Forks Titan Ebay Issues-BEWARE!

[kantuckid]

I'm an experienced high feedback ebay user. I'm ready to buy Titan's UA USA welded skid steer QA pallet forks for my Kioti tracto FEL.
Lately ebays had a bunch of "sellers" posting ads for Titan's products at bargain basement prices, actually most are too good to be true.
Beware! I placed a watch on many of these pallet forks as I was wanting to buy. I have been waiting for Titan to run a sale on the tiem I need.
I had 17 pallet forks in my ebay watch list. Almost simultaneously Titan decided to do a sale on them. I called ebay, did the wait on hold dance (to talk to a Phillipines based ebay agent) all while I had the forks on sale in my cart on Titan's website. Given that I was going to actually be passing through Titan's Memphis area in only a few days from right now, I wanted to see if the "online only sale" meant my warehouse pick up no longer saved enough money to bother stopping, so I was also waiting on a callback from Titan who can be even harder to talk to than ebay.
Meanwhile, my discussion with ebay led to fact that many Chinese sellers on ebay use USA addresses & identities to sell real goods and also fake stuff, like these Titan ads. I turned in 16 separate Chinese fake sellers to ebay who removed them from the website.
Well guess what, during the ebay "good samaritan call" Titan removed my forks at the sale price from my cart while I was doing the world a favor by reporting scams of Titan's own products. They had ran out of them and my cart was empty.
Titan was probably going to see them on ebay? as they are an ebay store seller and told me they have a 3rd party fraud contractor who looks at such activity.
Now I'm waiting again for a Titan sale plus they don't have that product in stock anyway-sold out of the USA UA version of the pallet forks!
Lots of folks bidding on stuff that doesn't exist. I learned the hard way years ago to watch seller backgorunds and make contact with sellers if fishy stuff is present. None of these ebay sellers ahd decent feedback histories, yet many were bidding anyway, go figure?:thumbdown:

 

[EddieWalker]

Ebay seems to have become more and more risky. I'll glance at what's on there, but can almost always find it cheaper somewhere else. Especially when adding shipping.

 

[kantuckid]

I use ebay as one choice among others. Amazon is often higher or lower. No set answer to best prices IMO.
I have items on CL as we speak and it's a zoo out there but remains the single best place to sell stuff and the bad guys know it.
Ebay has mostly good people selling stuff like the rest of the marketplace. Feedback information is easy to read on ebay. Has always had too many "hobby" bidders who think it's a game to bid. I've sold lots of stuff there and there is NO PLACE! to buy certain parts like ebay in the whole wide world.

 

[TractorGuy]

I have decided to avoid any future Titan purchases. 2 out of 3 purchases have been unsatisfactory, missing and wrong parts, and resulted in difficult, drawn out, returns. Their packing and shipping department has serious issues in my opinion. Both returns required paypal disputes to get a refund.

I never say never. The 36" thumb I bought from Titan was an excellent deal and product. Came fast with all the parts and works well.

I purchased a set of clamp on forks from another seller that look just like the forks sold by Titan. They were not advertised or described to BE Titan. They came fast and were neatly packaged. The seller gave me feedback for immediate payment and I reciprocated with giving them positive feedback. I destroyed them pretty quick on my backhoe loader but that was no fault of the seller or the forks. They were simply not intended for the capacity of the loader I stuck them on so they sit in my garage waiting to be welded up and reinforced.

 

[longjohn79]

I purchased my Titan forks via Amazon from Titan with no issues. Shipping was stupid fast for something that size.

 

[kantuckid]

My post had zero to do with any issue I might have with Titan as a company or their products. It was more so about Ebay scams to watch out for a the cute story as to how i lost me sales deal.
The Titan UA pallet forks- those back plates are made in USA and very similar to the Chinese one they also sell- which have a hay fork spear socket that I don't require.
Amazon purchase of Titan might make them money but just like ebay they're the same price on Titan, ebay or Amazon. Plus those other guys suction part of the profit from Titan for the posting. I try to buy direct form most sellers and ebay knows this all too well as they watch closely for direct contacts that don't give their piece of flesh.
Not much that could go missing on a set of pallet forks and backplate? Three parts to the whole thing, you get it or you don't. My two cents...

 

[MESSMAKER]

I buy less and less on E-Bay each year. I can get most of the same things on Amazon and my history with them is fantastic, when you run into some trouble.

 

[kantuckid]

Amazon is supposed to scrutinize their sellers but based on my experience the efforts not real intensive. I've bought lots of stuff both places-ebay & Amazon- as we are rural and shop online more than we would living in a city. They both have their issues based on my actual experience. I do look for "used" deals on Amazon and have mixed results, mostly OK. Poor pkg from Amazons warehouse has been an issue several times.
I also got jilted there on two of those deals they let sellers run to garner business selling stuff for at or below cost then not delivering after payments been made.
Ebay probably wins scam wise as lots more chance to do it there given most anyone can become a seller and do make believe auctions. The world has plenty of scammers so not any one place is a safe buyer place.
Some folks have reverence for car dealers as a safer place to shop, others like me, call them stealers.
Ebay and Amazon are just not the same kind of place to shop if you are a hands on person like me! The only used stuff on Amazon is a returned item, never a used tool , vehicle part or houseware, etc. .

 

[Texasmark]

I've bought 260 items off ebay in the last 2 years. Only 3 of those were a problem for me. In all 3 cases ebay or the seller made corrections as necessary, in my favor, to get the problem resolved maintaining the 5 star rating of the seller. No complaints. On pricing, yes some sellers buy where you are buying and obviously add fees for their time and effort for those who don't do as you did for whatever reason. Their shipping time is hard to beat. Few suppliers of parts I use on this farm can respond as fast.

The Titan forks you mention, are they made by the Titan Tire Co.? I bought a couple of 33x12.5x16.5 Titan turfs recently and just went to my Titan tire dealer who ordered them, got a great below list price and had them shipped free since he had deliveries from them anyway.

 

[anewuser]

Unfortunately, this doesn't really apply to eBay, but it should be good for Amazon:

A website that scrutinizes reviews and comments on Amazon, and a couple other sites, looks for patterns, certain keywords and language to give a product's reviews a "grade". Fakespot helps pick out those fake reviews created by less-than-reputable reviewers. It'd be great if they'd expand to eBay, but for now they only cover Amazon, Yelp, TripAdvisor and the Apple App store.