful. I always put mine into intensive care when they arrive and have pretty good results. I've had 100% success with the cuttings, and about 90% with rooted plants. He replaced the 10% that died with cuttings too - I'm more than happy with that. Remember that the plants travel a long way and suffer a great deal of stress, so you need to take great care of them. My experience tells me that unrooted cuttings are the way to go - I know not everyone agrees with this, but it works for me! Finally, I also sell plants online as a hobby (within the EU) and this would be a great opportunity for me to shoot a potential competitor down, but I genuinely feel he's done a great job with me, and I am pleased I've taken the time to tell you all. Molly (Molly's Tropical Plants)

There are some cautions to buying on eBay -- but there are also some real steals available on-line. Some of the tricks I use to tell them apart: -- The most popular name brands generally don't go for next to nothing on eBay. For example, you will not find a *genuine* Louis Vuitton anything on eBay for a 'steal' of a price -- but LOTS of knock-offs. Anything 'Tiffany' or 'Cartier' -- either super-expensive or fake. Name brands that are less popular, but perhaps of equally high quality, often sell for pennies on the dollar. For example, I bought several 'very lightly used' Mark Cross leather handbags for next to nothing. Just not a name brand that lots of people care about -- so great quality for the money. -- Look for 'wiggle words'. Silver-tone tells you it's fake; Sterling tells you it's not. Silver is a wiggle word. Imagine protesting that something isn't genuine silver, and the seller asking you "Well, what color IS IT then?"... It COULD be a careless error if the seller is inexperienced, but probably not. (Did you catch the Kitchen post about 'wood-grain' interior? -- Wiggle word!) -- Assume the quality of any non-name-brand product is no better than 'Wal-Mart'. It might be; but it might not be. A poor photo could be an inexperienced seller, but often, it's done to conceal defects. -- Look at the seller's other items. Do they sell second-hand stuff? Lots of similar items? Are they a retailer in disguise? Clearance house? Just cleaning out the closets? (Great deals from closet-cleaners.) -- Read their feedback -- especially the negatives and neutrals. Don't just look at the scores. Read the feedback critically for 'lukewarm' positives. Words like "good value" in a positive feedback note generally mean 'low quality, but low price.' Watch for "Feedback mutually withdrawn" -- that's a sign of a nasty seller who leaves retalliatory feedback for dissatisfied buyers. -- Look carefully for the shipping charges and factor them in. For lots of items, the auction price is almost a non-issue because all of the buyer's costs are in the shipping. If you're near a big city and restrict your search to items near you, you can eliminate many of the shipping charges and grab up some real bargains. -- Yes, the prices often go up dramatically in the last few seconds. The eBay pros often use 'Snipe' software to enter their bids during the last few seconds of an auction. eBay tries to tell you it doesn't matter and that there's no point in doing that because eBay's own systems don't bid more than necessary -- but really there can be a big advantage to sniping. (Sometimes there isn't.) Sniping software can keep you from acting impulsively. Also, it can keep the item from 'price-creeping' during the last few hours as several bidders outbid each-other 50 cents at a time. (You can't keep others from doing it without you, but you can avoid starting a bid-creep yourself.) Plus, you can often beat out inexperienced buyers who think a $2 increment during the last 30 seconds will win an item. Ooops - $1 more. Now $2 more -- oh no! You just enter your one real 'snipe' bid way ahead of time, and it only hits 5 seconds before close when it's too late for anyone else to try to top it. If you had entered your maximum bid on eBay days in advance, and someone else had done the same -- then they decided they were willing to go just $1 higher --- then you've lost it. -- Don't assume it's always cheaper on eBay than it is elsewhere. It *usually* is, but sometimes not. A good friend of mine asked me to help her buy 4-day multi-park Disney tickets on eBay. We were shocked at the consistently high prices! So we checked Disney's authorized site and found the prices to actually be lower. Seriously. So she bought 7-day tickets, then resold the unused 4-day portions, recouping 70% of her money. Can you tell I love eBay?

Susan, we are looking at a 1900-ish farm house that is for sale to be moved. Someone bought it from a house mover about 3 years ago, only to find out that due to deed restrictions where he lives, he can't move it. So, it is still sitting on the mover's lot. The mover wants it off...it is taking up a lot of space and the longer it sits, the more it is deteriorating...having gone through a hurricane this year and is partially standing open. We have cash and have made an offer on it. He wants more, but I don't think anyone will pay his price. One guy wants it, but doesn't have the money and wanted to get a bank to finance it. I don't believe any bank will touch it. The moving has already been paid on it, and it is just 12 miles from where we live. So, if we get the house...I will use them in there. I have collected old doors and cupboards, windows, and all kinds of things for years. If we don't get the old house, we will build a new house and make it as much like an old one as possible, and use them in there.

I've noticed a big decline in the kinds of things I am interested in on ebay over the past several years. I joined in 1998 or so and regularly bought and sold for years. I loved the whole "worldwide garage sale" concept - it was like heaven to me. I bought everything from furniture (my bed! a huge armoire!) to antiques to you-name-it. I also turned around and sold stuff that I bought at yard sales and flea markets that didn't work out like I had planned. I was also selling my kids outgrown clothing there for a while and making a ton of money off it. But ever since they bought paypal and jacked up the fees maybe 3 years ago, I stopped selling on ebay - it's simply not worth it to me -- the time it takes to photograph and list the items, the hassle of shipping, the risk of bad feedback, and the huge cut that ebay takes -- for an item that sells for just a couple dollars, it doesn't make sense. And I'm guessing that a lot of small sellers feel the same way, which is why there's been such a decline in the number of "flea-markety" unique vintage items. I rarely bother to even look there anymore, as if I do find something I like the price and/or shipping charge is going to be jacked up to cover the fees. It's such a shame, because ebay was such a guilty pleasure for me for so many years, and I do miss it a lot. Now that I've said that, I will admit that I've been on an ebay binge this week (after not buying anything there for probably a year!). My son wants a specific list of discontinued Thomas wooden trains for his 6th birthday next week and ebay is still my only resource to find stuff like that. So I guess it's still good for certain things. Also, I have accumulated a few things that I think I may want to sell on ebay -- I don't think CL will be the best market for them -- they're esoteric collectibles (again, Thomas train related) that will probably go for more money if I find the right buyer, and the odds of that buyer being located here and reading my Craigslist are probably pretty slim. So can someone explain to me how the changes made to the feedback can hurt sellers? Is it true that sellers can't leave negative feedback for buyers anymore? How is that even possible? How do you keep people from scamming you????