Doesn't follow instructions.
Sometimes I really dislike dealing with people through eBay. There's little accountability, and most sellers don't really know how they're supposed to pack computer parts. This is most notable with hard drives. Between 10 and 25% of the hard drive purchases I make have something wrong with them for one reason or another.
Yesterday was no exception. I purchased a 200-CD SCSI jukebox (holds 200 CD's, and has two CD-ROM drives in it, and a robot that moves the CD's around) through eBay a week or so ago. I bought it to have it as a spare, in case the one I have now breaks. And, with my little girl's help with sniping, I made an incredible score -- I won it for like $21, with another $21 for shipping. I was willing to pay up to $76.01, plus shipping.
After the auction ended, I went to the point of explicitly photographing where a certain set of pink screws needed to be moved, using mine as the demonstration. I showed where the screws are now, when the jukebox is in the running state, and I showed where the screws go in order to prepare the unit for shipping. The trick is the robot mechanism needs to be screwed in place, so it doesn't slide around during shipping, and possibly damage itself.
Well, the moron said he put the screws in place, so I thought we were all set.
It arrives yesterday, and I see there was only one screw in place, and it was one of the lower two. After unscrewing that one, I reach inside the jukebox and move the robot back and forth a bit, and find that the robot is flopping around like a rag doll. After looking at my good one, and this new one, I realize that there's a cast aluminum block that's broken, presumably because the robot's momentum while being tossed around by UPS transferred the full force to that block and it sheared. Kinda like holding a Saltine cracker by one bottom corner, and then thwacking an upper corner with your finger -- it's going to snap pretty close to where you're holding it.
The robot would have actually had a better chance of surviving if he hadn't screwed it down at all, allowing the robot to slowly slide back and forth during shipping.
The seller, of course, offered to refund for the unit, minus the shipping cost. I replied and told him flat out that we both knew I wasn't going to take him up on that, since the cost of the unit was the same as the cost of the shipping, so why would I pay $21 to ship it back, so I can be refunded $21?
I told him that I was just going to have to eat his mistake. It could have been a lot worse; I'm only out $42, and, who knows, maybe I can epoxy the robot back together...
Moral of the story is, you really can't trust eBay sellers to properly pack delicate items, even if you give explicit instructions on how to prepare the item for shipping, complete with photographs, even if they say they followed your instructions.
Yesterday was no exception. I purchased a 200-CD SCSI jukebox (holds 200 CD's, and has two CD-ROM drives in it, and a robot that moves the CD's around) through eBay a week or so ago. I bought it to have it as a spare, in case the one I have now breaks. And, with my little girl's help with sniping, I made an incredible score -- I won it for like $21, with another $21 for shipping. I was willing to pay up to $76.01, plus shipping.
After the auction ended, I went to the point of explicitly photographing where a certain set of pink screws needed to be moved, using mine as the demonstration. I showed where the screws are now, when the jukebox is in the running state, and I showed where the screws go in order to prepare the unit for shipping. The trick is the robot mechanism needs to be screwed in place, so it doesn't slide around during shipping, and possibly damage itself.
Well, the moron said he put the screws in place, so I thought we were all set.
It arrives yesterday, and I see there was only one screw in place, and it was one of the lower two. After unscrewing that one, I reach inside the jukebox and move the robot back and forth a bit, and find that the robot is flopping around like a rag doll. After looking at my good one, and this new one, I realize that there's a cast aluminum block that's broken, presumably because the robot's momentum while being tossed around by UPS transferred the full force to that block and it sheared. Kinda like holding a Saltine cracker by one bottom corner, and then thwacking an upper corner with your finger -- it's going to snap pretty close to where you're holding it.
The robot would have actually had a better chance of surviving if he hadn't screwed it down at all, allowing the robot to slowly slide back and forth during shipping.
The seller, of course, offered to refund for the unit, minus the shipping cost. I replied and told him flat out that we both knew I wasn't going to take him up on that, since the cost of the unit was the same as the cost of the shipping, so why would I pay $21 to ship it back, so I can be refunded $21?
I told him that I was just going to have to eat his mistake. It could have been a lot worse; I'm only out $42, and, who knows, maybe I can epoxy the robot back together...
Moral of the story is, you really can't trust eBay sellers to properly pack delicate items, even if you give explicit instructions on how to prepare the item for shipping, complete with photographs, even if they say they followed your instructions.