[time-nuts] eBay saga re: Test Equipment Surplus, eBay id jtsele, aka jtsele at pacbell.net aka Joon Kyong.

[John Ackermann N8UR]

Robert Atkinson wrote:
> Hi Chris,
> I'm always suspicious of sellers with lots of conditions like "you can
> pick up but will still be charged a packing fee". 
> If your refund was by PayPal you should have got the full amount, PayPal
> will have refunded his fees. I'd tell PayPal.
> If you think he is reselling a known faulty unit as working, report that
> to eBay, I've had this problem and eBay took action.
> I think too many sellers get away with this because the feedback system
> is one sided, buyers are afraid of getting retaliatory feedback, I shows
> up more if you only buy a few items. 

Retaliatory feedback is a problem.  I'm not a real active buyer/seller, 
but I've collected about 150 feedbacks over the years.  In that time, 
I've only left two or three negatives for others, and believe me, those 
were well deserved.

But a couple of months ago I was looking for some ~5A Astron 12V power 
supplies, and bought one from an estate sale.  It arrived jammed into a 
UPS priority shipping box with a single sheet of styrofoam around it. 
The sharp corners of the case had shredded the styrofoam to bits and 
when I opened the box the supply was bouncing around and there was 
literally styrofoam dust coating everything.  I don't know whether it 
was due to the bad shipping or not, but the power transformer had busted 
loose from its mount and had banged up the circuit board inside the unit 
to the point where the thing was a write-off.  And finally, there was a 
note inside that clearly indicated that the unit was defective and had 
had parts scavenged out of it.

I sent an email to the seller asking for my money back.  After waiting 
over two weeks for a response but hearing nothing, I finally posted a 
negative feedback.  I immediately got an incoherent negative in response 
accusing me of lying and claiming that they would have happily refunded 
my money if I'd asked (which of course I'd done, to no avail).  That was 
the first negative, or even neutral, feedback I've ever gotten.

I'll think twice before posting feedback again...

John