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"Babylon 5" - Will there be a price drop? (1 Viewer)

Joey Gunz

Second Unit
Joined
Feb 26, 2003
Messages
298
$80 per season is a little steep for me. Since some of the Star Trek and X-Files season set DVDs dropped from $100 to $50 and under recently, I was wondering if there were any similar plans for the "Babylon 5" season sets. :)
 

danDo

Agent
Joined
Jan 16, 2006
Messages
47
You probably already do this, but keep an eye on ebay. I bought season 1 and 2 new for ~$50 each(new), season 3 for $19 used, and I just got season 4 and 5 for $20 each used. All are original R1 DVD sets from people who were just clearing out collections or their "junk".
 

Joey Gunz

Second Unit
Joined
Feb 26, 2003
Messages
298



I just checked and saw some pretty good deals for "new" and "unopen" sets. I'm not really into buying used DVDs though, but I would look into it if I feel that there's a deal too good to pass up. Thanks for the suggestion. :)
 

Katherine_K

Second Unit
Joined
Jul 8, 2005
Messages
456
Another consideration is Amazon's used market... though you have to be very careful in reading the feedback of the sellers and description if you care about making sure you get legit Region 1 sets.
 

danDo

Agent
Joined
Jan 16, 2006
Messages
47
I never said it was junk... just descriptions I have seen. One man's junk is anothers cheaply bough treasure.

Joey, I know what you mean about wanting new/unopened. Unfortunatly, I have had problems with those disks more than used ones, usually from being loose in the packaging and ending all scraped up. I also know what you mean about not passing up a deal if it is too good... the same guy who had to clear out his babylon 5 DVDs also sold me Buffy season 2-7 for $20 each so I definatly can't complain. It also came around at a very good time. I had been contemplating getting the "ships from asia" version of those seasons because the "normal ebay" or, heaven forbid, full price is a killer.

Good luck in your hunt.
 

Mark Talmadge

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jul 21, 2005
Messages
2,379
I can't believe you guys consider eBay, an Auction website, a leader in judging price drops. COnsidering the fact that over 75% of the DVD's sold on their site are bootleg copies imported from Asia. Not only that but 30% of the sellers on eBay defraud potential sellers and rip them off.

eBay is just a huge scam by its users who attempt to defraud buyers on a daily basis and eBay does nothing to police its own auctions.

I would look at asking Warner Brothers about this issue.
 

danDo

Agent
Joined
Jan 16, 2006
Messages
47
I can't believe you seriously think we are talking about ebay as a barometer for judging anything retail. It is the same thing as going to garage sales and finding a good deal on something you want.

Exactly where are you getting your stats? I can't really comment on the 75% dvds sold since I am relativly new to buying DVDs on ebay, but I have over 1400 buying and selling transactions on ebay with exactly 2 not going well. One where someone tried to rip me when I bought and one where I was selling. Everyone's experience is different, but I think your numbers may be a bit biased.

The funny thing is, if Warner Brothers really gave a crap about any issues, they could have all auctions pulled. A gaming company I use to volunteer for had ebay pull hundrerds of auctions that were not legitimate in regards to their product.
 

Peter Overduin

Supporting Actor
Joined
Jun 30, 1997
Messages
776
B5 should never come down in price; it should only go up to ensure that only the truly enlightened - aka: those who recognize it as unarguably the greatest TV science fiction ever made - purchase it and revel in amazement at its complexity, consistency and brilliance over a a 5 year arch!

Get a loan and buy it new...now! I'm sure I am still paying for it on my 18.9% credit card hehe.

:)
 

Katherine_K

Second Unit
Joined
Jul 8, 2005
Messages
456
Mark,

I have to disagree with you. Your figures sound a little high, and with a little common sense and checking a seller's feedback you can avoid the "ships from Asia" bootleg market.

Now I'll admit that sorting the wheat from the chaff isn't always easy, but I bought X-Files sets on ebay, and some Homicide and Profiler sets where I thought the sets were priced higher than I was willing to pay.
 

Mark Talmadge

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jul 21, 2005
Messages
2,379
Really? Just do a simple search for any title, anime, x-files, star trek and other titles and you'll find a large variety of other titles. Well over 80% of the auctions that I saw were imported products from Asia ... not Japan, Asia such as China, Hong Kong and other areas of Asia where bootleg copies are prevailing from.

Also, over 75% of the intended auctions that I had been interested in included sellers which had over 100-200 responses of Negative Feedback. That's way too many and indicates everything from items not received to shipping packages taking too long to ship items despite buyers paying for shipping serves to nget their packages within a week.

