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Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: orange on July 28, 2009, 04:04:34 PM
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lets say I've bought HDD on an auction site (similar to ebay) and it cost 5eur+2eur postage.
if it was broken and I return it, should I pay for both postages (the seller returning only 5eur)?
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It depends on the sellers terms. Did you expect to get a working harddisk for 5 euro, then posted securely for 2 euro..
Most likely to get damaged in post if it worked anyway.
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well it was advertised as 'working'. I specifically told the seller to pack it properly which he ignored and put it in plain cardboard. then he claimed I can return but its my cost. (I assumed only one postage and returned the item)
he also wants me to give him positive feedback before getting any money back.
what would you do?
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at that price I would just junk it and forget it ever happened - if you were in the UK, I'ld send you a working one for free at shipping cost :/
Tom UK
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I think you just experienced a bad sale. Best to just forget it at that price and move on as Nostalgiac says. What I may suggest is that you could ask for your money back (of the hard drive - not the shipping) by sending him a photo of the drive in it's rubbish packaging - that way you woudl feel better about giving him positive feedback? In fairness he won't want a broken hard drive back anyway and normally unless shipping insurance is purchased, postage is never normally refunded either way.
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Why even consider giving him possitive feedback? You should get all your money back. If it was the sellers fault, then he should eat all the costs.
I had a Sega CD that I sold that turned up bad. It was good when it left but since I guaranteed it wasn't DOA I refunded the purchase price + shipping + $1 for the money order (this was pre-PayPal days).
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Why even consider giving him possitive feedback? You should get all your money back. If it was the sellers fault, then he should eat all the costs.
Well, I would say, why even consider buying a harddrive from a non-professional individual and expect it to arrive working in the first place? I've purchased a few HDs online in the past from online stores. Out of the 8 or so I have purchased, two have arrived dead. They were purchased brandnew from Amazon and Dabs, two companies who are not known for deliberately shipping defected goods and pack their items well enough to withstand a bomb-blast.
You see, it's a game of Russian Roulette when you buy a hard drive and have it mailed. HD's are EXTREMELY delicate and the slightest knock can cause it to have a headcrash. Add to that the fact that postmen are not known for handling people's post delicately and you have a recipe for a HD arriving DEAD.
I think you'd have a nerve to leave negative feedback for this guy when your own common sense should have told you that there was a high chance of the drive arriving dead even if (as he more than likely did) he shipped it in perfect working order.
No, you should be a reasonable human being and just accept it as a loss and learn from your own mistake. This guy is probably a regular non-professional seller just clearing his loft and doesn't need to be left a negative from the likes of some people posting in this thread who don't seem to understand the risks involved with shipping harddrive technology.
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No, you should be a reasonable human being and just accept it as a loss and learn from your own mistake. This guy is probably a regular non-professional seller just clearing his loft and doesn't need to be left a negative from the likes of people posting in this thread who don't seem to understand the risks involved with shipping harddrive technology.
Strange comments.
Common sense 101 clearly states that it is the sellers responsibility to understand just what it is he is selling. Too many non-professional dolts "clearing their lofts", not giving a hoot, not really knowing what works or not, horrible descriptions, poor pictures, trying to make a buck online when they aren't even qualified to be selling out of a yard sale. Why continue to protect these types? Orange should get his full money back and it is the seller that needs to learn the lesson.
If the buyer requests careful packing, then the seller (which he should have automatically done) needs to oblige - period. The schmuck should have never offered 2€ shipping in the first place if he knew straight away that it wasn't going to be packed properly.
I had a similar experience on a different site. Paid a premium for 2 5-1/4" disk drives to be shipped. Before paying, I communicated to the seller that I need these to be packed in bubble wrap. Well, the dipstick sent them in bubble wrap all right. He put the two drives together (metal touching metal, plastic and circuits) and wrapped a single piece of bubble wrap around them! They were essentially loose, floating around in a box of sparse packing peanuts! Needless to say, there are now unnecessary scratches and who knows if they work or not. Common sense really is dead today. You might think it is my fault for not taking the dolt by the hand through the packing process, but I have a flawed tendency to think that if they are selling technical items, they should have a little more brain cells than the average village idiot. My bad ;-)
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I thought non-operating hard drives could take something like 40 Gs these days. Seems like they shouldn't be all that hard to ship successfully.
