kensplace 0 Posted July 9, 2007 Ebay is getting worse all the time, I blame the TV adverts, they seem to have attracted all sorts of people to ebay, not all good ones! Recently I purchased a chair, real leather the description said, not fake leather like the others are selling on ebay the description also said. Cool, I went for it, as the last chair I got on ebay was a horrible fake leather (more like some sort of plastic). Guess what, the chair that arrived was identical to the last one I bought. Seller is sending out a replacement, but I bet he sends a identical chair..... Next. a laptop I bought for my other half failed after a few months, so I bought another on ebay, described as a 'excellent' laptop, with just a few scuff marks as to be expected with age. The laptop arrived today... Hmm screen is so dark, cant see what is going, looks like either the invertor or the backlight is dead.. External screen works but 'flickers' when the laptop is used. Plus the H key dropped of the first time it was touched. Not to mention the screen has scuff marks (to me scuff marks with age dont mean a scratched screen!) Waiting for the sellers response to a refund request - first response was it worked when I installed windows, and before I shipped it, and I did say it had scuff marks. Funny thing though, checking the sellers buying record, he recently bought 5 of these laptops, all sold as seen - without warranty (so that seller didnt figure on them lasting long) - and that seller specifically mentioned the screen damage.. Still waiting for my laptop to arrive, as I bought another one for myself (last one was for my partner) - lets hope that one works ok. I did buy a new battery for mine, which arrived, but guess what, its not a genuine compaq battery, its a no name clone, odd seeing as the pic in the auction was for a genuine one. Cant grumble to much about that though if it works, as it was a bargain. Will have to wait to see if it works, if my other portable arrives this week. To top it all off, when I was searching for a laptop on ebay, I very nearly bid on a compaq laptop, until I read the small print which said "this auction is for a SCREW!" Needless to say I reported it to ebay, who promptly sent a standard reply saying they will investigate etc. Guess what ebay did... Nothing. Not a damn thing. Someone has paid 50 quid for a screw by the looks of things (the seller did say by email he would send the laptop to the winner, but oddly never publicly updated his auction to say that, nor did he think anything of showing a description and pics of a laptop, in the laptop category, with one line stating you are bidding on a screw!) Ebay really could not care less. I also bought a PIC programmer via ebay, that turned out not to program the chips it stated it would, and to top it off, used software it was not allowed to use (ie pirated). Reported to the seller, and they refunded, and promised to stop selling. They didnt stop selling them, and they still are powersellers, again ebay could not care less. bought a cheap camera a few months ago - ebay cancelled the auction AFTER i had paid by paypal, and then refused to refund my money. Needless to say, I never got the camera! I miss the old days, when it was rare problems occured - and I used to buy a lot more back then compared to what I purchase now.... Stopped selling ages ago on ebay, as the fee's just got way to high also. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
survtech 0 Posted July 9, 2007 Three very old adages: 1. You get what you pay for.2. Caveat Emptor (buyer beware).3. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kumba 0 Posted July 10, 2007 I miss the old days, when it was rare problems occured - and I used to buy a lot more back then compared to what I purchase now.... Stopped selling ages ago on ebay, as the fee's just got way to high also. Yeah... When e-bay was populated by technician's and geeks and the technologically savy. When Paypal didn't charge fee's, and e-bay was reasonable. Costs about 11% to do business on e-bay (Auction + PayPal) on my average auction price of $500. Kind of puts a dent in my margin's, and the buyers I get on here now tend to be the most uninclined group of individual's ever. Not to mention it's a marketting fiasco now with all the "Picture is for illustration purposes only" and "Not picture of Actual Item" buried in the 5000-word description. Price's are crazy too. Can buy stuff down the road for like $20-more and not have to ship/wait. It's a great place to find cheap knock-off's and black-market goods. If you're into that sort of thing. It was fun while it lasted Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kensplace 0 Posted July 19, 2007 Yup, marketing and conmen are rife now on ebay... As for the other laptop I was waiting for, it did arrive, but I needed to wait for a PSU and battery to arrive before I could test it. I was a bit concerned the screen support/hinge