Buying small items on eBay - grumble

The connector on the low voltage side of the power supply for our Asus EEPC

900 netbook has frayed and no longer works. Damage just by the moulded connector which fits into the back of the PC.

O.K. - looks fiddly to repair with all moulded components and this cable, so look at the price of a replacement.

eBay shows on for £4.99.

Order the power supply, but unfortunately I missed the fact that the replacement takes a different mains lead from the original - 3 pin not 2.

O.K. - back to the seller to ask about a suitable mains lead.

I get a response with a link (strangely, from a different eBay seller but still one based in Weston Super Mare) so I order the lead. Another £4.99 so I would probably done as well ordering the complete thing from Amazon.

The lead turns up, but it is a 'kettle plug' lead not the 'clover leaf' lead shown on eBay - which hopefully would fit the 3 pin clover leaf socket on the PSU.

So I raise a return request through eBay and get the following response:

"Seller's message: 'Thank you for your email. We are sorry to hear that. For this case, since it will cost much more time to return the item, would you like us to issue

1$ refund of the item price to you directly as compensation and you could keep the item? If you agree, we will handle with it as soon as possible. Looking forward to your reply soon.'"

Huh?

$1 refund (60p) on a £4.99 lead which I didn't order and don't want or need? [I assume everyone who has owned more than a couple of PCs over the years has a large stock of spare kettle leads.]

Perhaps the message lost something in the translation from the original Chinese?

If they wish to make a full refund and leave me with the item, then fine.

However that still leaves me with a PSU and no mains lead.

I fear that my reply was not of the gentlest.

Note to self: saving a couple of quid by ordering from eBay may not always be worth it.

Cheers

Dave R

Reply to
David.WE.Roberts
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Agreed (the HP LJ5M toner cartridge that arrived yesterday is FUBAR) but the savings you make on all the good stuff makes the odd duffer worth it.

Reply to
Huge

Mmm standard ebay conman approach IME. Get your money, send some old s**te, you complain, they say send it back at your expense, they say never got it, they keep dosh & get item back...

Unless you spend as much again on recorded post....then you get a quid back in the end, they are back where they started....

Some would counter this by denying it arrived in 1st place & getting 100% refund that way...

Jim K

Reply to
Jim K

The trick is only to go for items with 'free' postage. So in event of a problem, you get a full refund.

Many sellers have the item cheap but high postage. They pay less commission to Ebay this way, IIRC.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

The upshot from this is that you ordered the wrong thing and then failed to do any thinking for yourself? Asking ebay sellers questions is generally on a par with getting turkeys to vote for xmas. The simplest search throws up one for £1.70.

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As for the lead you don't want, just chase it thru ebay/paypal.

Re both sellers being from Weston-super-Mare; they probably are the same people on the same grotty industrial estate but by splitting the sales they get multiple accounts with good feedback, presumably in case one needs shutting down or to use as a saleable commodity. The Chinese have set up shop over here (and in America) to save everything coming individually from China. They can just ship whole containerloads over.

Compare how these people always have phenominal feedback compared to home grown operators. The Chinese own us, really.

Reply to
Scott M

On 21 Feb 2014, "David.WE.Roberts" grunted:

I'm guessing that's highly likely, actually. I order loads of small bits and bobs on ebay, including plenty from Chinese sellers, with a huge rate of success; but very occasionally I've been sent the wrong thing, and have been told just to keep the item. (Once IIRC being asked for an emailed photo of the wrong item).

Will be interesting to hear what happens!

Reply to
Lobster

On 21 Feb 2014, "David.WE.Roberts" grunted:

Spinoff thread alert...!

Is this the model with a 4Gb primary SSD for the OS? Would be interested to hear what OS you use and how you get on with it... we've had a 901 model for a few years, running Windows XP but sadly it's now literally unusable as the number of Windows updates has completely filled the SSD. Tried installing a slipstreamed version, too, but that only bought about an extra year.

