Sniing was Re: Microdata "Microprogramming Handbook"

From: Tothwolf <tothwolf_at_concentric.net>
Date: Sat Jan 26 14:07:38 2002

On Sat, 26 Jan 2002, John Foust wrote:
> At 09:09 PM 1/25/2002 -0600, Tothwolf wrote:
>
> > I was quite sick when I saw the seller trying to sell these off to
> > uneducated buyers on ebay for $50 each. If someone had indeed bought
> > one at that price, they would have been tempted to try to repair it
> > when it did not work. People qualified to work on these units would
> > tend to be educated buyers and not even consider paying $50 for a dead
> > unit.
>
> What are you suggesting? That a warning label might've saved their
> lives, or just saved them from parting from their cash? Or that the
> auctioneer's job is to accurately represent the state of each gizmo,
> as opposed to saying "all sales as-is and final", which is far easier
> and still manages to attract plenty of buyers.

What I am saying, is that I often see idiot wannabe dealers overpay for
*junk* at the local auctions, not even knowing what they are buying, all
the while thinking they can make a fast buck off of "suckers" on ebay.

Had the guy posted a note saying "as-is" or "nonworking", I still would
have thought it insane for the guy to be trying to sell *nonworking* units
for $50 mininum bid when a brand new *working* unit can be bought for the
same price. I don't think anyone ended up buying any of them at $50, but
this was obviously a case of a bad seller.

> The whole point of an auction is that it's a good way to maximize
> profit while making a big pile of junk disappear. Evaluating the goods
> (accurately or professionally) and warning the buyers about nitpicks
> isn't profitable.

Again, what I am getting at is ebay itself has spawned a whole new
generation of get-rich-quick idiots who buy up stuff at local auctions for
inflated prices and try to sell it at an even higher price on ebay.

> Maybe someone buys dead UPSes to recover the lead in the batteries,
> who knows.

I've bought many dead UPS myself. The amount of lead contained in a
typical UPS is next to worthless. I find a hard time just finding a place
locally that will take the stuff for free. The city won't take sealed lead
acid batteries because they don't look like automotive batteries.

-Toth
Received on Sat Jan 26 2002 - 14:07:38 GMT