Thinkpads Forum

After giving it plenty of thought, I've decided to sell my beloved ThinkPad T23. This laptop has worked perfectly for me ever since I got it and I'm sure it will do the same for its next owner.

I have the specs and info below:

2647-LU4

1.13ghz PIII-M 14.1" XGA screen
1GB PC133 -- Elpida, IBM FRU:19K4657 and Infineon, P/N: HYS64V64220GBDL (both modules have heatsinks)
80GB 5400RPM Samsung hard drive -- MP0804H
DVD/CD-RW -- M a t s u s h i t a, IBM FRU: 27L4358
802.11b WiFi/56k modem combo card
4400mAh battery -- (re-celled), hits 0% at 1.5hr, shuts off at 2hr
UltraBay 2000 battery -- (3200mAh, hits 0% at 1.25 hr, shuts off at 1.5hr)
72W AC Adapter

This laptop has OEM Windows 2000 and XP Pro stickers on it and comes with a set of XP Pro recovery disks. I will have XP Pro loaded on it and ready to use.

The physical condition of this laptop is very good. There are some minor blemishes on the lid, you can see them in picture #3 below. You also might notice that a few screw covers are missing, I'll be replacing these before I ship the T23.

Here are some photos:
#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #10

All in all, this is a very fast laptop and it has served me well.
I'm asking for $400 shipped.

If there are any questions, please let me know.
Thanks!

Nice Thinkpad. $400 sounds reasonable, but it seems electronics are not selling very well. You should be able to get your asking price due to the Wifi and 1GB of ram. The only thing that would be nicer is if it had the SXGA+ LCD instead of the XGA LCD.

:BUMP:

I've listed the T23 on eBay. I'm thinking that it'll be more likely to sell there.

$465 BIN with shipping?!

dsigma6 wrote:$465 BIN with shipping?!

I can dream, can't I? I don't count on anyone using the BIN, but you never know.

The ebay scammers like to use buy it now.

t20user wrote:The ebay scammers like to use buy it now.

Yeah, it would be safer to add "Immediate payment required".

pianowizard wrote:Yeah, it would be safer to add "Immediate payment required".

Very good idea, I've added that to it. Thanks!

The T23 appears to have sold for $481.56, but I won't count my eggs before I receive them via PayPal.

Congrats on the sale, thats a nice price. Its party time!

I would be concerned about selling a laptop to a person with zero feedback who makes their feedback history private.

I sincerely hope you get paid for this.

Hopefully the sale goes as planned. 481.00 is a good return.

Yeah, I'm hoping that this is legit. I've received an e-mail from someone who is (or is acting like) the buyer. I've asked the person to send me the same message to me through their eBay account in hope to further verify this. Any suggestions on how I should handle this?

A follow-up here: I've received a reply from the buyer through the same eBay account, so it seems to be legit.

Cross your fingers and use a tracking option with signature return receipt.

Ebay is a crap-shoot now

macuser wrote:Cross your fingers and use a tracking option with signature return receipt.

I wasn't aware of any tracking option for international shipping (buyer is overseas), can I still add that?

Don't send the laptop until you see this!

http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?V ... 200&sort=3

Sorry to say it looks like you've been a victim of a hijacked account. Nobody in his right mind would bid those prices.

rkawakami wrote:Don't send the laptop until you see this!

http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?V ... 200&sort=3

Sorry to say it looks like you've been a victim of a hijacked account. Nobody in his right mind would bid those prices.

Hmm, I wonder what course of action I should take? It seems to be a real person that contacted me, and he/she seems to be about to pay. If I do receive a payment for this, then what should I do? Should I report the account?

I'm sure he/she is a real person. If you say that you haven't received payment yet, then just sit tight. The ball is in their court. They have to provide you the money before you ship. HOW they provide it is going to be the key in figuring out if the bid was legit. At this point, I'd have to say that it isn't.

This is based totally upon the wild prices that "nightsky1981" has bid in the 48 closed auctions (that I saw just a few minutes ago). Taking a quick scan, it looks like around $26,000 he has just spent in... a little over three hours.

My suggestion would be to report it to eBay and see what they say. If they determine that it WAS a hijacked account, you should get a credit for your listing fees.