was loose on one side almost like it had been dropped - but figured for the price, as long as it works, I can live with it. Anyways, the stuff arrived, and the portable is faulty, it only powers up occasionally, and even then when it does it shuts down at random, works great when its on, but it's never on for long. Cant even get it to power on at all now... Just the one AC light on the laptop, but the batter charging light does not come on (apart from on the rare occaasions when it does fire up into life.) I thought about the hinge, and just out of curiousity, I went back and checked the old footage on the dvr, from when the courier delivered it. When the courier slid his van door open, guess what fell out and hit the road on one corner of the box? Yup, the portable. Ok its only a small drop, but portables are not meant to be dropped a foot or so onto a road, and then to land on one corner, concentrating all the pressure in one area. The driver never said a word.. Going to be interesting making a claim, wonder if they will try and worm out of it saying the box was signed for without me writing 'damaged' etc. What they wont realise, until I tell them, is it was dropped on camera. Hopefully that will be enough proof to get a replacement, or at least a repair or another one for parts. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rory 0 Posted July 19, 2007 wasnt it in a box or any kind of decent packaging? Also, have you tried resetting the bios, and also did you do a fresh install of windows (partition and format)? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kensplace 0 Posted July 19, 2007 Yeah, it was in a box, with bubble wrap around it, but even boxed with bubble wrap, I still would not want to drop it onto its corner onto a road.... All the weight concentrated into that one small corner.... Packaging looked fine for normal transport, but not for dropping The laptop wont even power on now to re-install anything, and when it was powering on (occasionally, and even then it would not stay on long, longest was one hour) I tested it by leaving it in the bios (also reset bios settings) screen and it still turned off suddenly.. Its like a loose connection somewhere. I fixed the screen hinge area, but cant see anything obviously loose, reluctant to dismantle it to get at the power jack area (as that would involve completely stripping the whole thing down, and could screw it up more) if I can get the courier to pay up. The battery got to about 60 or 70 percent charged, but it wont work of the battery alone, nor will it work of AC+Battery, nor even just AC alone. Tried removing the battery and AC for ages (which did seem to help originally), removed/reseated memory (known working) and drive. The bios itself is so dummed down it only has date/time/passwords and boot device order in it, so nothing much to go wrong in that. Windows itself was fine, once it did power up, until it just switched off no warning at all (at that point it also stopped the battery charging and the battery charge light goes out. The AC light remains on, but the portable remains dead till it decides to come back to life...) Seller has 100 percent positive feedback, and has sold other laptops in a similar state before with no problems.... Hope I get something sorted, thats 3 laptops in a row now. Our local PC world just started a offer - a free laptop if you sign up for their broadband (or pay 15 pound, and get a better laptop). Only catch is, you have to sign up for 2 years, and you have to sign up to a package with a 2gb usage cap, which would be no good for for me.... Kindof hoping its something simple, or that the courier will cough up, and I can get something sorted. Really needing a portable now... PS - did I mention my geovision computer went up in smoke the other day, talk about bad luck! Shut it down as it crashed, powered it back up and there was a bright flash, a bang, and a horrible burning smell. The psu had blown, the capacitors had blown.. Luckily no other damage, mobo, drives, ram, cpu , graphics card and geo card all fine... It did trip the UPS and blow the mains fuse though.... Turns out the fan in the PSU had stuck, also one of the internal fans (originally from a zalman flower heatsing) had warped and got the fins stuck. This must have caused tremendous heat inside the psu, which must have caused the caps to blow. Didnt half make me panic Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rory 0 Posted July 19, 2007 man that sucks ... though i had a laptop banging around in the back of my jeep for a year and it didnt get damaged, and i mean banging, i use to pick it up and chuck it to the back of the jeep! Then there are all the potholes and craters we have down here .. thing is it was off .. well the screen eventually went but still it took at least a whole year Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kensplace 0 Posted July 19, 2007 Funny thing is, when I bought it (its a compaq evo 160) I thought it would be similar to the one I got my girlfriend (a evo 400), as thats made from a solid magnesium alloy casing, very well built. This compaq on the other hand is nearly ALL cheapo plastic and the build quailty is rubbish compared to the other one. The 400c you could chuck around, the 160 looks like it needs to be treated with kid gloves all the time. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
