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I do wish people would say if stuff is working....

What I hate about buying stuff off eBay is this: They say the computer(or whatever) is working[got to C:\ prompt, or whatever) and they have the monitor in the pic, keyboard, and occasionally even a power socket in the pic. But only like, 1/3 of auctions show the computer powered up! To me, it's not that hard to plug in, and show the world the computer turns on, but for some reason, hardly anyone bothers turning the computer on. There are many computers out there I would have bought if they just plugged the darn thing on, and brought the c: prompt up, especially if the computer looks a little ratty.
 
What I hate about buying stuff off eBay is this: They say the computer(or whatever) is working[got to C:\ prompt, or whatever) and they have the monitor in the pic, keyboard, and occasionally even a power socket in the pic. But only like, 1/3 of auctions show the computer powered up! To me, it's not that hard to plug in, and show the world the computer turns on, but for some reason, hardly anyone bothers turning the computer on. There are many computers out there I would have bought if they just plugged the darn thing on, and brought the c: prompt up, especially if the computer looks a little ratty.

Brother, I'm with you on that one!

Tell me it's working is one thing. Showing me a picture of it turned on? Greatly influences my bidding.

What really irks me is if I email them and ask if it's working or not, majority of the time I get no response! Okay, delete from the watch list.

Lord knows, I try to show things up and running in all my auctions.
 
Yup, I have to agree. I regularly used to get above average prices for my stuff on e-bay because I would go to the little bit of extra trouble to show several shots of the unit with the first picture being the one showing it working and running a program.

I believe the favourite phrase is "It worked the last time it was used" which translates into "it doesn't work NOW"

Had one guy in Indiana send me 5 Model I keyboards, three bare boards and a bare E/I board, all of which he won on e-bay. Nothing worked correctly from the screen tearing horizontally to garbage on the screen to completely dead.

All he wanted was one system back that worked and I got the rest. Fixed him a keyboard and the E/I board, found a case for the E/I on e-bay for 2 bucks, sent him back his, fixed the other 4 Mod Is and one of the bare boards (the other two were too hacked up to waste the time on, but, they are good for parts) and sold my 5 pieces off for around a hundred buck a shot (one per week, of course LOL).

And that's just ONE of the "It worked last time it was used" multiple dead system deals like that I've got from ebay customers.
 
I've been fairly fortunate on ebay although I only bid if I talk to the person and get a response (even if it's just a dumb question I want to make sure they communicate). I also tend to stick to a system that I see working although most (all?) the computers I've purchased even if they were as-is and worked last time have been working *knocks on wood since I'm waiting for a compaq portable* but I think the one I ended up winning actually did have a picture of it asking for a disk (the other said it asked for the date which I thought made sense although the only pic was off but once I thought about it they either had a working hard drive or were bluffing since asking for a date would be a dos feature).

However in general I'd certainly advocate only purchasing systems you see running as described and make sure you get ahold of the seller prior to blindly bidding. Sometimes I also do a quick google images search on the unit to double check if they just used someone elses pic vs their own (usually only if it looks too stock or too neat).

- John
 
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