How automatic sniping can backfire (to a certain degree)

[rkawakami]

Noticed five separate auctions for identical 512MB PC133 laptop modules from the same seller being offered up last week on eBay:

"Laptop Memory 512MB 133Mhz"

The picture in the auctions showed an Apple-labeled module, which looks like a Micron/Crucial design but it could also be from some no-name module assembler. It's the standard 1.25" height module so it should fit and work fine inside a T23 or X22. The description also stated that they were tested and guaranteed to work. A 7-day return policy was also noted. Both of those things always gives me that "warm and fuzzy" feeling.

Thinking that these would be bid up to market price levels (currently around $50 when you include shipping), I submitted eSnipes for all five at about $31 apiece. For those of you who do not know how eSnipe works, you can setup multiple snipes and assign them into a single "bid group". When you win one item out of that bid group, the others are automatically canceled. However, the one major restriction for bid groups is that each auction's ending time must be at least 5 minutes apart from the others. This gives the eSnipe servers enough time to allow cancellation of the remaining snipes in the bid group. Since the seller put up all five modules in 20 second intervals of each other, I could not use a bid group. "No worries", I thought. I probably wouldn't win any of them - not at $31 .

I was wrong. I won all five . Since I really didn't think this would have happened, I never contacted the seller to see what his/her combined shipping policy was. Each auction had a $7 USPS Priority shipping cost. When I was first invoiced by eBay last night, the shipping was listed as $35, putting the total at just under $180. I contacted the seller and explained that I would be testing them in a T23 with memtest86+ and asked if they offered any shipping discount for the five. This morning I checked my email and eBay messages but there was no reply. But when I clicked on the "Pay" button, the invoice reflected a shipping cost of just $7. I completed the PayPal checkout and thanked them for the discount. If they all check out fine when I get them, the seller is going to get a great positive feedback note.

Moral of this story? I guess it's, "never be surprised by stuff that happens on eBay". Certainly one of the things is "never submit bids that you can't cover if they ALL turn out to be winners". I already had the necessary funds in my PayPal account from other recent deals, so in the back of my mind I wasn't worried about that part. It's just that I thought those funds would be around for a few more weeks...

[tfflivemb2]

I'll be glad to take one or two off your hands, if you are spending too much...

[dsigma6]

Ray, you're always up to no good on eBay! At least you weren't bidding on $300 maxed out T23's...

I already had the necessary funds in my PayPal account from other recent deals, so in the back of my mind I wasn't worried about that part.

I take it you don't have a checking account connected to your PayPal? I like being able to make a purchase with PayPal when I have $0 in it, and if I spend $10 and there's only $5 in PayPal, it'll deduct the difference from my checking.

[tfflivemb2]

I'm sure that Ray is like myself...you try to keep the money in my paypal account, so that I can spend freely without the spouse knowing about it. The second that money comes out of the checking account, I hear it...loud and clear.

Now, having said that, I still have the checking account attached....besides, she might need something off of eBay, too!

[rkawakami]

I do have my own personal (not joint) checking account tied to PayPal. Also a credit card, again a personal one not a joint account. Said credit card is set up to be paid off in full every month from my checking account. This keeps my spending in check (pun intended!). Both of these with the same bank since the mid '70s. My wife (then, girlfriend) and I set up a joint checking account when we first cohabited, but I still kept my original one. At the time it made the most sense. After 25 years together, it's still this way but now the "joint" account is really her's. I rarely will write a check from that account and she takes care of all the details about it. It's also rare that I have a balance in my PayPal account (due to the many eBay transactions). Just so happened that I did a couple of deals with some members here in the last two weeks and there was enough in there to cover the modules.

[rkawakami]

Ray, you're always up to no good on eBay!

Sorry, Dan, but the price of 512MB PC133 is still coming down...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0176932427

I missed this one by a couple of seconds. Didn't setup an automatic snipe; thought I'd be able to manually bid on it. I would have bid up to about $28 given the "Sold as is" notation and no mention of DOA or return policy. Oh well...

[rkawakami]

Just a note to document these modules....

Received all five today and two of them have already completed 3 hours of testing in a T23 to memtest86+. So far, no problems after 20% of the first pass on the next two modules.

They are indeed standard Micron MT16LSDF6464 modules (512MB PC133 CL3) as I thought. The Apple part number is M9089G/A and went into their pre-G4 iBooks:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302333

These five are actually marked as MT16LSDF6464LHG-133C2. The "L" before the "HG" means it is the low power self-refresh spec module:

http://www.datasheetarchive.com/pdf/2493388.pdf

I searched the forums and it appears that nobody has ever mentioned this version before. What this means is that when the laptop is in an idle state, perhaps only in "sleep" mode, the module will consume about 1/2 the power as the MT16LSDF6464HG module (the non-L version). It's only a difference of 20mA, or 0.216W, so the extra time you could run in idle/sleep mode probably would not be too noticeable.

edit: Completed testing of all five modules. No problems found. If you run across this Apple part number, it will work just like a 19K4656 or 19K4657.