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You might think it is my fault for not taking the dolt by the hand through the packing process, but I have a flawed tendency to think that if they are selling technical items, they should have a little more brain cells than the average village idiot.;-)
I agree, perhaps they should have more common sense. :-) and I have experienced the same shody packaging myself in the past and wondered HOW in hell would anyone package delicate items like this!?
but you are dealing with the general public, like it or not. most people on eBay are just regular Joes, they're not out to rip people off or purposefully package items in a bad way. they're just inexperienced and do not have the man-power, years of experience and technical know-how of professional retailers, such as Amazon or Dabs. Yet we somehow stupidly expect, just because their listings are surrounded by eBay's corporate logos and slick listing design theme - a 100% guaranteed "professional service". lol....please!
you have to be reasonable with people, and you have to be honest with yourself and ask "was it sensible to buy what is probably *THE MOST* delicate electrical item (ie: a harddrive) imaginable from a non-professional seller". Then I think you'll see that it was a silly move.
Companies such as Amazon have actually spent big bucks on scientific research on packaging techniques. When I recieved my borked HD from Amazon the packaging didn't even contain a single strip of "bubblewrap". It was actually package with strange angular cardboard supports, designed through their research to absorb shocks more effectively.
There are just some items which should never be purchased from amature sellers. and a Harddrive is _obviousely_ one of those items.
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I thought non-operating hard drives could take something like 40 Gs these days. Seems like they shouldn't be all that hard to ship successfully.
in theory, but reality proves to bite. :) who said this particular drive was a modern drive with this non-use protection, do you have the specs? and even with this technology, are you disputing that HDs are one of the most delicate electronic items to ship?
meh, do not buy secondhand HDs from non-professional sellers and expect them to arrive working. they may, or they maynot. it's pot-luck. that's the only opinion i have on this issue. :P
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save2600 & tone2600: haha, I just realized. You two are from the States....the land of Blame Culture where a person can purchase a cup of _HOT_ Chocolate from McDonalds advertized as "SCALDING HOT" and yet sue McDonalds for serving it "too hot" when you get burnt. :)
sometimes you have to take responsibility for your own actions and their consequences :)
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but you are dealing with the general public, like it or not. most people on eBay are just regular Joes, they're not out to rip people off or purposefully package items in a bad way. they're just inexperienced and do not have the man-power, years of experience and technical know-how of professional retailers, such as Amazon or Dabs. Yet we somehow stupidly expect, just because their listings are surrounded by eBay's corporate logos and slick listing design theme - a 100% guaranteed "professional service". lol....please!
you have to be reasonable with people, and you have to be honest with yourself and ask "was it sensible to buy what is probably *THE MOST* delicate electrical item (ie: a harddrive) imaginable from a non-professional seller". Then I think you'll see that it was a silly move.
Companies such as Amazon have actually spent big bucks on scientific research on packaging techniques. When I recieved my borked HD from Amazon the packaging didn't even contain a single strip of "bubblewrap". It was actually package with strange angular cardboard supports, designed through their research to absorb shocks more effectively.
There are just some items which should never be purchased from amature sellers. and a Harddrive is _obviousely_ one of those items.
I'm not trying to be a prick, but disagree with most of the logic here. It does not take a rocket scientist or ANY "man years" of experience to properly pack something. An individual or a corporation should know better - it's as simple as that. And I don't buy the excuse that corporations are the only "entities" with the resources to develop safe shipping practices. That notion is a bunch of hullabaloo and you're really devaluing your fellow human if you really believe that. If anything, by way of politics, policies and horrendous communication - corporations are less likely to get something done right and consistently. Same goes for governments. Both points are being proved each and every day.
I still say though if you are selling/shipping something you have NO knowledge of, you are not qualified to be selling said items and as such YOU should be held liable for your actions or inactions. Like sending a HD in box with no packing: that's just plain stupid. And not sure where you are getting your data on Amazon specifically, but I've returned more DVD's and SACD's to them than any other company for sending in a bubble wrap envelope! You do not send those kinds of items that way and expect it to arrive safely. A 5 year old would even know better.
