A little warning regarding Buyee.jp

[caspert79]

A while ago I ordered a Mamiya 80mm macro through Buyee.jp, which was according to the listing ´Extreme beauty product!´, ´fully working!´, ´Excellent condition´ and ´It is a very beautiful item that does not feel used!´.

Upon arrival it turned out to have a terrible haze, which resulted in very low contrast images. After contacting Buyee.jp, they were not willing to help, and I decided to open a Paypal case. After all, Buyee offers the service of inspection of the item before shipping and the defect was very obvious. After about two month, Paypal decided in my favour, after me returning the item back to Buyee. Aa a response, Buyee then marked the item as ´unpayed´ and notified me of ending the service if the item remained unpayed.

I understand the difficulty of a proxy buying service to carry responsibility for a correct listing, after all they are not the ones listing the item. On the other hand, they offer an item inspection and on top of that payment services with buyer protection. Take home messages:
- Japanese sellers are not always reliable
- Buyee's inspection service means nothing
- Buyee kicks you off their platform if Paypal decides in your favour, even after returning the item.

[calvin83]

I consider all items are AS-IS when I using a commercial proxy buying service...

[caspert79]

[D1N0]

You can't expect a proxy service that is dealing with hundreds of product categories they are not selling themselves in the first place, to have knowledge of all of them. They just check if the described product is in the box. They have no use for products you return to them and they won't return the item to the seller because they do not want their Yahoo accounts to get a bad reputation. It may be different for shops they partner with, but Yahoo not so much. You win some you loose some.

[visualopsins]

After paying (again) did you get the item (again) from buyee.jp, or are you out money left with nothing?

Buyee.jp just announced:

https://buyee.jp/information/public/list#info_1607

[RokkorDoctor]

Yes, this can be a problem with proxy buying services. Thanks for sharing your experience with buyee.jp; I have not come across them/used them.

As much as some of the members may hate eBay, I have found Japanese sellers listing on eBay to be very reliable in general once whittled down to those where the description of the item matches the requisite plenty detailed images provided on the listing.

In general I only buy items on eBay that have plenty of images of the actual product, including images of the glass in case of lenses, and where the seller has good feedback. eBay listings with too few images of the actual product I generally don't bother with. Reliable sellers provide plenty of images, and I am prepared to pay the slight premium on their listings to cover their efforts in this respect.

When sellers list an item "as new" or as "mint", and the images show clear usage marks, I pass on the item as I then have no confidence at all the seller will describe the state of the optics and/or electronics accurately.

Heavy haze I think should be described as such in the listing.

Moderate/light haze is a difficult flaw to agree on. Some people would hold a lens up to the natural light and consider the lens as clear, whereas others inspect with a bright flashlight and consider the lens to have haze. Personally I would consider the flashlight test to be valid and a lens described as free from haze should pass this test, but optical surfaces and cements do age and a small level of haze in an old lens may be expected.

[caspert79]

[jamaeolus]

In a tangentially related case I ordered an Schneider Jsogon from zzia.berlin which never showed up. I failed to notice in time and by the the time I tried for a refund the 30 day limit from expected delivery had expired. I was unaware that was a thing so that is on me. But during the pandemic many many things did NOT arrive in that time frame. I requested a refund from the seller to no avail.

This is my lens (photo snagged from ebay sale site):

[Alun Thomas]

Buying through proxies can be hard going, but from my location, that's how it goes. About 6 months ago I used a service in Russia to get a few things, a Start camera with lens, a Zenit 3 with 13 blade Helios 44, a Zenit 16 and I forget what else. They 'accidentally' forget to tell everybody they can no longer ship to most western destinations, and only let me know once I tried to do this. (Their postage estimation page still gives options for all destinations. Actually I should have expected such, but their site should also tell you up front). So I ended up having to send it to a second Chinese proxy shipping concern. Even worse, it got held in Chinese customs initially, with no way for me to really resolve the situation, having zero Chinese language proficiency. Fortunately the Chinese company agreed to contact Chinese customs for me and got the package released, then sent it on to me. It certainly didn't work out cheaper...

On arrival, the mirror was broken on the Zenit 16, I have no idea who I would have claimed a refund from. Now in my repair queue...

[alex ph]