eBay Nightmares with Recomp.Tv

For purposes that this is a site available for almost anyone to read, I will stick to the facts... plain and simple. I don't want to hear any whining about me exaggerating anything. I'm not. These are the facts. How you interpret them is up to you.

Let me start by saying that this is my first bad eBay experience. While I've purchased lots of technical items (in fact, I only buy technical thingies off ebay) from both technical and non-technical people using eBay, there is always the risk of running into someone who's really not into it for the customer satisfaction aspect of being a reseller on eBay. They're in it for the quick money where they can sell 'em and leave 'em. eBay seems to be the new outlet to make money at any cost while leaving the finer details of customer satisfaction sheltered by the "as-is" clause even though this item was listed is a "working pull".

It's always been an issue that gives me pause for concern as there's good reason to be wary of non-technical folks who are auctioning off items which "power up, but I don't know what it does so I can't tell you more." I am somewhat surprised by the seller's good rating (98%+). However, careful reading "between the lines" of the negative feedbacks (expecially with the reponses from the seller) says it all. A real-world example of the seller's final disposition is found at the bottom of this article.

Thankfully, I keep all my emails so the proof will remain archived for years to come.

• June 12: Won ebay item #5100691760


• June 22: SBC (Single Board Computer) received in mail from seller in non-static-safe bubble wrap packaging. (I don't know about the rest of you, but I always store static sensitive electronics in a static bag or form or something static safe.)


• June 23: SBC is tested and found to be DOA. Considering I used to specify and build systems like this from scratch for a living... this should be a no-brainer - but the board doesn't work. So I emailed the seller at this point inquiring how they tested these boards as the eBay listing said "tested pulls". This one is definitely dead.


• June 23: Seller reponds with an apology for the unit not working and requesting I return it to her for a replacement.


• June 24: I email the seller letting her know the box it came in was now gone. So I offer the seller to cross-ship me another one (if possible... and against my CC) so I can get a replacement and have something to ship back the defective board in. She declines the same day stating she needs the original back first. Thus I reply letting her know I need to round up another box then to ship back. (We don't have lots of boxes that size... so.. I have to go looking).


• June 25: I drop her emails letting her know I'm still looking for suitable packaging so that I can safely ship the unit back to her. Also I ask if she will issue a call tag as I would be paying for returning defective product to which she agrees, but tells me she needs a weight first on the box. So we have to wait until I find something to put it in and then I can give her a weight. I find a box later that day that's a little larger than the original (by 4oz) but since that broke the 2lb barrier, the box ends up weighing 3 lbs which I emailed to her letting her know. She sent me her address to put on the box and such. I replied that I would put it where the UPS driver picks up/drops off in the building next door.


• June 30: The box is still waiting for pickup. I email the seller letting her know. She replies same day saying she thought I would going to ship the item from work. I replied immediately that I had the understanding from our emails that she was going to issue a call tag. However, I still apologize if my wording wasn't clear.


• July 10: After being off a week for vacation, I come back and the box is still sitting there waiting for the call-tag pickup. So I send another email to the seller letting her know something's possibly up with UPS as the box is still sitting there.


• July 12: The Seller replies again stating she thought I was going to ship it from work. I reply same day apologizing again for any possible misunderstanding, but that I thought we resolved that she was going to issue a call tag per my last email. She replies back asking AGAIN for the weight of the box (which I emailed to her on the 25th of June). I told her again it was 3lbs. Her reply was that this was the first time I told her the weight (good thing I keep all the logs for my mail server for 12 months... I could see recomp.tv's mail server received this message..) However, now she's insisting that unless the box is 2lbs like originally shipped, she won't issue the call tag. "They're very expensive" she told me. I emailed back letting her know she might have a mail server problem and might want to check with her ISP for dropped emails. She replies again that she needs the exact weight as "UPS doesn't guesstimate". (They don't round up? Really?) Ok - so I go weigh the box and let her know it's 2lbs and 4oz. To which she then replies "that's 3lbs in the eyes of UPS." She won't issue the call tag until the weight is the same as the original shipment. The price different? $3.00. So, we're haggling on $3 which according to UPS the pickup should be about $5.03 anyway for the 3lbs box versus $4.67 at 2lbs. We have a scheduled UPS pickup, so I'm a bit at a loss for all this trouble for 1lb. But whatever, I shave the box down and make it 2lbs. As requested.


• July 14th: The Call Tag is issued and the DOA board is on its way back.


• July 21st: No news, so I email the seller if the DOA board came back yet.. not yet, she replied.i Later in the day she emails me that it arrived and magically tests ok. She asked if I tested it with memory. I told her yes. In a PICMG Compliant backplane. I got nothing. No Startup screen, no beeps, not a thing. I check the boards voltages and saw the usual +5 and +12. Nada.
  
