September 8, 2007

Iscrewya: $119 Ikea Crib, Now $311 On eBay

ikea_crib_scam.jpg

Holy smoked salmon, I thought I'd seen everything. Now I've seen everything PLUS some joker on eBay selling a $119 Ikea Hermelin crib on eBay for $249, plus $62 flatrate shipping.

That's a 260% markup on a crib that just came out a few weeks ago. Which would be a huge ripoff even if the crib wasn't painted Ikea Blue and wasn't named after Sweden's most famous drunken, vagabond translator of Persian literature.

hermelin_on_ikea.jpg


If the pitch was, "Hey, you want an Ikea crib but you don't live near an Ikea?" I'd be fine with it. But the seller--who goes by the handle of bidorbuyitnow--is not even letting on that it's Ikea. It's being sold as "Designer Blue Crib Solid Wood Modern Infant Baby Luxury" and "Brand new high-quality Designer crib in a beautiful blue shade."

Even if he'd just put "price includes $192 Chump Tax" on there somewhere, I'd be fine with it. Because that is what you are paying. Other than that, great-looking crib.

Designer Blue [sic] Crib Solid Wood Modern Infant Baby Luxury, $249+62 s/h from bidorbuyitnow [ebay]
NEW - Hermelin Crib, blue, $119 [ikea.com]
Just 6 weeks ago: Hermelin: Sweet, Ikea-colored crib--from Ikea

[update: there's a choice email exchange between a potential bidder and the seller, followed by a comment by the seller. So there's no need to notify him of this post or that some people know where he got his crib; he most definitely already knows. -ed.]

10 Comments

Yep, Barnum was right. There is a fool born every minute. Thank goodness that ebay is around to prove this a hundred years later.

Great catch.

My email to this guy:
Question for item #190150834310 - Designer Blue Crib Solid Wood Modern Infant Baby Luxury Received: Sep-08-07
From: babybedu Expires: Oct-08-07
To: bidorbuyitnow
Item ID: 190150834310


Dear bidorbuyitnow,

Does not IKEA sell this for $119? Does yours change the baby
automatically? Or are you just trying to rip people off?!
Shame!



- babybedu

The response:
Dear babybedu,
Wow, you must be one of those bitchy, nosey rejects. FYI people sell things on eBay to make a profits too. Get a life.


- bidorbuyitnow

Classic.

I'm sure, somewhere in the fineprint, you'll probably discover he's really only selling a picture of the crib...

[that would explain the shipping charges. -ed.]

Why are you sending people over to message me with harrasing comments?! People sell things on eBay to make a profit too. Plus the crib was purchased for $149 plus tax. I placed a BIN price of $249. So minus the about $30 or so eBay and PayPal fees then I'd make about $70 profit, that's if someone actually pays full price.. but most people will send an offer first and I would accept anything over $200. And the shipping price was calculated by weight and similar sellers on eBay. I'm only looking to make a $50 profit, not a gazillion like you seem to suggest. And if people keep sending me harrasing messages because of your post then I'll send you harrassing msg too. I suggest you delete this blog. Thank You

[Obviously, anyone can see that I am not sending anyone to comment on you. I publish links to all kinds of eBay auctions, not just total scams like yours. But when something so obvious--that has been covered very recently on this site--comes up for sale on eBay, you can't be surprised if new parents will take note of it. I don't care how much your profit is; I wrote about the cost to the buyer, not the profit to the seller. And the fact is, that with your BIN price--which you actually raised--and shipping, the crib costs 2.6x more than it costs to buy it in the store. For a buyer, that's ridiculous, but if they decide to do that, fine. Not my business.

BUT the thing that I found so unacceptably misleading is the misrepresentation of the crib itself as an Ikea product. You have a new Ikea crib for sale? Call it what it is and charge what you want. But with something so obviously Ikea, don't get all pissed if someone recognizes it. -ed.]

"I suggest you delete this blog"? Priceless. That comment is the new marker of internet crazy; the woman who sells the creepy photoshop versions of your 3-year-old as a pageant winner/porn star runs around demanding the same thing.

[link? -ed.]

the kid and I just got back from Ikea. The crib's still there, still blue, and still $119. I had half a mind to buy one, and turn around and put it on eBay for $119.

Crazy Doll Lady vs. Something Awful

[what a coincidence, I made fun of a pageant photo retouching website, too! They just up and disappeared, though, go figure. -ed.]

I've seen a fair amount of people reselling things from warehouse clubs, at higher prices; similar to this situation. I suppose it could make you some money, if most of your buyers foolishly don't compare prices, but I wonder if the time spent really makes a decent wage for the sellers. They certainly can get strident about their "business."

This finally arrived at the IKEA in Emeryville (SF Bay Area). I was pretty disappointed in the fact that the top of the platform that the mattress sits on is not painted blue, but is exposed fiber board color kind of a cardboard grey.

Since there's a bit of space around the mattress you end up seeing plenty of the unpainted fiberboard. This is typical of how IKEA does it 'close but no cigar.' I suppose you could paint it either trying to match the blue, or going with a white, but this is what often irks me about IKEA. My house is loaded with the stuff, but sometimes you wonder how they choose the details they opt to skip.

My 2 cents.

I'm not sure how you figure this is a scam. The sum total of everything you own cost about $8.57 to manufacture in China. Were you scammed into buying it all at prices marked up a gazillion percent. By the time this poor guy pays for gas to get to ikea and back home and then drives to the post office and back he's going to have $40 dollars invested in gasoline. Not to mention he probably hasn't charged enough for shipping because he's going to get nailed at the post office for shipping a package that won't fit on their conveyer belts. Ikea charges rediculous shipping fees like $250 for items like this. That's assuming they'll ship it at all because they ship only a tiny percentage of the items they sell. In fact they have quite a few items for sale that you won't even be able to see unless you walk into one of their stores. Which is why several thousand people who live near an Ikea store do exactly what this guy is doing. Only they don't do it for long because they quickly realize that from start to finish, after listing on ebay and answering questions like yours and dealing with payment issues and shipping and so on, they end up making about four dollars an hour for their efforts. So why don't leave him alone and harass the guy that sold you a $12 computer made by Chinese prisoners for a thousand dollars.

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