And "technical and professional" retailers? lol Those types of companies, run by people that know and care about their customers have long since passed. Decades ago. Companies no longer even know who their clientele really is. That's why, when they find themselves in dire straits, they pay so called "marketing groups" to tell them what to do and who to market to. And even they get it wrong much of the time. We're now living in the most uncouth, least educated, do-it-yourself Wal-Mart mentality of times. It's a wonder anyone can transact business for long at all anymore. This level of customer service would have NEVER been allowed to occur years ago, when standards were higher. Somehow though, today's savvy (yeah right) consumer copes as they continually lower their standards. And thanks to the short sightedness of instant gratification, "we" did it to ourselves. Our country is only exporting something like 1/4 (probably less) of our GDP while we continue to rake in 3/4 of the Chinese garbage people are all too happy to clammer and trudge down to their generic Big Box shops to buy.
I've personally sent and received dozens of HD's throughout the years from companies and amateurs alike. Can't recall ever having a single problem. Not even with the boat anchor I just bought off Red! lol
I do agree though that many people on ePay or wherever are not purposely trying to scam others. They're just constitutionally retarded, lazy and plain don't care. You may be compassionate enough to rationalise their behaviour - but I refuse to accept their excuses and certainly would never consider them the "norm" - even though it sure seems that way today.
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sometimes you have to take responsibility for your own actions and their consequences
This statement should be true equally for the buyer and the seller. Each has a responsibility to uphold their part of the transaction. The buyer has a responsibility to pay the seller and provide shipping information, and the seller has the responsibility to pack and ship the item, hopefully well enough to arrive without destruction.
Obviously, the seller did a piss-poor job of packing the item, and it's most likely their fault it arrived broken. Hopefully he learned from his mistake and will take more care in the future, nobody wants to be bothered with refunds and returns.
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save2600 & tone2600: haha, I just realized. You two are from the States....the land of Blame Culture where a person can purchase a cup of _HOT_ Chocolate from McDonalds advertized as "SCALDING HOT" and yet sue McDonalds for serving it "too hot" when you get burnt. :)
sometimes you have to take responsibility for your own actions and their consequences :)
whahaha - I don't entirely agree with you on this occasion - but I DO agree with you on a general point :-D
Tom UK
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I thought non-operating hard drives could take something like 40 Gs these days. Seems like they shouldn't be all that hard to ship successfully.
on a more serious note as opposed to my last reply.
The dot on the i here is.. TODAYS drives.... I would have a fair guess the drive he was shipped was quite old, and therefore more affected to shocks/shipping
Tom UK
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save2600 & tone2600: haha, I just realized. You two are from the States....the land of Blame Culture where a person can purchase a cup of _HOT_ Chocolate from McDonalds advertized as "SCALDING HOT" and yet sue McDonalds for serving it "too hot" when you get burnt. :)
sometimes you have to take responsibility for your own actions and their consequences :)
Hey, just because I live in the States, does not mean I subscribe to that level of worthlessness! I'm ashamed of a lot of what's been allowed to happen over here. And yeah, that was a frivolous lawsuit if ever there was one. There's a lot wrong with this country Re: laws and mandates. We're now out to save and protect the people that routinely achieve Darwin Awards. The book entitled 'The Death of Common Sense - How American Laws are Ruining the Country' sums it up real well.
But my bottom line here is that a potential buyer should not be afraid to purchase something like a HD simply because the seller doesn't possess the gee-whiz to pack it properly. Especially when told how and refused to comply!!
What should orange have said? "Because you are an online seller, I suspect you are dense and before packing and shipping this HD out to me, give me your phone number so I can talk you through the packing procedure"... LOL! Admittedly, I've worded e-mails close to this when buying on occasion ;-)
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save2600 & tone2600: haha, I just realized. You two are from the States....the land of Blame Culture where a person can purchase a cup of _HOT_ Chocolate from McDonalds advertized as "SCALDING HOT" and yet sue McDonalds for serving it "too hot" when you get burnt. :)
sometimes you have to take responsibility for your own actions and their consequences :)
It is the seller responsibility to pack item properly to ensure safe delivery. If it cannot be packed properly then it should not be sold. No excuses. A 14 year old knows how to pack a hard drive.
