What's your threshold for complaining about a used equipment purchase?

[poodyp]

I know one ebay seller who has everything described as "for parts or not working". I'm not sure that's the answer. In fact I doubt it actually solves the problem for him as he then usually describes the item as working in the description.

Could be he just copies and pastes everything in. I once saw someone describe a microscope as "item powers up, display responsive" or something like that, and it didn't have a light or anything.

It's more likely to be from the transformer itself. They do tend to make a racket.

You're right, the transformer was vibrating the case, causing the breakers to vibrate and rattle. I should have some adapter cables tomorrow so I'll be able to actually use it properly.

[Mechatrommer]

"unable to test, sold as is"

my simple rule is, "the thing is broken need to fix".

I must be lucky then, I've bought a few things described this way, including my Wavetek 172B function gen and they always worked. The function gen was less than half the price of a working unit.

by thinking this way, it will avoid dissapointment in case if its really broken, and you also already prepared to fix it. but if you get a working unit, than thats a joy. +1 to your longevity

[grumpydoc]

I know one ebay seller who has everything described as "for parts or not working". I'm not sure that's the answer. In fact I doubt it actually solves the problem for him as he then usually describes the item as working in the description.

Could be he just copies and pastes everything in. I once saw someone describe a microscope as "item powers up, display responsive" or something like that, and it didn't have a light or anything.

I know what you mean but, no he seems to take more than average care over testing. I suspect that, from the legal perspective his text description of a "working" item would override the "parts or not working" label, especially when he actually says it's to stop people sending items back.

That said it's not totally clear how much the EU/UK distance selling regulations apply to ebay auctions and therefore whether he would have to. In theory DSR doesn't apply to auctions but there has to be "competitive bidding" to satisfy the definition. Starting something at a highish price and selling with just one bid possibly would be deemed not to be an auction. To add to the confusion Ebay then applies the rules in its own idiosyncratic way.

Whatever - it looks as though buying from him would cause grief, so I don't.

[peter.mitchell]

the buyer took the partial refund approach

So, it sounds as though they were just fishing in that case for a cheaper deal.

Indeed, which i was disappointed about because he bought it in an auction style listing and thus, someone would have happily paid the 2nd highest bid price, much higher than what i ended up getting.

As a seller I try to make sure things are in decent condition, well described and have all faults fixed (where reasonable). I have a default "full refund only" policy, unless the buyer asks sensibly and can provide evidence of a problem which genuine makes the item less than 100% useful, but still useful enough not to send back

The buyer did send some pictures as evidence, but TBH they looked a lot like someone had opened up photoshop, used the spill tool and put that black and then got the brush and just clicked a few times with the white. https://dl.dropbox.com/u/677635/pixels.jpg
The buyer was a "3d effects artist" and needed it for work and that the "dead pixels" made it very hard for him to use it, if the person was local I would have driven there and checked it out, but they're half way across the country, he paid $1200 for the monitor and got a $400 refund for "3 dead pixels", 3 in 4096000 isn't too bad... plus the monitor was still under warranty ( 3 year) so I felt pretty mad.

[grumpydoc]

so I felt pretty mad.

I'll bet!

[AlphZeta]

I have found that the pictures on some of the eBay postings can be deceiving. Just the other day, I found that a posting was using a picture from my website.

So I think the rule is to ask the seller whether the picture was indeed the actual picture of the product you are going to get. And in cases where the seller says the item is sold as is, then your options are pretty limited.

That's frightening! Put a watermark next time 
If buying from ebay next time try to copy the image url into google search and search by image, you might find that it's from somewhere else 

Ok, found the page I was looking for now. Take a look at this auction on ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Core-2-Quad-Q9450-2-66-GHz-Quad-Core-BX80569Q9450-CPU-/271035545699?pt=CPUs&hash=item3f1afa3863 and check against this post back in 2008 on my site (the third picture down): http://www.kerrywong.com/2008/04/12/some-pictures-of-my-new-rig/.

[T4P]

Oh dear kerry, that was .. i'll bet you were quite furious 

[AlphZeta]

Oh dear kerry, that was .. i'll bet you were quite furious 

Na... I was actually quite perplexed since that wasn't a particularly good picture anyway.... Just hoping that the potential buyers won't be judging based solely on the picture as it's for sure not what they are going to get.