Right, looks pretty fishy to be spending that much. Assuming that this is confirmed to be a hijacked account, should I then make a second chance offer to the next bidder or would it be best just to relist it?

I would relist it. There's a chance that the second highest bidder is ALSO a hijacked account.

If you can structure your follow-up auction to use PayPal, immediate payment and limit to US bidders only, that might make it less of a target for scammers. Of course that may also limit your potential audience.

BTW, he/she is still at it... there's now 55 auctions that have closed.

edit: Make sure you get eBay to credit you for the listing and final value fees. I've heard that it can take several days for them to get around to it.

Good suggestions Ray:

When I sell a laptop it CONUS only (Hawaii and Alaska need to contact me for shipping rates). I also make sure 'immediate payment required' and paypal verified account only.

People have tried to get me to accept money orders, cash, cashiers checks and credit funded paypal in the last year. I will not accept any form of those (whose going to mail cash anyway?). I will also not accept bidpay, western union, moneygram, et al.

To the OP:

Try offering second chance to the second bidder. Worse that could happen is they are a scammer. Best that could happen is that you sell the unit and avoid the time and frustration of having to have e-bay credit you listing fees and relist the unit.

Please post how this whole ordeal turns out and thank ray bigtime This is one of the reasons why it is great to be able to buy and sell on this board, we kind of look out for each other and I have never had any problems. Sometimes it my be worth lowering the price a little and/or wait longer to sell here.

Yeah, I hate eBay scammers. That is one of the reasons I stay away from there. I like to buy and sell here.

jamiphar wrote: Hmm, I wonder what course of action I should take? It seems to be a real person that contacted me, and he/she seems to be about to pay. If I do receive a payment for this, then what should I do? Should I report the account?

Use Live Help and chat with ebay. Mention the bidding pattern of the buyer. Ebay suspended the account very quickly (within hours) after that.

Once the account is suspended, file an Unpaid Item Dispute. You'll automatically get your final value fees back. You won't get your listing fees back. If you re-list the item AND it sells, they'll credit the fees for re-listing it.

I'm no ebay expert... but I ran into the exact same problem last week with a 600x I was selling. It's a frustrating part of ebay. I tried putting out a couple second chance offers but there were no takers. At least one of my bidders received a bogus second chancer offer as well (he contacted me through ebay to confirm whether the offer was real).

I ended up relisting and I got within a couple bucks of the original auction. The new buyer paid right away!
-Norm

Should I try the second chance offer first? If the previous bidder was on the level and still wants the laptop, then I guess that would work out nicely. If that account is hijacked as well or the bidder doesn't want it anymore, then I guess I can relist it after getting the final value fees back. If I relist it, I'll be using some of the ideas you all posted to hopefully prevent this from happening again.

@Kyocera:

Yep, I owe a lot of thanks to Ray. I think he deserves another feather. I'll be sure to post the results here.

The second chance offer would save time if the bidder accepts it (vs. relisting for another 7 days) and it will give you some certainty in the amount of money you'll receive.

I offered the item to a couple of the highest bidders (one after the other), but none of them replied. I liked the opportunity to get the sale over quickly, but since no one bought my thinkpad, I had to re-list it for another 7 days.

I was happy with my re-listing since it sold very close to the first failed auction (final value was more than any of the second chance offers).
-Norm

jamiphar wrote: I wasn't aware of any tracking option for international shipping (buyer is overseas), can I still add that?

http://www.usps.com/business/international/welcome.htm

I shipped my T23 to Taiwan no problems with insurance - I believe it was a prerequisite. Recieved the money and good feedback.

jamiphar, have you tried Craigslist? It's by far my preferred way of selling laptops -- I've sold dozens there. Thinkpads.com is my #2 choice. I avoid selling on eBay like the plague, though it's my #1 source of laptops.

pianowizard wrote:jamiphar, have you tried Craigslist? It's by far my preferred way of selling laptops -- I've sold dozens there. Thinkpads.com is my #2 choice. I avoid selling on eBay like the plague, though it's my #1 source of laptops.

Keep in mind that Craigslist is only good if you are even remotely close to an area that is covered...for me, the closest area is 3 hours away (Milwaukee or Madison). I would need more than a little profit at these gas prices to drive back and forth.