PS I am not from the States.
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It is the seller responsibility to pack item properly to ensure safe delivery.
You cannot "ensure" the safety of a HD shipped via general post, even with great effort and money spent on packaging. a 14 year old also probably knows that you're not going to get "safe secure" bomb-proof packaging from someone that charges 2euro shipment too. they might even know that it's more than risky shipping eggs (ie: an old rickety HD) through the post and not moan when they arrive broken and cracked, probably due to the postman's less than careful handeling.
anyway, i wish this guy good luck trying to get his 7eur back and hope he has learnt something from the experience! :)
let me just give an example: I recently purchased a Philips CM8833 mkII monitor from a guy on eBay. The listing showed the monitor in perfect working order. This for me settled that no matter what happened during transit, the monitor would leave the guy's home WORKING.
Now the only question i had to ask myself was: "am I prepared to risk the monitor being broken during transit?" I decided it was worth the risk, but if it HAD arrived with the tube shattered into a million pieces then I decided in my own mind from the beginning that I would not hassle the seller for a refund. Simply because it is the type of item which is inhernetly likely to break during transit, much like a harddrive (no matter HOW WELL you package it!).
I would NEVER have dreamed of giving the seller a negative or asking for a refund if the monitor arrived broken. Nevermind the "consumer legalities", it's a question of morals, and people being reasonable with eachother. One guy trying to sell his item and another wanting to buy but also appretiating that he is sharing the risk in some instances.
I took the risk to have that item shipped. It was my decision, I don't care about the power "consumer rights" grant me to _demand_ a refund. This is an individual amature seller, he's not insured like mega online stores such as Amazon, so I'm not going to make him pay for my lack of common sense.
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I would NEVER have dreamed of giving the seller a negative or asking for a refund if the monitor arrived broken. Nevermind the "consumer legalities", it's a question of morals, and people being reasonable with eachother. One guy trying to sell his item and another wanting to buy but also appretiating that he is sharing the risk in some instances.
I took the risk to have that item shipped. It was my decision, I don't care about the power "consumer rights" grant me to _demand_ a refund.
Of course there's risk, but that's why insurance exists. Definition of insurance is that it relieves one of liability.
If a seller did a shoddy job of packing *anything*, of course it's more likely to get damaged. Agreed, the 2euro cost of shipping was a red flag - but often times, sellers realise they estimated too low and eat the cost. A seller is a total wanker for saying: "he only paid this much for s/h, so I may as well do a shite job of packing".
In the case of humans being honourable or reasonable to each other (rare, but not uncommon with groups such as this), the seller could have taken the time to properly pack and then write to the buyer asking for some more money to cover the cost. I've done that before and have always had good results. When you take the time to explain a situation, most people are willing to make it right with you.
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hm, I didn't expect an interesting discussion.
well here are more details:
the drive is SCSI (unsurprisingly) and its 18Gb.
it was a local auction, the seller is in the same country and postage was about 2,5eur (as for most things here)
interesting note, the auction did state that it was 'reopened' because the last buyer decided to quit. maybe that should have been a hint.
he has some negative feedback already.
BTW, IIRC I had never left negative or even neutral feedback here or on ebay.
didn't plan on leaving positive now, it was either negative or forget-about-it
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Of course there's risk, but that's why insurance exists. Definition of insurance is that it relieves one of liability.
If a seller did a shoddy job of packing *anything*, of course it's more likely to get damaged. Agreed, the 2euro cost of shipping was a red flag - but often times, sellers realise they estimated too low and eat the cost. A seller is a total wanker for saying: "he only paid this much for s/h, so I may as well do a shite job of packing".
In the case of humans being honourable or reasonable to each other (rare, but not uncommon with groups such as this), the seller could have taken the time to properly pack and then write to the buyer asking for some more money to cover the cost. I've done that before and have always had good results. When you take the time to explain a situation, most people are willing to make it right with you.
2Euro shipment was more than a red-flag. I doubt very much if the listing claimed "insured postage" at that price. In fact, 2Euro would barely cover transit costs, let alone packaging material. Again, unless you explicitly pay for insured shipment, how (morally speaking) can you justifiably expect a refund from an amature individual seller? That doesn't make sense to me.
