Would you take a chance on this e-bay listing?

[SaberX]

I'm just about to pick one of thease up.
I have sent a message to the seller asking a few questions.
First the model #'s on the A31P's are 2653-H6U.
the screens have not been changed ,just listed wrong.
http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie ... :RTQ:CA:11

I just dont like takeing a big chance on something thats not tested.
Seller says they boot up to BIOS.

Question is ...
Would you take the chance on getting one?
I think i will pick one up.Worst case if it's not working 100% i can sell off the good parts.
And if it turns out to be good,I'll have a nice cheap A31P.When i get the few other parts...

[rkawakami]

Couple of things appear on my radar:

- "As-is" notice is very prominent
- Wording of how system was not tested ("time constraints") or how they are not responsible for things "not clearly visible"
- N/A status on most of the things that should be in the system and/or easy enough to verify if they work ("point device", "video", etc.)

Also, if you check their bidding history you will see that they have submitted bids for other "parts" systems in the last month. Booting to BIOS only means the system is functional enough to display the BIOS settings. From this you can assume that most of the power circuits are operating, the memory is good and the video works. The LCD may have a red tint on power up which has gone away after being on for a few seconds. You don't know if the hard drive, Ultrabays, PCMCIA or USB interfaces work or not. Most of those things can be verified by using a boot CD or PC Doctor.

In short, it's about $100 too much for my tastes. That's pretty much what I'd spend for an unknown UXGA display.

Just my $0.02CDN .

edit: Checked their recent sales in the Feedback list. Here's one that's interesting:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0158614606

[SaberX]

Thanks Ray for the input.
I was looking on e-bay more and say this listing...
http://cgi.ebay.ca/IBM-A31P-Laptop-sell ... dZViewItem

This one and the first one are two diffrent names but almost the same e-bay listing.To many things like ways to pay,pic,shipping location and price,ect .And if you look at the feed back for each you will see a few names the same.Seems like they are to and from each other.

If they do indeed work it's a good price.
But i have a gut feeling to stay away from them.

I think i'll put up a post looking for another laptop in working shape.

[rkawakami]

Yes, those two sellers are using the same template aren't they?

What I have found interesting is that one buyer, purchased the same A31p "parts" system from both of those sellers! Also, the feedback profile for that buyer is 41 positive and 0 negative. However, that's for a total of 203 positives. What does that mean? Simply put, that buyer has a small list of sellers that (s)he deals with; six of them covers almost all of the transactions listed in the profile.

The pessimist in me would say that that particular buyer could be a shill and that both of the sellers you pointed out are one and the same. However, there's nothing wrong with buying from a small core of sellers who also happen to be in the same country (Canada) and there's nothing in the eBay rules the says you can't have multiple IDs. One would have to research many transactions between those three to figure out what, if anything, is really going on.

ref: http://toolhaus.org/ (a nice tool for researching eBay feedback)