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Comment by jhancock | Hacker News Reader

I'm sure most on HN would agree that you get what you pay for in outsourcing and oDesk has little liability. However, in your comparison to eBay, I'm not sure it holds and there may be a lesson here for how online marketplaces evolve. The last 6 purchases I've made through eBay resulted in products delivered that were not as represented. What did I do? Well, the first time, I had about 4 email exchanges with the seller and decided it wasn't worth $30 (what I paid) to deal with ebay or the seller. The subsequent times (all in the last 12 months) I also decided not to deal with it. The result: I only buy on eBay now as a last resort. Its not absurd to expect the marketplace to ensure, within reason, the quality of its sellers.

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> The last 6 purchases I've made through eBay resulted in products delivered that were not as represented.

Wow, really? Six in a row? I've participated in hundreds of transactions through eBay (over the years) and I can only think of three that I was ever dissatisfied didn't meet the description, or that the description didn't reveal things I considered important (and bad). Two of them were transactions under $10, including shipping.

Can I ask what sort of things you were buying, and what sort of costs were involved (one, you said was $30)?

The last 4 were copies of Windows XP. You simply can't buy XP retail anymore and I have clients with old PCs that must be reinstalled. Perhaps software purchases is a corner case. Each time, I chose a different seller, each with a "top seller" reputation. I only purchase items listed as unused original XP SP3. The variations from as advertised were: never as pictured in the ad, no SP3, SP3 on a separate CD (a CD clearly not produced by MS or any other reputable vendor), a product key that had been used, a Dell install disk with key attached from something else.

The first item was for a vintage cocktail shaker. It was listed in mint condition. I bought it for a friend's birthday. I received the shaker: it had no lid to the pour spout. The email exchange went something like this: "I received the shaker, the cap to the pour spout is missing...did you forget to pack it?"..."Cap? It didn't have a cap, I sent everything."..."How can you use this as a shaker if it has no cap?"..."Oh sorry, I know nothing about cocktail shakers, I didn't think to put in my listing that the cap was missing."..."You claim to have been selling antiques for 20 years, how could you not know this? ok, I'd like to return it"..."hmmm...its been past 7 days now, I don't accept returns past 7 days"... This was also a top rated seller with "super duper best seller" comments.

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