How bad vendors filter negative feedback from eBay… specifically The Parts Place.
 

Many years ago I bought a power window set from “The Parts Place” for a first gen firebird. When I received it, the switches were made of plastic. They were cheap junk that you would never put into a car. After going round-and-round with them refusing to take the part back (this was well over 10 years ago), I left negative feedback and swore I’d never buy another thing from The Parts Place.

Skip forward to a couple of weeks ago… I have a set of 69 Firebird Rally gauges that has a missing face plate. I saw the one listed on eBay and bought it from the Parts Place. It was cheap enough and if it looked good that’s all I needed. When I received it, it was deformed and the font was clearly not a Firebird, but rather a GTP/GP font.

I sent them a message asking to send it back. After the second snarky e-mail claiming the part was good, they again refused. I left them negative feedback as the part was also deformed, which is why they were selling the face only. This is the part:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/1969-Firebi...0AAOSwy~BaC2JW

A week goes by and I check my eBay account and find that the negative I left feedback was removed by eBay. I called them tonight asking why, wanting to warn others of the junk they were selling. After talking to two customer service reps, I was told the reason they removed it was because I had “extorted” them. What?

In their response to me, they asked me to remove the negative feedback. I told them I would, as I was trying to get what I paid for, but only if they sent me the correct part. They then used this exchange of dialog to claim I was “extorting” them.

In the end, the part remains for sale as a Firebird when it’s not, eBay isn’t going to do a damn thing about it, and the Parts Place store of junk repo parts will chug on. Moral of the story is the Parts Place junk store is selling junk and the feedback score is far from what it should be.

Did you use PayPal?Tom

There are so many good vendors out there, shame you resorted to the Crappy Parts Place :(
Thanks for the warning.

The worst of all is Inline Tube. They do business under multiple names on eBay and getting resolution from them is a joke. The phone number will not have anything to do with their internet sales team and the sales team will not email you back. When I do have to buy from them which is occasionally I check out as a PayPal guest and use my American Express. AMEX unless you are just completely in the wrong always sides with its customers thru it’s concierge service. They are quick too. They have told me many times to send an item back, provide a tracking number and they would refund me even if the seller had a no return policy

Thanks for the heads up, always wondered about them. Hopefully they can’t erase this thread. Quite lame they can’t provide a simple refund as a business. Surprised eBay won’t push for refund as you did not receive what was described. There is an option in eBay for that, did you try it?

Online reviews aren't worth much of anything pretty much anywhere you go, not just Ebay. All of them I've been involved with go through a screen process, and if it's even mildly negative it's rejected. I've even had a review here rejected when 64speed was asking about Summit Racing and I put my comment in. It never made it to the screen here and all I said was that they don't do price matching if it doesn't benefit them, even after I sent in the other vendor information, Summit wouldn't do it, even though they advertise it. Their excuse was that the item wasn't in stock, which has nothing to do with it, they just didn't want to price match.

This reminded me, awhile back I came across a "Brice Fulper" out of Grand Torrance, CA on eBay.

I would agree the part is not right. It looks like a lousy attempt to reproduce a 69 Bird face but is it is not a GP or GTP.

I agree. As is typical from the Parts Place, it's cheap junk that doesn't hardly attempt to replicate the original. For the record I did get my money back. What irks me is that eBay removed the negative feedback without notifying me.

You can't revoke negative feedback once you leave it. I know this because years ago I bought something and never received it, nor did the seller contact me. Weeks went by and they finally did, telling me there was a real reason they didn't contact me. I received the item and felt bad and tried to reverse it, but there was no way. For the Parts Place to claim I was "extorting" them would assume that was even possible, which it isn't. All I did was answer their request, which is BS on eBay's part to side with them and allow them to continue to sell this junk under a false pretense.

I have the address of the eBay legal department and will send a letter later this week. They'll get it, claim this is standard practice and nothing will happen. Moral of the story is to not fall into the Parts Place trap of answering the question of what it would take to make the deal right, which they have no intention of resolving.

I buy and sell stuff on eBay all the time. Sometimes, it's the only place to find a part. I find it disturbing they filter feedback.

hey look !
 

the temp gauge temps are reversed ...

nice quality control on proof ing

different font

different amount of checkerboards

what a pile !!

send it to Mr Serio ... get it done correctly

Parts place has been selling poor quality items for years now , Beware they are also selling on Ebay under other names as well . It is a shame to make such poor items as it makes the life of all harder to deal . Search out NOS or good originals & you will not be let down .

Reviews really don't mean anything anymore in most cases. Not all. There are third-party companies that collect reviews for you online and filter the bad one to you without posting them online. What you do with them is up to you. I know car dealers use this.

Try leaving bad reviews for purchase on Amazon. Many not all will contact you immediately and offer you things to change your review. Even if its four stars, they see that as a bad review. I ordered a cell phone car mount that was crap. I reviewed it as such and about two weeks later, I got a box in the mail with three new car mounts, all different models. A letter accompanied them asking me to change my reviews to 5 stars and apologizing. So therefore, this part I bought has a ton of 5 star reviews that are false. Can you trust Amazon? Not really as far as reviews.

The Parts Place is just a bad company. Anyone whos been in the hobby for a while should know this. If it looks even somewhat like the original part regardless if it fits, they will sell it as reproduction part even though its only an attempt to to make such part.

This goes back to the old saying, not everything you read online is true.

I just purchased the upper A pillar plastics for my T/A from TPP. I specifically ordered the Hurst style units. I received the Fisher style units. Suprisingly, I did not encounter any attitiude from him this time, and he shipped out the Hurst units with a return shipping label immediately. He is the only one that makes them, and he was $25 cheaper than anyone else. This still leaves a semi-bad taste in my mouth towards this company.

I bought an ignition switch from the parts place back when my Tempest was on the road. Again it was a universal piece of crap that was loose in the dash pulled it out and called them and got the old song and dance about internet sales being different from main store and to email. Emailed got nothing, emailed again got nothing. Finally I called and demanded to speak to whoever did internet sales, got cussed at by a manager so I boxed it up, slapped a postage decal on it, notified AMEX of what happened and the part was going back and the charge was reversed then they sent me an email that said any purchases from my username would be cancelled. Fine by me

Parts place has plenty of bad feedback - I'm sure it would be more if they didn't get e-bay to delete it.

https://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISA...s=negative_180

Along with being a POS part as far as finish and fonts, the temperatures are reversed!! I guess it's OK as long as your engine runs right in the middle. Then it would be OK! EVERYTHING from them is beyond horrible. Why would anyone buy their junk?

Just getting back into the hobby after 20 years. Good to know The Parts Place is someplace I shouldn't be at. Wish I would have known 3 days ago :).

Bought a set of chrome trim corner pcs for 68 GTO vinyl top (the pot metal pcs). One was cracked and I emailed them about it along with a pic, and they said to keep them, and sent me another set which I got in 3 days!
The pcs fit perfectly and they treated me great, but that was in 2008, so I don't know if things have changed with them since then?.