There is a Japan Yahoo Auction I am now wanting all thanks to Corbra Zartan. *shakes fist* How does one go about bidding on said item?
This topic was discuss awhile back. you either need a rinkya or celga acct. Here's my single post on said topic (a rough how-to-guide sort of): http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/showpost.php?p=1963392&postcount=8 Hopefully others will give you further details on this.
I think your post sums it up perfectly. You need to give them 24 hour notice first though (or type URGENT in the subject box).
Rinkya works for me, but there are many xenophobic japanese dealers that will refuse to make deals with a proxy bidder.
I haven't met any myself but I've seen a thread where some guy's bid was refused because the seller didn't want his item to leave japan. If he's selling it, why would he care where it went?
Omg. i dun believe it. what a chauvinistic prick. exactly, why should he even care where he's stuf goes. Such narrow-mindedness <sigh>..
Yep, happened to me, the seller not only refused to sell me the item, he left me negative feedback to boot for daring to be a foreigner bidding on his items. I use Gelga gold personally (though I haven't bid on anything in ages it seems...). That way I can bid in real time and not have to hasstle with e-mails...the fee structure is better if you expect the item to end under about $400 last time I crunched the numbers.
I personally use Shopping Mall Japan, I have never had any problems with items through them, but I know that Might Gaine has had some issues with them losing certificates from some Lucky Draws. From personal experience though I have had no problems with them and would recommend them as an alternative to Rinkya or Celga.
My problem with Shopping Mall Japan wasn't that they lost the three certificates. It was that they gave me the run-around for weeks when it happened. It took them from 5/25/06 to 7/04/06 finally admit they had lost them, and that was with an email from me every week or two asking about the status of the situation. They kept insisting that the sellers didn't send the certificates--even though it was two different sellers. It was really frustrating for me that they didn't just own up to the mistake. Eventually I got a $62 commission refund. In contrast, when Celga lost something, they admitted to the mistake immediately. They didn't give me the runaround for weeks like SMJ did. In the end, I think both places adequately compensated me for the mistake, but the situation was less stressful with Celga since they owned up to their mistake immediately. I also like Celga because they do a better job following my packaging instructions. SMJ would almost never ship to the address I told them to ship to. Two out of three times it would go to the address on my account instead. It was really frustrating. In contrast, Celga follows my packaging instructions to the letter. I liked SMJ's status page showing whether your items were in stock, so you knew when to request shipment of them. That is the one thing I miss about SMJ now that I only use Celga Gold. On the other hand, Keigo from Celga was nice enough to negotiate a deal for me over the phone with a toy store in Japan. I don't think I could have ever gotten that kind of personal service from SMJ. None of these services are perfect. They all have their flaws. You find out what the flaws are and figure out for yourself which flaws you can deal with and which ones you can't, and then you pick the service that's right for you.
SMJ has packaged my items up with other users lots and it takes constant bitching to get anything done he has done this to me several times and has tried to double charge me a few times also. Whenever Nick gets my stuff the flaps are always folded to crap and they have opened mosc items in order to jam more items into that package. Good luck btw alphie
Shoot, I wish I'd known about Celga before I spent the last couple weeks using Rinkya to get various things. If I'm reading their page right the fees are much less.