VOGONS


Retro Hardware Collecting rants

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Reply 380 of 934, by EvieSigma

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People who clearly know nothing about what they're trying to sell but still asking top dollar really are the worst, especially when what they're asking top dollar for is irreparably broken.

I'm not going to post the link to the listing but I found someone on Craigslist listing a Macintosh IIcx for 170 dollars...with serious battery damage to the motherboard, so much that the board is guaranteed to never work again.

00K0K_gBEdi7pZQsV_0AE0ru_1200x900.jpg

I'm sorry, but I don't have any tolerance for trying to sell actual junk for that much money. I'd pay $17 to get the hard drive, case, and video card I guess?

Reply 381 of 934, by Miphee

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EvieSigma wrote on 2020-07-03, 04:41:

I'm sorry, but I don't have any tolerance for trying to sell actual junk for that much money. I'd pay $17 to get the hard drive, case, and video card I guess?

That's part of the "AS-IS/UNTESTED" scam. They offer no guarantees and hide problematic parts of the computer to scam buyers. When you want more photos or tests these are the usual excuses:

I'll send photos later, I don't have time (never follow up).
I don't have the computer at the moment.
I'm on a business trip for a few days.
My friend makes the photos who is unavailable right now, I'll ask him.
I don't want to take it further apart because I don't know anything about computers.
My friend tested it and it worked for him so you can trust me.
I don't have the cable/other part to test it.

And then you end up with an expensive junk.
When you see sellers with working parts next to the NOT TESTED/AS-IS parts then there is a 99% chance that these are parts the guy couldn't bring back to life or have irrepairable damage.

Reply 382 of 934, by devius

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A rant against myself:

- The many times I've said that I was done collecting hardware for good/long time only to come across some piece of hardware that I just couldn't pass.

This usually happens after I get a big lot.

Reply 384 of 934, by boxpressed

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One thing that annoys me is when people post eBay listings of rare items that sold within hours or even minutes of the end of the auction/sale. This even happens on Vogons despite its policy on eBay listings.

What this does is draw a lot of attention to an item that may not yet be in the mail yet. People can then message the seller and propose a side deal, especially if the item sold for less than market value. I like seeing what sold for what price, but people should wait a few days before posting.

Reply 385 of 934, by Tetrium

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imi wrote on 2020-07-06, 13:49:

that sounds very familiar 😉

"the fear of missing out"... and it gets worse with time too

There can definitely be something addictive going on with any kind of collecting habit!
For me, after I think 5(?) years it started to decline and I even remember the moment this happened:
I was in my attic and as some of the oldtimers here may remember, I had my attic set up with shelves and stacks of kiwi boxes and organised a bit as if it was a shop, everything neatly sorted and with a workbench in the same room (basically a door laying on 2 half-height shelves as using an old door was wayyyy cheaper than paying for a piece of wood to make the top of a table with) and I had just gone into my attic and I looked at the hundreds of parts I had stored. And then I realized that I had basically everything I had really wanted up to that point. I had wayyy more then I had ever dreamed of back when I was just a kid who didn't even have his own PC. I had to go to friends and basically use their PC (of course they always got first dibs since it was of course their stuff 🤣) and PCs had something magical to me. And fast forward, here I was, in my self-made attic having basically done most of the collecting before I even knew there were other collectors to find like here on Vogons!
I was satisfied. I had basically proven to myself that I could do it. That I could do amazing stuff that before that I held for just a kid's dream, having basically my own shop and it was all mine! 😁

Sure, I didn't have all the stuff I would like to have, but I had had the chance to build basically whatever I wanted at that point (provided it wasn't the really new stuff as that was too expensive for me).

No collection will ever be perfect unless that collection has basically all the collective elements with literally no part not part of that collection and this is impossible. At least this is how I kinda see it.

My collection was so awesome that even people who were totally not computer savvy and who I let into the attic to lay an eye on my collection, every single individual was just in awe. And that's pretty much amazing in my book 😜

I was collecting a lot (and I still do even though it's mostly just sporadic stuff these days) but at some point I became satisfied.

Whats missing in your collections?
My retro rigs (old topic)
Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
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Reply 386 of 934, by Horun

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boxpressed wrote on 2020-07-06, 15:08:

One thing that annoys me is when people post eBay listings of rare items that sold within hours or even minutes of the end of the auction/sale. This even happens on Vogons despite its policy on eBay listings.