I'm guessing you're going to say Linux? Recently I fished it out for fun, and tried killing XP and installing Linux (not sure what flavour, and I'm not at all familiar with Linux) from the originally supplied CD; however by the time that had finished updating itself with several years'-worth of stuff, the problem was identical.

It's a total embuggerance that the machine has a 16Gb secondary SSD which you can't use for the OS, and which is almost empty :(

Reply to
Lobster

+1, I think you have been unlucky, my very small number of disputes have almost always been fixed quickly (e.g. by sending correct part and the supplier saying keep the wrong one)
Reply to
newshound

Yes, the 4GB limit killed off XP.

I originally bought it with Linux because an OEM XP disc cost less than the extra to have XP installed. Then installed XP over the Linux. IIRC it stuck on .Net upgrades a year or so later. Couldn't dig it out without a full wipe and re-install. Linux let me get at the data.

I am running Linux - an Ubuntu variant (IIRC) specifically configured for EE PCs.

This runs on the second (slower) SSD. Again IIRC as long as you can fire up a boot loader such as Grub you can install Linux on any drive.

The main reported constraint was that the second larger SSD was slower than the smaller - however it may be slow but it still works :-)

I have been meaning to 'fettle' it but up until now it just worked.

I never tried to install XP on the second drive (something nagging at the back of my mind suggests that perhaps the second drive shows as a USB drive and so is suitable for Linux but not for XP).

One of the interesting things now is that 'Netbooks' were more or less wiped off the market by the onrush of tablets.

However I think you can now get a pretty spanky netbook for around £250 and I am seriously considering this because I have found that the original netbook was far better for long term travel (due to the much more capable OS) than the 10" Android tablet we bough for a lot more money and used on our last extended trip.

Cheers

Dave R

Reply to
David.WE.Roberts

Huge put finger to keyboard:

For original HP toners I've been happy with a seller called The Jolly Savage.

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No connection, but have bought several times. It's old stock but not had a problem.

Much easier than trying to determine which Amazon sellers are selling 3rd party items. All of them, I think, but with images and descriptions showing real HP stock. Amazon aren't interested in fixing this deception.

Reply to
Scion

Have a look at the Asus Transformer Book T100TA as a decent equivalent of a Netbook. Full Windows (not RT) and includes Office Home & Student.

Reply to
Jeff Gaines

Yep. I have a '701 with a very old Ubuntu on it, which is the same, there isn't enough room to run updates.

Reply to
Huge

Thank you. I shall try him, since I still need a cartridge that works.

Oh, this came from eBay. It was a sealed HP package, but it doesn't work - sounds like something is seized inside the cartridge.

Reply to
Huge

That's not a showstopper. Simply identify part of the file system tree (probably /usr) and mount the second disk on that. It's all unified and will just work.

Reply to
Bob Eager

Yes, I had that issue with a UPS battery.

Reply to
Bob Eager

I understand that ebay are squashing this ruse by making their charges based on the sale price plus the postage. If this is not happening now it will apply soon from what I read somewhere or other.

Reply to
Bob Minchin

Doesn't fit the spec. of "spanky for around £250" I'm afraid.

Reply to
David.WE.Roberts

I've had problems with Amazon Marketplace where the same item with the same reviews keeps having the supplier changed.

So you can't trust the reviews because they quite possibly don't relate to the current supplier.

In my case I ordered an item, something completely different turned up, and I couldn't contact the supplier for a return/refund.

The good thing is that Amazon sorts the refund out pretty quickly.

However I noticed soon after that the same item with the same reviews (clicked through from my original order) was now listed with a completely different supplier.

So the refund policy is all.

Cheers

Dave R

Reply to
David.WE.Roberts

I got mine for £299 from John Lewis so not far off!

Reply to
Jeff Gaines

How long ago?

Amazon are offering it for £416.99.

At £299 I might well be interested :-)

Reply to
David.WE.Roberts

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