Also, I read complaints against eBay's Paypal service where one seller had his account, over $13,000 worth of funds froze because Paypal had been insituting frozen accounts among eBay sellers and buyers. Check out this site for more information:

http://paypalsucks.com/

I had been ripped off by one ebayer and I threatened another ebay by turning them over to Federl authorities because a second ebayer had taken two months to send an item to me that I had bought. Just do a search and check out the feedback and you'll see what I'm talking about.
 

oscar_merkx

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Apr 15, 2002
Messages
7,626
Hi

Got all 5 seasons for nada. Collected enough over a year thru Ipoints.co.uk to watch them

Cheers

Oscar
 

Jimmy M

Second Unit
Joined
Feb 3, 2001
Messages
309
Gee Mark, do you really think a website called "PaypalSucks" is going to have anything good to say about it?

Jimmy!
 

Mark Talmadge

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jul 21, 2005
Messages
2,379
Just read some of the posts and some of the information about lawsuits against Paypal that have been won.

I collect a ton of authentic anime DVD's, Region 1 DVD's and I have found some really great deals on eBay. However, I have discovered that there are over 30 different sellers on eBay who are selling "FREE FANSUBS" of various anime shows on eBay and I went on their forums and posted that I was going to start keeping a detailed list of these sellers and post them on my site. eBay immediately told me that I was wrong for posting that and removed my messages. While I understand that they have this right eBay does nothing to eliminate this practice.

These fansubs are free to download but they create professional DVD packaging from images found online and pass them off as $20 DVD sets. Not only that but I threatened to turn their names over to those groups selling these DVD's and eBay got very offended over what I intended to do.

I don't want to turn this into an anti-eBay topic but you need to understand that bootleg and piracy of eBay's DVD sellers chew up a major portion of their business and that they do nothing to combat this which is why I'm warning everyone against using eBay as a qualified source of national DVD Pricing.
 

danDo

Agent
Joined
Jan 16, 2006
Messages
47
Once again, I don't think I saw anyone using ebay as a source of national DVD pricing, why do you keep claiming this is in the discussion?

None of the "ships from..." auctions I have looked at had an ebayer with 200+ negative feedbacks in their profile. Were these sellers for anime? I have never looked at buying anime, which may explain the difference in my ebay usage.

You immediatly turned it into an anit-ebay topic with your first post. You then turned it into an anti-paypal with your second post. Neither of which have ANYTHING to do with what I originally brought up... that you can find good deals on ebay for R1 dvds from people clearing out collections.

Contribute if you wish but you would probably get better mileage banging your head against a different therad.
 

Mark Talmadge

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jul 21, 2005
Messages
2,379
No, I chimed in during Dan's comment and let me quote:



That's why I chimed in on this one. I just find it nauseating that anyone would consider eBay as the norm for judging price drops on DVD sets.
 

Holadem

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Nov 4, 2000
Messages
8,967
Mark dude,

I don't know who you think you're dealing with, but none of us are stranger to the issues associated with eBay or Paypal. Believe it or not, we didn't get on the internet yesterday. Outside of ridiculously exagerating the issues and pulling some numbers out of your arse, you're not telling us anything we don't know wrt careful shopping on eBay. And you're certainly not impressing anyone here.

But thanks for warning us "against using eBay as a qualified source of national DVD Pricing." ;)

--
H
 

Mark Talmadge

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jul 21, 2005
Messages
2,379
hahahahaha ... I didn't mean for everyone to get so defensive. I was just shocked that danDO's comments about eBay. I just don't consider eBay as a valid marketing tool for pricing DVD's. While I have indeed found many bargains I consider such online sites such as http://www.overstock.com & http://www.bestbuy.com and Target stores as veritable sources of good prices.

For instance, this week, Target has 24 Season 1 and That 70's Show Season 1 are on sale this week at $19.99.
 

John C

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Mar 3, 2000
Messages
82
That 30 percent figure of ebay sellers rip people off makes me laugh. I've been buying and selling items on ebay, including DVDs, for years with absolutely no problems whatsoever. My feedback is above 600 with 100 percent positive. The people who tend to get ripped off are the ones who don't bother to do their homework before bidding on something. eBay has a feedback system in place for a reason. If you see someone has negative feedbacks, don't do business with them. Also, on DVDs, there are a lot of bootlegs on ebay but most are very easy to spot. ASIA COLLECTOR'S EDITIONS, Superbit THX disks and generally anything from China should be avoided. Even if their feedback is in the thousands, sellers of bootlegs usually have at least 1-2 feedbacks indicating the true nature of their goods.
I'll agree ebay could do a much better job of knocking out some of the blatant piracy that goes on, on their site. The claim that ebay is nothing but a "huge scam" is laughable, however. Anyone who refuses to buy from ebay is missing a chance to get some exceptional bargains, IMHO. Of course, a lot of stuff goes for gouge as well, but that's the free market for ya!
 

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