Subject: Bad experience with eBay seller

From: Vintage Computer Festival <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Jun 20 17:24:15 2003

I must relate a bad experience I had with an eBay seller.  The account
name is "rexbassdesigns".  The auction in question was a lot of three
Altair 8800's and an ADM-3A terminal.  I was purchasing them for a client.

The ad stated that the units were in "very good" condition.  The seller
fired them up and showed one picture with the unit on.  The pictures
indicated that they were indeed in "very good" condition, and the photo
gave the impression that they had been stored in a good, clean
environment.  The ADM-3A terminal was described as "missing a few keys"
but the seller said he might have a "replacement set or two".

Upon receiving the units, I noticed right away that the machines were not
as described.  They looked as if they'd been stored in an outdoor shed or
something.  They had a lot of dirt inside and some boards had obviously
been exposed to moisture over a long period of time.

The ADM-3A terminal was a complete mess.  The seller's description of
"missing a few keys" was rather optimistic, as the keyboard was missing
half its keys.  Overall it was in terrible condition, having obviously
been stored outdoors.

The lot is not a complete loss; the Altairs should be able to be restored
to working condition and cleaned up, and the price paid was certainly
reasonable.  However, the seller was quite misleading in his description,
and the "replacement set" for the ADM keyboard turned out to be a spare
keyboard from a totally different terminal, which of course is silly.

I tried to explain to the seller that I felt he was misleading, but he was
way too defensive for anything constructive to come out of it, so I
informed him that I would simply have to leave him negative feedback,
which I rarely do (this is only the second time, the first was because
some guy up and disappeared and didn't send me the goods).  I don't like
leaving negative feedback, but I felt I had to in this case to warn
others about this seller, as he's selling other old computer stuff.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=4193&item=2729439759

-- 

Sellam Ismail                                        Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger                http://www.vintage.org

 * Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *

---

From: Patrick Finnegan <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Jun 20 17:25:24 2003

> Altair 8800's and an ADM-3A terminal.  I was purchasing them for a client.
...
> keyboard from a totally different terminal, which of course is silly.

If you need a replacement motherboard for one, I see them out here
occasionally, and I'm sure it'd be cheap to ship.

Let me know if you want it or not.   Of course, I'm sure you probably have
one or two ADM's in your warehouse...

Pat
--
Purdue University ITAP/RCS
Information Technology at Purdue
Research Computing and Storage
http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/

---

From: Vintage Computer Festival <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Jun 20 17:29:39 2003

> occasionally, and I'm sure it'd be cheap to ship.

I might take you up on that offer, actually.  A trade would probably be
good.

> one or two ADM's in your warehouse...

Try 3 or 4 :)  But those are in my personal collection.  The one in
question is for a client.

--

---

From: Ian Primus <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Jun 20 21:39:17 2003

> occasionally, and I'm sure it'd be cheap to ship.

Wouldn't happen to have a motherboard for a Televideo 912, would you? I 
have a 912 with a good power supply, CRT board and tube, but the screen 
comes up with garbled/missing/blinking text, and when I run the self 
test it is pretty random what happens.

Thanks!

Ian Primus
[email-masked]