I bought a few items off eBay recently, I don’t generally buy off eBay, but when the projects dollars don’t match my profit expectations costs must be cut somewhere, and so the obvious was finding good quality hardware on eBay.
Not bad considering many of the auctions had very good quality server equipment on offer at cheap prices.
The experiences though (I’ve done more than 50 transactions on eBay over the years, most are successful, but that was a while ago), we go to eBay this time for this project, and the experience simply suggests that so far, 3 out of 4 purchases, the sellers have some sort of intellectual impairment.
Seller 1. A Server.
The item description had a response to question, asking does the server come with rails, the response was a positive one, so I take that one instead of the previous one from the same seller which went over my price target.
This server arrives today (some 6 days after payment) without the rails.
Contacted the seller via eBay questioning the lack of rails, and why he also forgot to leave feedback considering I was well and truly complete on my leg of the deal. I don’t leave feedback my side until the item is proven working.
The item wasn’t without any disadvantage though, it came with 1GB of RAM instead of the 512MB advertised, however, I want my rails!
Seller 2. 2 x 1GB ECC registered RAM
This item was going to upgrade the server from its 0.5GB of RAM to 2.5GB of RAM. It will instead upgrade it to 3.0GB of RAM.
The problems here started from the purchase, the seller had 100% feedback, and 2444 feedback items left. Can’t go wrong with that rating.
So we bought the RAM and got an email from them, auto generated, I read the email (as I do any email that isn’t about enlargement), and discover they’ve got the wrong address in the email, as a result of them failing to refer to the correct eBay fields for shipment.
I immediately email them back to stop them shipping RAM to the lunatic at the previous address and ensure they ship to the specified delivery address that was specified both on the eBay auction and on the PayPal payment.
They call me, confirm the address, blab on about how they pride themselves on the excellent rating they have and how they go out of their way to keep customers happy. I figure, well, as long as they ship the item to the right address, they can’t go too wrong.
The item shows up same day as the server (today).
It’s not the RAM! It’s a dang Apple Serial to Firewire cable.
Who on this planet confuses 2 sticks of RAM with a cable ? $300 compared to $10?
Anyway, contacted them, yet to receive a reply, just like Seller 1, but certainly will remain on them to find out how they stuffed it up, and how they plan to fix this fundamental stuff up!
Seller 3. TV Capture card.
This item was for my machine, the idea? When I get sick of what’s available, I’ll flick over to the radio and be able to tune in, and listen to some new music (Australian bandwidth is still far too premium to use online radio on a counted plan), as well, I could use it to capture video!
Unfortunately, like our other sellers, this seller wasn’t much better (but not as bad either).
The item description showed an FM antenna, and a Audio In lead.
This item had the fastest shipping, and the costs of shipping weren’t overstated.
The package arrived today, intact, except, the audio in lead is not found, the FM antenna has had its connector cut off, and its drivers won’t operate under Windows 64 bit.
So, I have contacted this seller mentioning these faults, but as for its windows incompatibility, I’ll have to go with a new one instead and use this one in a different box for video capture.
From those 3 experiences (I’m yet to receive item 4, a PC I’m going to use to replace someone’s faulty machine), the sellers all seem incapable of doing the simple task of collecting payment, identifying the item and the shipping address, and shipping the right items to the right addresses.
My assumptions:
Seller 1: Can’t count RAM (to my favour :D), but forgot the rails. Doubt it was intentional.
Seller 2: This seller was a high impact seller on eBay, moves a lot of items. Probably got my item mixed with someone elses, good luck recovering the two sticks of RAM you shipped incorrectly, I WANT my RAM.
Seller 3: Cut the cable because they were using it for an FM antenna for a stereo I guess, and the audio cable either lost, and the item was stated in the description by mistake, or they meant to pack it, just left it out.
I doubt it was intentional, but still, how do you get 3 out of 3 items on eBay with stuff ups attached to them?
Is it because I am setting up a new server (and going by the last server experience, they just beg for trouble for setup, but once fixed they are solid)? Is it because since we last dealt on eBay, they’ve since made sign up so easy, even the uneducated can sign up? Or have I just began to expect too much from simple tasks such as shipping the correct item to the right address?
I’ll update when we hear back from Seller 1, 2 and 3. Hopefully they all get their heads screwed on and reply with solutions that are mutually agreeable.
I’ve reserved feedback for each of them pending their response. They’ll have 3 days each, for the first 2, 1 day should be enough!
Enjoy!