[sdiy] High Grin Factor

[Glen]

At 04:34 PM 8/7/03 , Tim Ressel wrote:
>Hey all,
>
>I just received my latest eBay score: A pair of HP3455
>6.5 digit voltmeters. One works great, one needs its
>brain unscrambled. Not bad for $60!!

Inspired partly by your recent successes with HP test equipment on eBay, I
bought an HP 5328A Universal Counter. I sent my money order payment via UPS
overnight delivery, to make up for waiting through a weekend to mail it.
When the UPS clerk discovered that I was paying for an eBay transaction, he
started telling me his personal horror story about getting ripped off
through eBay. I couldn't help but get a bad feeling at this point. It just
seemed like a jinx or a bad omen or something--as silly as that might sound
to some of you.

The seller took about 4 days to send the package after getting my money
order. It's not like I sent a check and he had to wait for it to clear his
bank.

FedEx Ground literally got lost and delayed the delivery for 4 days, while
trying to find my house.

It finally arrived today.

It doesn't work.

Despite what the seller claimed, it is nowhere near fully functional. In
fact it won't make the first measurement of anything, though it does "light
up" and the display "responds" to the various control settings. Speaking of
controls, all the slide switches and even the main power switch are
horribly dirty. I'll have to replace the power switch. It's just too
unreliable.

He also sent a different unit than what he pictured in his listing. While
that might be fairly common for eBay, he stressed in his ad to "LOOK at the
PICS!", as proof that I would be bidding on a nice piece of gear. There
would be no reason to stress this, if the unit in the pics was not the unit
being bid on. Either he had several of these things sitting around, and
sent me the wrong one, or he simply ripped me off.

I've never been burned on eBay before. It doesn't feel very nice. At least
it wasn't for thousands of dollars. (I doubt that I would ever want to buy
a rare synth, for big money on eBay, for fear of something like this
happening.)

Tim, if I bid on another piece of HP test equipment in the future, could I
*please* borrow your lucky rabbit's foot?    :)

Come on, I know you have one.   :)


later,
Glen Berry