zmxtech 0 Posted July 19, 2007 Cbay the "c" is for con I tried to sell a hp pda it was sold 10 separate times to Nigeria and ebay said TKO or we have killed you sale -on top of that 30 or so fake questions what a waste of time maybe i`ll action the video of me hitting it with a hammer dressed in a chicken suit. ahh! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
peanut 0 Posted July 29, 2007 wow thats a tale of woe Ken . Ebay is simply not worth the hassle anymore . I used to refurbish and sell laptops on ebay and did quite well a few years ago but the past year Nigerian scams and Chinese spams has made it impossible . Ended up 2 buyers practically bankrupted me . Both claimed their money back through paypal . Paypal removed £750 from my bank account without warning. Ignored my emails and letters . five weeks later they awarded the money to the two buyers. One buyer had dismantled his laptop and couldn't get it working again !(no s*** !) the other decided he preferred a new laptop from a shop after using mine for 2 weeks. One laptop never came back the other arrived in pieces ! Paypal froze my account trapping a further £500 which I never got back . Nightmare. Did you get the laptop fixed ? I'll happily help ya fix it . Maybe you could helm me with a little CCTV advice . It sounds to me like a overheating problem . Nick Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kensplace 0 Posted July 29, 2007 Well, the laptop with the dark screen issue, I had to send back, and the seller gave a refund (but Im down the 20 pounds it cost to send it back.....) Got a claim in with the couriers for the other laptop, waiting to here about that one... To top it off, the PSU i bought for that laptop, a proper, compaq one (but from ebay) turns out to be one that was recalled by compaq due to the risk of them starting a fire... Emailed hp, waiting to see what they say. Also emailed the seller to tell them about the problem, will keep an eye on the seller, to see if they do anything about it. Got a refund for the chair, so just time wasted.... Gave the money I got refunded for the other laptop to my girlfriend and she bought a laptopp on ebay (a old toshiba) that works fine, no problems at all yet - lucky her!!! Peanut, happy to help where I can with cctv advice, just ask in the forum or pm if you want As for the portable, its a compaq evo n160 and it wont turn on at all now. Power socket looks fine, no loose connections I can see. Probably will just get another similar one if I get refunded and swap motherboards. Theres also a evo n400c that works fine on external monitor, but the portable screen is just lit up, backlight on, but nothing else displayed. Cant see loose connections, could be board, connector or screen I guess. Shame I didnt have a spare to swap bits to know for sure which bit to replace! As for selling on ebay, I used to do it a lot, used to sell of a load of memory I got, as well as bits and bobs lying around. But the fees were getting way to high, and like you I started to get idiotic buyers... Ebay never seems to investigate things properly, Im sure they just flip a coin to decide who wins a dispute Apparently its getting worse now, sellers are getting suspended all the time, something to do with "seller performance" but ebay wont give exact details away. But oddly, some powersellers with WORSE performance than those being suspended are allowed to trade away un-affected. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
imcclendon 0 Posted August 27, 2007 I have been getting quite a few bargains on ebay the last couple of months. Most of them have been toys, but I have picked up a few useful things. I just bought a pelco recessed dome housing m/n ICS-DO151A for $5 before shipping, and now I'm trying to decide what cam I want to put in it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kensplace 0 Posted August 28, 2007 Im still waiting for the courier claim to be processed, but I did risk it again, and purchased another laptop on ebay... Thankfully, this time everything went fine, got a nice thinkpad r32 refurbed, with 1 year warranty. Added some extras such as more memory, and a wireless mini-pci card, and I have what looks like a new laptop, running fine for less than 200 pounds. But I bought one set of memory on ebay, guess what, advertised as DDR, but it was DDR 2. Seller did refund though, but still a pain. So its a mix of good/bad now for me... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