  She tell's me she's not that technical, but her guy tested it with no problem. She's going to send a replacement board that's different from this one.
  
  I asked some additional questions about hookup and backplane and such to hopefully compare notes with her guy that does the testing... she offered responses that didn't really answer all the questions... otherwise, most of my emails at this point went unanswered.


• July 28th: I received the replacement board... While the top IDE and LPT connectors had seriously bent pins and broken connector shrouds, when hooked up exactly the same way as I hooked up the previous board, boots with no similar problems to the last board. Interesting. (As I said, I've only been building/fixing PC's since dirt was invented.) So I emailed her to let her know this board was booting ok, and asked a couple more questions.
  
  Specifically, now that I had Windows all up and running, the 2nd CPU wasn't showing up in the Task manager, I asked her if they saw similar results. Now that the unit actually showed me a bootup screen, I could see the board maker wasn't www.i-srk.com at all but actually was Portwell and this was their ACTI-788 board (not SRK-788). So the Seller didn't really even have the right maker of the board. But that's ok... I know how the OEM game is played. I emailed the manufacturer and they sent me docs that told me not a whole lot about how to make the 2 CPU's work other than just plug them in and go. No jumpers to set or anything as I had asked of the seller in my email. (My tyan dual CPU board from a while back had one jumper to set and that was it. Apparently, this has no jumpers to set.)


• July 29th: No reply to a normally fairly email responsive seller. So thinking maybe her email got lost in cyberspace, I emailed again. (hey, it happened before...right?)


• Aug 2nd: Still no reply, so I emailed the seller again... (maybe 2 times the charm?)


• Aug 3: Final Email from seller basically telling me to stop bothering her and that she was adding me to her junk-mail list..
• Aug 10:UPDATE! Interesting email arrives from business partner which is listed below. It's a good read and thankfully further validates my point.
• Sep 18:UPDATE! The power of the internet is a wonderous thing. I got an email from another buyer of these boards who read my webpage. In the exchange of information, we determined that I received another defective (untested/verified?) CPU board. He has the same CPU's loaded on his and the BIOS on his board during bootup reports 2 CPU's which mine does not. Granted, he is having lockup issues.. so he may be the receiver of defective gear as well. More to come later..
• Oct 5: UPDATE! Again the power of the internet proves positive: A user thanked me for this page helping him make the most informed purchasing decision. The internet is all about "Information" and the sharing of. I'm glad anytime I can help someone else.

 As advertised:
 Single Board Computer
 SRC788

 Features:

 Support dual Socket-370 processors w/bus up to 100MHz
 Includes Dual Celeron 500MHz CPUs
 Support max. SDRAM memory up to 1GB with ECC function
 Four 168-pin DIMM sockets
 Support AGP VGA/Panel display up to 4MB VRAM
 Pure full-size All-In-One SBC with PICMG 2.0 compliant
 Two PS/2 (Keyboard/Mouse) Interfaces
 This is a working pull, photo shows what you will receive. Shipping will
 be $10 UPS Insured within the continental US


 If you are not capable of using this as advertised (nothing about SMP is
 ever mentioned) then that is too bad.  You are the only buyer I have had
 that is incapable of using this item.  I have gone beyond my obligation
 in helping you and done everything that is expected of me.  You need to
 get your own techinician to help you.  We do not offer technical advise.
 I am adding you to my junk mail.

 [Name witheld due to eBay Policy]

While eBay recommends I try and resolve this with the seller, it's very clear from her last email that she has no desire to do so. I can't even email her as now I'm flagged for the bitbucket. I can only speculate she does this because I'm not the 1st unhappy customer.

Oh! And lastly, if anyone has problems getting docs for these things like I did when Portwell's support site was down, just send me a line and I'll be happy to email them to you.

Update Email From Recomp.TV partner Aug.10th - Comments to follow

Dearest Benjamin,

First of all, I am glad to see that this is still a free society and I
do encourage each and every person, yes, that includes "people" such as
yourself to exercise our God given right to complain.  I encourage you
to exercise this right, and do what you wish with your time -- which you
obviously have an excess of -- but let me remind you that you are only
preaching to the choir.  

