Warning about cheap ultrabay HD caddy knock-offs on eBay

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Nolonemo · #1 Post by **Nolonemo** » Mon Jun 12, 2006 2:09 pm

I just received an ultrabay 2000 HD caddy I won on eBay and discovered to my extreme annoyance that it's an all-plastic Chinese item, not an original IBM part. The auction didn't make it clear that the item was not original IBM, and, though you could tell from the photos if you really looked, it wasn't obvious. I should have known better, from the China location of the seller and similar items for other laptops (I thought, without thinking, that it was just the ususal eBay loss leader price recouped by inflated shipping). The worst thing is that the shipping was jacked up so high, I only saved $10 over buying the real thing on eBay

Anyway, the seller ID is: it-glasses (may also go as glassman701)

Here's a current auction.

Edit: after I complained to the seller, he was very responsive, see my post below, so this is not a knock on the seller personally, just on the unclear (to me, anyway) auction description).

dsigma6 · #2 Post by **dsigma6** » Mon Jun 12, 2006 2:14 pm

well i guess it did kind of look like it wasnt high quality...but at least its a $25 purchase and not a $250 one.

i doesnt look like an ibm part at all though!

JHEM · #3 Post by **JHEM** » Mon Jun 12, 2006 2:19 pm

The $4.99 price wasn't enough of a clue that you weren't buying the real McCoy?

Regards,

James

Orevin · #4 Post by **Orevin** » Mon Jun 12, 2006 2:58 pm

The question is, does it fit and is it working?

Nolonemo · #5 Post by **Nolonemo** » Mon Jun 12, 2006 3:21 pm

JHEM wrote:The $4.99 price wasn't enough of a clue that you weren't buying the real McCoy?

Well, I've bought lots of stuff on eBay where the "price" is ridiculously low, and the seller is making it up with inflated shipping. So what I pay attention to on buy-it-now items is the all-in price, and when I'm bidding, I bid taking into account what the shipping will be.

In this case, the all-in price was about what I got my "real" ultrabay adaptor for, shipped, which was about $10 below market.

Not denying that if I'd been paying more attention, I would have figured out what was going on....

#6 Post by **bill bolton** » Mon Jun 12, 2006 5:57 pm

Orevin wrote:The question is, does it fit and is it working?

I bought an Ultrabay Slim version from the same seller and it works fine. The only significant difference from the IBM versions I have is that it doesn't have an activity light on the external edge.

My "landed cost" was under half of what I would have paid for an IBM unit and I was under no illusions it was an IBM part, so I am happy enough with what I received!

Cheers,

Bill

Nolonemo · #7 Post by **Nolonemo** » Mon Jun 12, 2006 7:25 pm

I think it will work fine. I guess I'm so annoyed at paying the high shipping fee, around $20. I've ordered other stuff that comes from Hong Kong with shipping 1/3 of what I paid. For that price, I would have been happy with it.

Nolonemo · #8 Post by **Nolonemo** » Tue Jun 13, 2006 12:44 pm

I wanted to follow up on the thread, to make clear that the seller is not a scammer, that the problem was with the auction being unclear (at least to me).

I complained to the seller, and he offered to refund me the full purchase price plus what I paid for shipping, if I mailed the item back, or to refund 2/3 of the shipping if I wanted to keep it. I ended up telling him that I was satisified with the item and appreciated his offer to resolve the issue.

So... a good seller with unclear auction description.

Warning about cheap ultrabay HD caddy knock-offs on eBay

Warning about cheap ultrabay HD caddy knock-offs on eBay

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