auction question

[amiga4ever]

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.

[amiga4ever]

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.

[amiga4ever]

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.

[amiga4ever]

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

[amiga4ever]

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.

[amiga4ever]

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.

[amiga4ever]

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.

[amiga4ever]

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.