Alex P.

This site looks like a similar sort of site to bonanza, but apparently with sellers offering electronics and game consoles. There's no information in About Us other than the origin of the word "ebanza". You'd expect a few sections about how ebanza works, when it was established but nothing. The help section is very disorganized and the FAQ is completely empty. The contact us does give an email and a form but it seems sloppy and very unprofessional. It might be a legit alternative to eBay/bonanza, but it seems a bit shady and I doubt it'd get much view since I stumbled on there accidentally.

I was curious about the 7 day free trial was entering my information in when they asked for my credit card info., so I googled some reviews and realized it was probably not going to be a good idea. I closed the browser and didn't sign up. The next day, I get at least 3 calls from them with a voicemail telling me to sign up for their promotion of 14 days free. I hope they stop calling me because I read on another site, that they've been receiving calls from them almost every day... and it's not possible to block numbers unless you pay $4.99/month if you're with AT&T so I'd recommend against trying it, unless you like the thrill of waiting for their phone calls.

Their games ARE free to play, but it depends on what you want out of your experience. I think the game mechanics are set up that you can get by with promotions, freebies and in-game items but if you want the best equipment, cool looking outfits with cool bonuses and stats you have to spend money. And not just a bit, it can get up to a few hundred a month for the truly addicted (I was one of them >.>). For the game I played (Megaten), the management of the GM team became questionable at times - with scandals of free giveaways to GS's (something their policy states doesn't happen), drama and favouritism between GM's and other players. I think if you're bored and want to try something new, the games offered are probably adequate - but why not give in and just play Warcraft. The monthly fee pales to the hundreds I've spent on Aeria per month, just to get the best armor and weaons. Sure it's not mandatory, but if that's what a player is looking for - that's the price.

I absolutely LOVE ravelry. It's the #1 resource for knitters and crocheters, it's got a huge directory of patterns (free and you can even buy online pdfs from designers, books, magazines, etc) and yarns as well. People can review or comment on patterns and yarns which is uber helpful. Patterns and yarns are also organized by color, gauge, type, etc so it's indispensable for finding a variety of items. If I want to find a pattern to knit - say a scarf for males in worsted weight, ravelry is the place to search. They also have a handy way to list yarn for the purposes of trading or selling, which I've found useful in destashing. Destashing groups also help with getting rid of yarn and magazines. Basically, ravelry can do no wrong!

I'd give it the worst rating except that it's fun to go on at work when there's nothing to do and you need mindless entertainment. That being said, the entertainment is far and few inbetween since you either run into adult site bots or people looking to cyber.

Although Amazon has expanded to being a middleman of sorts selling such things as whole fresh rabbit, shaving oil and hungarian paprika - they're still good for your basics: books and music. I've never received a wrong item from them and have had amazingly good experiences with the merchants selling used books. It can be annoying to browse for certain items, like trying to look for a diary with a day per page but their suggested items are very helpful and I sometimes end up buying more than I wanted, which isn't a bad thing - $25 and free shipping is always great! I think the trick in buying used books is to look at the individual sellers' feedback - it's ebay-esque. Their music downloads sometimes are $1 or $2 cheaper than iTunes and they often have $5 album deals.

I was excited to get the $10 off coupon but every shoe I wanted was out of stock in my size! Within the first few days. Not only that, I kept getting the $10 coupon reminder in my email - annoying. The other aspect is, since all the shoes in my style profile were out of stock in my size I had to RECLICK through their quiz just to see all the shoe styles and click through each one to find that they too were out of my size. I understand it's not a site that sells shoes per se, but some foresight would have helped to overcome this annoying aspect. Even ShoeDazzle lets you cycle through shoes that almost made it.

I've only ordered one thing from here and it arrived after about 2 1/2 weeks - something I'd known already. Aside from that, their prices aren't the best for what they offer as similar brands tend to crop up on other sample sales sites. I also have ran into things I might have wanted to buy, but ended up not because of their no returns. And personally, their roster of brands just doesn't appeal to me but they do feature more cosmetics, skin and other items more than the other sample sites.

I've only ordered one item from here and they sent me the wrong style, but issued me a credit and let me keep the item. Customer service is timely and friendly. They have a certain aesthetic that doesn't appeal to me very often and I don't like that you can't reserve items for a time limit (unlike some other sample sales sites). You have to buy it fast or it's usually gone and unlike other sites that give you a time limit to cancel, they say they ship fast (and they do!) so you don't really have the time window to cancel something.