Skroo'd No More

[stopthegop]

Reading the thread about this latest scam victim really pisses me off.  That "Luis", if he is ever found, should be flogged with a pipe wrench -- Repeatedly.  The fact that these scams are becoming common is an inevitable consequence of the desireability and rarity (and hence high value) of certain Amiga parts.  What we need is something like a mini "escrow" service for transactions.  Not necessarily an escrow service per se, but something like an escrow service.  In other words, some trusted neutral entity (person or persons) who would temporarily "hold" money sent from buyers until merchandise has been recieved from the seller and acknowledged by the buyer.  Then the money could be fwd'd to the seller via whatever payment method was agreed upon initially between the two parties.  What do you all think?  Does a service like this exist already?  I think something like that would be very useful not just in the for Amiga users, but really for just about any "niche" specialty market.. ?  Old tube amplifier collectors, people into old Porsche cars, Vespa scooter fans, coin collectors... who knows?   Hell, anything.  I'm suprised ebay does not offer such a service..   At least not that I'm aware of..   For real estate, maybe..  But what options do people have for relatively "low cost" purchases, but nonetheless still cost a lot of freeking money -- at least to the parties involved.   We need low cost "escrow" (say for a fee of $5.00 or less, paid half by each party..) for people looking to buy cyberstorm cards and other Amiga rarities but don't want to get SKROO'D..

[philipj]

It is disheartening. When Amiga was in its prime I was what.. 5 - 10 years old! Now, much of the good hardware is rare/expensive/dying, and it is quite unfair to think people in my position (who would want to have a chance at finally getting their hands on these hardware gems) are being taken advantage of.

These thieves are using the nostalgic wishes and hope of people from my generation (not specifically) to con and extort money from...

It is a cruel world.

What can be done about this though is unfortunately not much, just like any other trade thieves use to con people. I can't help but feel sad though. :cry:

(For anyone wondering it's not actually happened to me yet; just like stopthegop mentioned however reading these nightmare situations brings forward than intense feeling of empathy!)

[weirdami]

for a percentage, i will escrow your purchases.  8-)

[Dr_Righteous]

The simplest answer is buyer beware.

Use a bank that protects online purchases, and use PayPal or BidPay to wire money from that account.

Be suspicious of everyone, especially those who do not use the above services.

Check out feedback when using eBay! If purchasing from someone on one of these bulletin boards, do so from reputable users (there's alot of regulars with thousands of posts who aren't likely to tarnish their name in the community by screwing others over).

And in my personal opinion, an international wire transfer is the WORST way to buy something. Even worse than mailing cash! Not only can you lose the money, but you had to PAY to lose it! I wouldn't even do it when having trouble with my bank card (subsequently rectified) trying to purchase a Mediator from elbox... and that's a reputable company, not an individual.

[Vulture]

Moneybookers escrows well. And the fee is on the buyer's side so no fee excuses from the seller....

[Ral-Clan]

There are already online escrow services (can't remember their names right now - "e-escrow"?).

You're right that Amiga hardware prices (especially for graphics cards & CPU cards) is skyrocketing right now.  Since these cards seem to be fetching above $200 US (and sometimes much higher in the case of PPC boards), I am suprised no-one has tried to do a further production of some of the old hardware.  I'm thinking the Cybervision 64/3d or one of the faster CPU cards for the A1200 or A3000/4000.  It could be a modestly profitable venture.

As the designs are already done, there would be no R&D costs.  The price of the components (i.e. 68040 & PPC processors) would be slightly lower than they were originally.  The only expensive part would be the initial "tooling up" at the factory for first-run production.

They only difficult part would be acquiring the original plans of the boards, and the legal right to reproduce the hardware.

This has been done with the A1000 Pheonix boards, and I think the Cybervision boards had a second run....I know I have about three big box Amigas that would love a fresh new updated accelerator (I would much rather sink a few hundred dollars into a brand new "retro" board than a used one off Ebay I don't know the history of).

[amiga92570]

Well, I do not wish to pay anymore fees than I already do. Paypal and Ebay costs are enormous if you sell a lot of items, than take on the so-called escrow fee. I might as well take the stuff to a swap meet. Maybe make the buyer pay escrow. I say just hunt the guy down a flog em! :horse:  :horse:  :destroy:

[Kronos]

You can put up as many middlemans as you want, in the end you have a seller "I did send the goods,where's my money ?" and a buyer "I never got the item (or it was broken), I want my money back !! ".