I think what happened in this case is that our friend in this post sifted through all the harddrives listed for sale, sorted them into asecnding order for shipment cost and picked the cheapest with the cheapest postage cost.
He was gambling, and his horse lost. And now he seems to be asking the booky for a refund on his bet. :)
thankfully we have these wondeful Consumer Laws which protect those who'd otherwise pay heavily for their idiocy due to Darwinism. :)
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I forgot to say, the drive was probably broken in first place.
the (68pin) connector was damaged and HDD behaved like completely dead. the scsi interface couldn't even 'see it'. (it would spin up and then heads start banging)
if only the mechanics was broken it should have been at least 'visible', right? and I doubt the PCB died because of shipping.
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orange: no personal attack on you my friend, but common. the negatives, the low p&p, the relisting? this didn't tell you something? :)
be more careful in future pls.
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First off - Amiga4ever - love the Avatar :) That has always been the best photo of KB!
Anyhoo - i agree, we need to all have common sense about buying on ebay or wherever, that's why I mentioned before to just ask for the money back for the drive (forget the postage) because when buying you need take the seller at his word regarding condition etc, he wouldn't intentionally sell a faulty drive but his packing more or less done it to death. Yeah, he probably took a chance on shoddy packaging thinking "it will be allright" but has come a cropper. When something like this happens (especially when there is no postage insurance - you could have paid for that you know - then you would have got all your money back, including the postage and the seller would still have had his sale) you just need to come to a sensible arangement between buyer and seller. I've been selling IT stuff on eBay since 2000 / 2001 as well as buying and as a seller, I would never intentionally mispack or mis-sell something. I also have a 100% rating and no Neutrals, so I feel reasonably qualified about what I'm saying here (also I'm an IT Service Manager, so I kinda know how to approach this kind of stuff).
Seller - has the responsibility to list the aution as accurately as possible, pack the goods properly and send via agreed method
Buyer - has the responsibilty to query anything he feelshe would need to know about (i.e - if a laptop is for sale and it doesn't say it's working - ask the question), pay for the goods up front and pay for any postage insurance they believe necessary to cover potential losses.
Did you ever think that you would be in the same situation that you are in just now if the drive hadn't turned up at all?
No doubt I'll get shot down in flames :)
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@ save2600.
I agree with you.
Thats why you have insurance.
Good packaging ensures item arrives in piece.
I'm confused by the logic pointed by some in this thread. Selling products, ebay or what not is not gambling, and buyer should never take any risks. Insurance eliminates risks.
I have been buying & selling on ebay since 1996, long before most knew what it was. The above always worked for me.
@amiga4ever
about your monitor, should have been shipped with insurance. if it was adequately packaged they you do have a claim and could get a refund without hurting the novice seller.
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I recently purchased a Philips CM8833 mkII monitor from a guy on eBay.
Now there's one item that's worse to buy on eBay than a hard drive.
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LOL - I did buy a 8833 from a guy on eBay. Was fine too until a year or two later it fried :)
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I won my Philips CM8833 for £12 iirc, and uninsured shipment was £9. However, insured shipment would have cost around £18, so I decided to take a gamble. The gamble paid-off in the end because the monitor arrived in perfect working order and is going strong to this day. :) But if it had arrived in a million pieces, I STILL would have had the ability to force the seller to refund, despite me CHOOSING the cheaper postage option.
And I think this is the problem, many people opt for standard/uninsured delivery and when something goes wrong they demand a full refund...despite the fact that they were happy to knowingly opt for uninsured postage.
I guess the solution as many of you say is to simply ship everything insured but - with the rising cost of postage - some of us would like the option to ship uninsured. Yet sellers are now seem petrified to do that because they know that they will be legally obliged to cover costs if anything goes wrong, thanks to buyers without decent morals and high expectations which they pay low mony for. :)
This pisses me off a bit, because for many items I would like sellers to continue offering the uninsure option as I'm quite happy to take a gamble at times and suffer any potential lose. I'm not going to run asking for a refund in that situation.
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The stuff I sell always has the option of being uninsured (at the buyers risk) but at the same time - I pack stuff just as well for insured as uninsured deals because I want anything I sell to be used by the buyer and in the condition I advertised it as.