Wondering if I did the right thing... eBay story

[rkawakami]

Bid on this Mini Dock because of the description "Port Replicator with AC Adapter includes the keys, lot of 6. (my emphasis)" Did my usual 6-second snipe and it turned out that I was the only bidder. Being the nice guy that I am, I offered to at least cover the postage since the price I won it at ($10.99 with free shipping) probably would be lower than the FedEx shipping, given the weight of the six docks and power supplies (I'd guess about 15 pounds). A secondary reason why I did this was to point out that their description said "lot of 6". I wanted to let them know up front what I was expecting.

They replied with a very terse "You only won one item" This is NOT the first time that this has happened to me. Rather than get into a prolonged discussion with the seller and eBay about honoring the stated description (mistake #1?), I was happy spending $11 for one set.

About a week later it ships and I get it in 3 days. Only one problem. There's no power supply.

Email the seller and explain what was wrong. Got a polite response that they were sorry and that they would ship one ASAP. I replied that it needed to be the 4-pin plug and not the regular coaxial plug. A couple of days later (it was the weekend), "Melinda" said that she had an adapter and was shipping it out that day.

Three days later (last Friday) it shows up at the house. Anyone care to guess what happened?

edit: I'll let this run for a day or two to give anyone who's interested in my little story to submit a guess. One guess per person

Matt: Nope, sorry, you're wrong.
Carbon: Yes, they have been contacted again. A polite conversation was exchanged over three days (weekend).
Kyocera: It is the right supply and it is not dead.
Skitty: No other Mini Docks received.
Tom: Partial credit
Steve: Nope. Cord and supply were in the box. As I replied to Mike's guess, it works just fine with the dock.

[mattbiernat]

lemme guess you got the wrong one?

[carbon_unit]

I'd contact them again.

[Kyocera]

It was the right one but it's dead?

[skitty4gzus]

it showed up along with another mini dock?

[tomh009]

You now have one dock with six power supplies?

[mattbiernat]

rkawakami is enjoying keeping everyone in suspense

[tomh009]

It's Ray, it's eBay, and there are T23 parts involved -- it's bound to be an interesting story!

[tfflivemb2]

They either sent you just the power cord or just the adapter...

[KristianJ]

One dock with six sets of keys? (That's how I initially read the listing - as the lot of 6 referring to keys)

[rkawakami]

One dock with six sets of keys?

Hmm.. interesting interpretation of that sentence... but no. One dock, one key (which does work). Tom is partially right.... 85.714% in fact

[KristianJ]

One dock with six sets of keys?

Hmm.. interesting interpretation of that sentence... but no. One dock, one key (which does work). Tom is partially right.... 85.714% in fact

Which is 6/7...so 7 power supplies??

[carbon_unit]

One dock and 5 power supplies??

[tomh009]

Or six docks and one power supply?

[rkawakami]

Kristian got it right (with some help from Tom).

So here's the rest of the story...

When I got home from work last Friday there were two boxes waiting for me. Both were from the same eBay seller. I opened the smaller one first. Inside was the proper 120W power supply (with the 4-pin plug) and an AC cord. Also there was a packing slip with the description of the auction, the price paid and my address. I plugged in the supply, verified the voltage was ~16VDC, plugged it into the dock and mounted a T23. It worked fine.

Turning my attention to the larger box (about 14x14x18), I opened it up and found six more 120W power supplies. All with AC cords and all functional. Inside that box was another copy of the same packing slip, but on this one somebody had written in black marker at the bottom of the page, "power supply only". So, whoever packed that box had read the description, "lot of 6", and dutifully put six supplies inside.

So most likely the seller had six docks to begin with, realized that my (only) winning bid was way too low, and (sucessfully) weaseled their way out of the deal. I did think about keeping the extra supplies for a second, then my conscience got the better of me and I emailed them and told them about the extra shipment (mistake #2?). I stressed that I did not want their error to cost me extra money. They could have said "keep them", but they have arranged for FedEx to come by tomorrow and pick up the package. All the more reason why I think they have more of these Mini Docks if they wanted them back. I've had other sellers tell me before to keep the extra stuff that has shown up or was slightly damaged (but still functional) and a replacement provided. Honestly, I couldn't use them anyway and I doubt that I could have gotten any real money for them (who needs just a supply that only works with those docks?). In any event I thought this was a funny story that I had to share.

[ryengineer]

I was following this thread all the time and immensely enjoyed watching someone guess it right, the climax was the greatest part.

[rkawakami]

Whoa! TMI!!

[gator]

Ray and ebay - the saga continues .... You can write a book after you retire with your ebay 'adventrues' Ray - I'd buy a copy!

[bill bolton]

(who needs just a supply that only works with those docks?).

They do work with a few other things, including G series Thinkpads.

Cheers,

Bill B.

[dsigma6]

They gave you the shaft and you gave them honesty?

Moral crusader!

[kensplace]

I read the auction as one port replicator with adapter and a lot of 6 keys.

[rkawakami]

Update: FedEx came by yesterday (Tuesday) morning and picked up the box. I'm still going to watch that eBay seller and see if they put up another lot of these docks. I figure with the three extra shipments they did (two boxes with adapters, one box returned on their dime), they lost some $$$$ on that deal. If it happens that they are... umm.. dimwitted enough to again list an auction for 5 or 6 docks and power supplies, with free shipping AND without also specifying some sort of reserve or setting a high starting bid, then they're going to get hit with another snipe by me and I'm going to insist that they follow through if I win.

@dsigma6: No, after all this, I don't think that they gave me the shaft. I did get some perverse pleasure in seeing how they must have spent around $20 in extra shipping fees (10 lbs. x 2 shipments AZ->CA->AZ + 2 lbs AZ->CA) on my initial purchase of $11, which included shipping. So figuring that the dock cost $5 to ship and deducting the eBay fees, they initially made a $5 profit, Subtract the estimated $20 for the three shipments and they ended up losing $15 on this whole transaction.

[jamerslong]

idk, thats pretty funny. but i looked through the sellers items and hes got a t20 for sale in stock condition for 300$

and a 600e for 200$

i do agree that that was written as a lot of 6 setups.

[rkawakami]

Those are the Buy-it-Now prices; opening bids are $100 less for each of them, making it somewhat more reasonable prices.

The box of 6 power supplies got back to them on the 27th (thank you FedEx tracking!). They still have a BIN for the dock and power supply set @ $30 or best offer, that's been running from at least July.

And yes, there's two ways you can parse their original description. I think that even if somebody made a mistake in the cut-and-paste job they did, the original intended meaning was six full sets of whatever they were describing, not just the keys. Besides, who needs 6 keys for a docking station? I'd say the less the better for security reasons.