Dunno, sitting in between those doesn't sound to comfortable.

Think about ebay, as of buying buying on a flea-market, you never know wether the stuff works, has been stolen, is conterfitted  and  and .... in the end you just have to use common sense and be careful.

Bout reproducing HW, most parts aren't available at any cost, product may not confirm with current legistalation (RoHS being just the tip of the iceberg) and the market might be much smaller than you think. 100 CVs changing owner on ebay per year does not form a viable market for new CVs.

[sdyates]

THe problem with escrow, though it seems like a good idea at first, is that it changes the who can get "Skroo'd." What if the person who bought claims they did not receive the item. Not all shipping methods provide tracking numbers.

Just a thought, though a good one, but the fees already from ebay abnd pay pal already amount to a lot, escrow just adds even more. Perhaps if it was offered to buyers as an ebay service!

[X-ray]

It looks like this douche bag Luis is trying to beat Bernd Binder's record.
What can we do about it? I don't know. But it seems that if a purchase involves a large sum of money, it might be better buying from an Amiga.Org member who has a history of being trustworthy.

[amiga92570]

DS92570 on EBAY 100% positive

May have amigas for sale
Fast shipping and friendly sevice  :-D

[stopthegop]

100 CVs changing owner on ebay per year does not form a viable market for new CVs.

True, but look at it another way.  Maybe "only" 100 changed hands, but look at the number of bids from unique bidders that each one of these boards generated is a much more useful guage of general "interest".  I've seen CyberstormPPC auctions generate 60 or more bids.  Just for arguments sake lets say, on average, a C-stormPPC on ebay will attract 25 unique bidders, or about 2500 unique bids annually.  Of course you can subtract a little to compensate for overlap, but you can also add a few with a plausible assumption that not all of your sales will source from ebay.  Just wait until a NIB DKB3128 or a working Fastlane/256M or an Atari STbook goes up for auction with no reserve and a starting bid of $1.00.  Those hypothetical auctions would incite a round-the-clock international bidding bonanza, generating probably hundreds of bids.  IMO, the number of sales that could be generated by a re-run of, say, the Picasso IV or the CyberstormPPC (maybe even with a faster 604e chip!!? or at least socketed this time...  hint, hint) would reach easily into the thousands.  How many units did Phase5 and DCE sell?      

[amiga92570]

I agree, I sold two fastlanes with 64meg on ebay two months ago and each went for about $200.00. I have sold ppc card and have received many bidders. I would have to add that to really make money they would have to develope the cards for 1200 and 3/4000 since most off the ppc cards sold were the blizzards according to a site I used to track them at. And remember there is a lot more automation involved and the costs to produce such cards has dropped. But just remember elbox is comming out with the dragon and then shark if OS 4.0 comes out. :-o Maybe I should not have mentioned that.

 :boohoo:  :quickdraw:

[Ral-Clan]

The fact these old PPC boards and graphics cards are getting such insane bids on ebay is a testament to the fact there is a DEMAND out there for them.

I do think a lot of people are buying them to hold onto now.

Even if only 100 Cybervision cards are sold on Ebay each year for $300 each, that's $30,000.  Enough to at least break even on the re-run production.  I personally think that if these were new boards (not used as on Ebay) even more could be sold.  

If lots people are insane enough to spend $300 on a USED (possibly abused) piece of Amiga hardware with no support and no warranty, there are probably 3 or 4 other people who would be willing to buy a re-release of this hardware NEW from a reputable dealer with a return policy.

Not to mention the fact, that if original plans for the boards can be found, it might be possible to re-engineer them with a smaller, more modern design that is esentially a clone the original hardware in a cheaper, smaller and more efficient design (like the difference between an original C64 and the circuit board of a C64DTV).

Hell, if I knew I could get a new 060 board for my A2000, I would be much more likely to plop down $400 for it than risk that same money on a used one with an unknown history, from a person I've never met before (see the scams thread on A.org).

The Shark, Dragon, etc. are all vapourware so far....we have designs for older cards already that have software support and a tested track record.  There is a demand for them if someone would just produce some more.

[amiga92570]

That is one of the problems, the development costs. If schematics were available I know I and several others I know would be glad to try and copy the board. We do not have the resources to develope a board from scratch. R&D costs far out weigh the production cost initially.