Unless I misunderstand: Technically I cannot do that with my Ebay account, once a bid is made I can no longer sell it with the Buy Now if it was setup as a Buy Now or Bid. If setup as BID only I cannot just sell it if any bids are open or would also violate my TOS. To sell before Auction ends IF there are open bids violates the rules. Can you show me one such ? I know some of the supposed "sponsered" get away with stuff that most average sellers cannot but if you have a link I would be happy to check it out.

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 387 of 934, by boxpressed

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Horun wrote on 2020-07-07, 02:03:
boxpressed wrote on 2020-07-06, 15:08:

One thing that annoys me is when people post eBay listings of rare items that sold within hours or even minutes of the end of the auction/sale. This even happens on Vogons despite its policy on eBay listings.

Unless I misunderstand: Technically I cannot do that with my Ebay account, once a bid is made I can no longer sell it with the Buy Now if it was setup as a Buy Now or Bid. If setup as BID only I cannot just sell it if any bids are open or would also violate my TOS. To sell before Auction ends IF there are open bids violates the rules. Can you show me one such ? I know some of the supposed "sponsered" get away with stuff that most average sellers cannot but if you have a link I would be happy to check it out.

I was talking about something else. An example might clear this up. Let's say that someone lists a Voodoo 5 for $30 BIN. User A "watches" it just a minute after it is listed. User B hits the BIN and gets a good deal.

User A posts on a forum just a few minutes later: "Someone got a good deal --link."

User B now hopes that some rando won't message the seller offering $100 to cancel the sale.

Reply 388 of 934, by Horun

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Ahh ok I get it ! Thanks ! We are are not supposed to link to specific Ebay sales here, same with VCFED afaik. Fairly sure I never did that on purpose but have used some ebay seller images for informational purposes.

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 389 of 934, by darry

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I always thought that auctions that had ended were not a problem, but my understanding may be incorrect. I must admit that I had not considered the scenario described by boxpressed . One way around that issue when, for example, discussing availability or pricing of a type item would be to make sure any auction referenced is not freshly completed . Then again, I don't know if even that would be considered acceptable on vogons or not .

Then there is the question of what to do when someone asks for help and the answer would imply pointing them towards a specific type of item/adapter that is unfortunately unbranded. Is giving an example on a non auction site (amazon, aliexpress, etc) OK ?

What about if I've just found a product that provides a solution to a problem or provides useful functionality and want to share my discovery ? Am I limited to suggesting keywords to type in a search engine and hoping people stumble on the same product I did ?

I thought I was being careful in respecting forum rules in text and in spirit, but I am starting to doubt myself .

Reply 390 of 934, by imi

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I guess it's simply just best to not link to ebay auctions that have recently ended even if that were technically allowed... or even point to them indirectly.

I'm not against generally linking to ebay for items that are available in vast quantity (I guess this would still be against forum rules?), but even then I usually just point to ebay and say "look for XY, it's available there"

I have sometimes posted in the "bought recently" threads shortly after buying something, not linking to anything though.
usually I do wait until I actually have it and have taken my own pictures to post, as posting seller's pictures is questionable anyways (though I have done that myself sometimes)

Reply 391 of 934, by Tetrium

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Personally I'd prefer if people would wait till the actual item has arrived at its destination so it's basically assured the deal has gone through. I mean it aint over till it's over! 😜
It could apparently prevent all sorts of trouble. Just wait patiently till the deal is sealed, just like how Artex does it 😜

Whats missing in your collections?
My retro rigs (old topic)
Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
Report spammers here!

Reply 392 of 934, by boxpressed

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I'm not against linking to auctions in forums in general (I try not to do so on Vogons because of the relatively recent decision to end the eBay thread), but I just don't see the point in the "what a steal!" genre of post especially if it happens within a day or two of the end of the listing. Let the buyer make that post if they want to talk about a good deal.

On another forum, I've posted good deals BEFORE an auction ends, and I've been criticized for that for "jacking" up the price for the early bidders. I still don't see the problem with promoting an auction before it is over, although I can understand why an early bidder (or sniper in waiting) would be annoyed by my post.

Reply 393 of 934, by imi

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boxpressed wrote on 2020-07-07, 16:01:

Let the buyer make that post if they want to talk about a good deal.

can't hurt to make them aware of the fact that there might be people out there using nefarious practices and be careful either though.

most probably wouldn't even think about that that could happen.

