Yahoo! Auctions Japan - assistance required

[Willo]

It seems to be the general consensus that unless you live in Japan or speak Japanese you aren't going to be buying anything from Yahoo auctions. I have found an item (an ECU) I require at a "buy now" price I can't refuse.

I have tried to make contact with the seller but with no success. Is there anyone in Japan who is willing to purchase an item on my behalf and send it back to Australia with a small payment for your time and effort?

Any assistance appreciated.

Willo.

[ylwgtr2]

i buy stuff from yahoo regularly.....generally when something is bought you need to pay 3% plus the cost of postage from the seller to wheever in japan,then off to you in australia also the bank deposit fee in japan and not to mention it will cost you 28 dollars for an international money transfer and some banks in japan (mine does)charge a fee to receive money from overseas.....still want to buy?

[funkymonkey]

betcha any money its a Power FC

if you need stuff bought from yahoo auctions and sent to ya and or negociated with the seller then I can organise it for you, but as troy said there's many hidden costs involved, and on top of that there's a 15% agent fee.

[Willo]

Was hoping the contact in Japan also had an Aust bank account which would negate the cost of a money transfer?

Where does the agent fee come into play? I assumed going this way would avoid the agent's fee.

What other ECU would I be getting from Japan that can be tuned locally?

[DaiOni]

A forum member recently asked me to pick up some coilovers for him. The price of the coilovers was great - but you don't want to know how much the postage costs were!!!! scary.

Whatever you get - make sure it's light! (the ecu should be fine - but still not cheap, if you want it quickly)

I'm happy to do this sort of thing for people, but I have three conditions: (1) The money is useless to me in an australian account, so it needs to be transfered, (2) you pay the postage, (3) 10,000yen to me - no matter the product price is.

However, the first thing I always do is refer people to places like nengun - you're nearly always better off to buy new, and their prices compare very well to the off-the-shelf prices here.

2nd hand stuff, even in japan, is always a risk... (4) not responsible for what daredare san sends you!!

[funkymonkey]

you can chuck the money in my au ANZ account, i've usually got enuff money in my jp account to cover it

and yeah what daioni said. if you're impatient and a barrel bottom scraper, its not worth the headaches you'll cause me

[ekopow]

U need a japanese credit credit to join the auction and I think its Y200 a month.

Thats what I did to buy my stuff.

[funkymonkey]

wtf? its free dude, anyone and their goldfish can join it. You just need to know some basic japanese. I bid on there all the time and I'm yet to get a japanese credit card (I do have a japanese bank account from which I transfer funds tho).

[DaiOni]

funky: To join, I had to use a credit card (used my japanese one - not sure if that mattered) and there is a monthly charge. Either you got lucky with an earlier (free) account, or I accidently clicked the 'premium' account

For most sellers (and that includes the shops), they will expect you to do a bank transfer. The handful of people I've dealt with wanted to do shipping via COD - so that could be a hassle. I guess it's up to the seller as to whether they want to deal with the bother of overseas shipping (not sure if COD is an option that way - if not, it's a real pain in the arse) - I would definitely enquire with sellers before bidding - definitely going to require a degree of japanese ability, and ability to, at the very least, be able to type in hiragana

[drift007]

theres a 300yen monthly charge and you do need a credit card to join the yahoo auctions.

[funkymonkey]

yeah I join yahoo uctions a good 2 years ago musta lucked out... apparently lookin around now if you join up there is a charge, but if you joined up early there's no charge...

BONUS!! hehe

[Rezz]

I joined Yahoo Japan auctions just a few months ago and you DON'T have to use a credit card... it's free. I simply filled out the application form part and chose a user name and password... viola, have bought about 10 different parts for my 32 from there.

Selling on the other hand...