I am a member of a community service organization and I believe in
giving back to the community; I'm delighted to see that you spend your
time listing "minor/emotionally upsetting problems" that do not always
work out on the internet for the eBay community.  I firmly believe that
this is a valuable time commitment for you.  I do wish I would have been
made aware of this situation before it escalated to this level so I
could have intervened, but as one can tell, I was not made aware of your
complaints.  Just to keep our customers happy, especially customers who
spend an exorbitant amount of money such as yourself, let me inform you
that my company has a very basic knowledge of the technologies that we
buy and sell: we describe items to the best of our ability.  We have
sold hundreds of these exact motherboards thus far and you are our first
complaint.  That makes our satisfaction rate on this particular product
approximately 99.5% however, I'm sure most of our customers buy these
boards for the décor value that people of your kind seem to relish. Let
me also inform you that there is a risk with buying used merchandise and
although I sell it, I would never buy any myself: it is almost never
worth the headache one incurs because of it.  

I am also ecstatic to see that the biggest whiners are the ones that
spend most of their weekly salaries on parts such as these.  I'm sure
that since this part was less than $50, it was a large portion of your
weekly salary, as a person who writes responses on eBay instead of going
to work never make much money to begin with.  In addition, I have a
business to run.  There is never enough time to test, sort, list, ship,
reship, answer hundreds of emails, answer dozens of phone calls, AND
deal with all the freaks and geeks that technology such as this has
born. However, some people think all sellers are the same as one of
those in big box stores; that is WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am certain that you will be happy to hear that I have discovered a
solution to the aforementioned problem: all buyers should be screened to
check for minimum IQ and common sense levels before they are allowed to
purchase merchandise.  I will be instituting this policy as soon as
possible and if you still feel upset please feel free to contact me at
the office so we can discuss this melodrama further.  

Looking forward to speaking with you,
[Name witheld due to eBay Policy]
Partner
[phone number deleted - Ben]

My Comments:

Apparently I have an excess of time: No, not really - except for things which I feel are important. Just as much as I think everyone hates pulling away from the drive through with their purchased food items is disgusted with the fact that they got the wrong thing and are already too many miles/minutes away to do anything about it, I have a feeling that they would be somewhat disconcerted by the behavior of this reseller. eBay or not. No one likes spending any of their money whether it be $5 for the big-mac they didn't get or $75 for a board that is "tested" but doesn't work like its design intended. The dividing line for me was when the professionalism exited the conversation with the seller's (now 2nd to) last email to me saying tough luck and you're going on my junk-email list.

Next paragraph: Nah, I'm not as "upset" as Ed might think.. I just got ripped off, and I think people should know. Unfortunately, I don't think an 80char feedback blurb can possibly convey the full situation to any potential buyer. I happen have my own pulpit to use for such an explanation and choose to do so.

He should have been made aware of the situation by the woman he partner's with when I was asking my questions. Apparently he was not. How could I escalate the problem? Who do I email except the original sales contact address supplied by eBay which has now been cut off by a junk-email filter? I asked nicely several times for some additional information to determine if the 2nd board sent was defective, all I got was static and then an email telling me to go away. If this product has a 99.5% satisfaction rate, those boards must be working for people in the full capacity for which they were designed - which further indicates I got another bum unit. No?

Interesting. He says he never buys used equipment because he knows about the headaches it can cause. Well - wait, he sells used equipment on eBay. Where does he get it? Charity? Dumpster? I don't think I need to comment on the rest of this paragraph... let's move to the next.

Ed, FYI this board was $59.95 + $10 S&H = $69.95

Ed, the Ad said "working pull". It has 2 CPU's. Programs like Windows2000 (and NT, XP and other non-Windows OS's) should be finding and using both at the same time. They are not. Thus, it is not "working".

If being in the business of selling this stuff takes just too much time to verify proper operation of the units you mark and sell as "tested"... well, I don't know what to say to help you there...

The rest of Ed's email is pretty self explanatory.

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UPDATE!! (Feb 27. 2005):

Well, I finally found some other PICMG SBC's for these Crystal Computer chassis (they were Crystal boards in fact) so I sat down today to figure out how I wanted to set these up with what hardware in prep for when the new SBC's arrive.

When I was pulling apart the system with that defective board from recomp.tv, I was examining the board (just cause I look for parts I can scavange.. You never know when a socketed FLASH or NV-SRAM might come in handy with what I do for a living.. and on the bottom I noticed an SMT part missing. (broken from it's pads probably from living near the back/bottom edge of the board.) I'm guessing the non-tech gorilla's at Recomp.tv were being their normal heavy handed self and managed to whack the component off the board when inserting/removing the board to/from a chassis.

Well, the part was marked 'L' something. An inductor. Right near lots of filtering caps and in series with most likely a voltage rail next to the second CPU. Well, I didn't have another to compare it to.. (although I found some others on the PCB, none in a similar location..) So I just winged it. It's a power choke. A small one from the size of the footprint so I just stuck a 1.5uH power choke (SMT of course) in it's place and tried to power it up just for fun. Viola! 2 CPU's!

Pretty damn funny. Sometimes I scare me.

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