Reply 394 of 934, by PTherapist

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Not really a rant this one, more a slightly amusing one I just remembered. I was browsing eBay not looking for anything in particular and came across a listing for a Sinclair ZX81 motherboard, selling as untested spares/repairs. The description read along the lines of "unsure if this works or not, I know nothing about these computers".

The picture was a dead give away though - the CPU was missing and in it's place was a 2nd ULA chip of an earlier revision to the one in the ULA socket. 🤣 Now I understand a clueless person wouldn't recognise that, but it begs the question where the hell did they get this thing from!

Reply 395 of 934, by will1384

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boxpressed wrote on 2020-07-07, 02:17:
I was talking about something else. An example might clear this up. Let's say that someone lists a Voodoo 5 for $30 BIN. User A […]
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Horun wrote on 2020-07-07, 02:03:
boxpressed wrote on 2020-07-06, 15:08:

One thing that annoys me is when people post eBay listings of rare items that sold within hours or even minutes of the end of the auction/sale. This even happens on Vogons despite its policy on eBay listings.

Unless I misunderstand: Technically I cannot do that with my Ebay account, once a bid is made I can no longer sell it with the Buy Now if it was setup as a Buy Now or Bid. If setup as BID only I cannot just sell it if any bids are open or would also violate my TOS. To sell before Auction ends IF there are open bids violates the rules. Can you show me one such ? I know some of the supposed "sponsered" get away with stuff that most average sellers cannot but if you have a link I would be happy to check it out.

I was talking about something else. An example might clear this up. Let's say that someone lists a Voodoo 5 for $30 BIN. User A "watches" it just a minute after it is listed. User B hits the BIN and gets a good deal.

User A posts on a forum just a few minutes later: "Someone got a good deal --link."

User B now hopes that some rando won't message the seller offering $100 to cancel the sale.

I had something almost like that happen to me, I was buying an Xbox, it was one of the first generation Xbox units, and I won the auction, at a low price, the eBay page for the item showed it worked and had some controllers, games, and TV hook up cables, within a few minutes of wining the auction the seller said the item broke during shipping and refunded the money, how the heck do you break a first generation Xbox by putting it into a shipping box, they were built like a tank.

Reply 397 of 934, by Tetrium

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boxpressed wrote on 2020-07-07, 16:01:

I'm not against linking to auctions in forums in general (I try not to do so on Vogons because of the relatively recent decision to end the eBay thread), but I just don't see the point in the "what a steal!" genre of post especially if it happens within a day or two of the end of the listing. Let the buyer make that post if they want to talk about a good deal.

On another forum, I've posted good deals BEFORE an auction ends, and I've been criticized for that for "jacking" up the price for the early bidders. I still don't see the problem with promoting an auction before it is over, although I can understand why an early bidder (or sniper in waiting) would be annoyed by my post.

This does jack up prices, so the problem with this is quite obvious. I mean there's even plenty of complaining about high prices in this very thread, it was very hard to miss 😜

Whats missing in your collections?
My retro rigs (old topic)
Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
Report spammers here!

Reply 398 of 934, by dr_st

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will1384 wrote on 2020-07-07, 18:20:

I was buying an Xbox, it was one of the first generation Xbox units, and I won the auction, at a low price, the eBay page for the item showed it worked and had some controllers, games, and TV hook up cables, within a few minutes of wining the auction the seller said the item broke during shipping and refunded the money, how the heck do you break a first generation Xbox by putting it into a shipping box, they were built like a tank.

Yep, happened to me twice when I won something cheaper than you would expect the item to go for. Not a ridiculous "deal of a lifetime", mind you. Like a new-open-box laptop battery for $30+shipping (new one could cost maybe $100), or a specific mechanical keyboard for $100, where the going price was maybe $150. The first one I could understand the seller would want to cancel, but the second one? Ridiculous. The funny thing? A few weeks later I won the same keyboard, except slightly used for $70 (different seller), and that one honored the sale.

In fact, most sellers will honor the sale. These two cases were the only ones where I could reasonably believe the seller cheated because didn't want to sell so low, out of dozens of auctions I won, many for under market value.

https://cloakedthargoid.wordpress.com/ - Random content on hardware, software, games and toys

Reply 399 of 934, by imi

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yeah, just might be worth mentioning that even though of all the ranting in this thread, those are usually edge cases, most sales I had went just fine ^^
I have won many things for €1 on ebay, where I sometimes really feel for the sellers having to go to the post office just for that.