SGI: Discussion

I've bought hundreds of SGI and other items on eBay, but (any of you noticed?) I've
never sold anything on eBay. It used to be lack of time was the main problem, but for
the last year or so it's been because of concerns about security/fraud, and the way
eBay has changed its policies in recent months (the new feedback system, forced use
of PayPal, etc.) In Apr/07 I and eight other people fell victim to a fraud involving job
lots of AthlonXP CPUs that turned out to be junk (I lost about $400). It took months
and dozens of emails totaling 60000 words to get my money back, which really only
happened because (following PayPal's own dismissive advice) I eventually said ok,
I will indeed begin legal action. I figure at that point somebody finally bothered to
check on the things I'd been saying and realised that I would win any case I brought,
so PayPal gave me a full refund (not just the basic $200 one is normally entitled to).
Most of the victims didn't get their money back though; the fraudsters got away with
about $1500 I reckon.

However, last week a friend told me about eBid , an alternative auction site. Why
I've never seen this site mentioned before is beyond me. Either way, I read through a
lot of their online docs and IMO it's a much better service.

So, just to let you all know that I've finally felt able to put some of the mountain of
SGI items I have up for auction, but on eBid, not eBay. I'll still use eBay to buy
things (with care), but I will only use eBid for selling.

There are too many examples I could list to as to why eBid is better - just read the
online help FAQs , you'll see what I mean. Key thing is: no listing fees, just a final
value fee, yet even that is zero if one has the better 'Seller+' account and chooses
not to include a thumbnail image. Best of all, buyers have the option of paying by
Escrow , ie. 100% safe purchasing. One can still use PayPal to pay aswell (along
with the other usual methods), but the Escrow option means fraud should be much
less common - perfect for those buying something from a seller with a low rating,
or when buying something that is costly (would have prevented the fraud I fell
victim to last year). I especially like the option to have auctions whose countdown
durations do not begin until the first bid is made, and the option to have auctions
auto-extend for an extra 60 seconds if someone bids in the last 60 seconds. Much
fairer and it gets rid of a lot of the psychological nonsense that plagues the way
eBay auctions are done, ie. proper, sensible bids are encouraged in the first instance.
These issues and others are why I rarely bid on anything valuable that's in a different
country, whereas using eBid and Escrow is a much safer option.

It's also worth stating that eBid seems to be adhering to the law way better than
eBay/PayPal do. Their Q&A page on legal rights for buyers & sellers correlates
much more closely with all that I was told by UK Trading Standards, the police, etc.
when I was trying to sort out the scam I was hit with. eBid even refers to the UK
Sale of Goods Act, a piece of legislation which eBay/PayPal just ignored completely
despite my repeated complaints, the support of Trading Standards and even the
support of AMD UK. I find eBid's summary of rights and statement of what is & is not
acceptable to be very reassuring. I expect eBid sites for other global regions have
equivalent information listed.

Not many SGI items/sellers on eBid yet (just me atm I think), but I hope that will change.
Certainly for companies/dealers that sell SGI items on eBay, eBid would be way
cheaper. Note that I'm posting in this forum because it has a wider audience than
the For Sale forum. I don't know about the rest of you, but I've certainly been
burned on eBay in the past; not so often with SGI items, except examples such as
O2 systems that arrive in a zillion pieces, but many things I look for are common
to non-SGI systems aswell (SCSI disks, PCI cards, etc.) so I'm glad there is a
way to buy & sell items with a much greater degree of safety & assurance for
both buyer and seller. I remember last year I won an eBay auction for a 2GB RAM
kit for Octane that never arrived; it took ages to get the refund through PayPal,
whereas on eBid, paying by Escrow, that wouldn't have been a problem since a
seller is not paid until the buyer receives the item and confirms they're happy with it.
Right now, I'm in the middle of dealing with an eBay auction for seven 50pin disks,
only 5 of which work ok; I'm in the stage of waiting for a refund with all the usual
uncertainties, whereas via eBid/Escrow this would not be an issue [EDIT: I did get
the refund btw].

Oh, the list goes on. All I can say is, go have a look , and see you there! (I hope)

Cheers!

Ian.

PS. I have another half dozen or so items to add tonight, then more a the days go by.
The items I've listed so far are here . UK residents register here .

... well, once i get near to not receive my payed items ... filling the PayPal claim helped and maybe helps in most of cases, especially when dealing with lazzzy sellers ... eBay is forcing PayPal because they are under the $ame hood and are protecting their a$ez ... but like any other politics this one sucks alota because is missing proper background for protecting modest buyers from cases like urs...

p.s. what u are doing with $400 of athlonXP`s ?

cybercow writes:
> but like any other politics this one sucks alota because is missing proper background for protecting
> modest buyers from cases like urs...

And of course PayPal have a reputation for simply locking accounts and grabbing the funds when
things go wrong. Worse, one's money is not protected anyway and it's very hard to get it back if
they lock an account (180 days or more). Many people have had their accounts cleaned out. I'm
sure you've read paypalsucks.com.

Since eBay won't allow sellers to state that buyers must cover the PayPal fees, IMO eBay is forcing
the use of PayPal because it means they end up winning twice on every auction - the eBay fees
and the PayPal fees (if the buyer pays by that method). Meanwhile, sellers continue to be charged
listing fees even if the item doesn't sell; by contrast, eBid has no listing fees at all and there is nothing
to pay if an item doesn't sell.


> p.s. what u are doing with $400 of athlonXP`s ?

(this was at a time when a 3200+ on its own would go for $140+)

Can't speak for the other buyers, but in my case I was looking for a Barton 2.2GHz 3200+ to upgrade my
brother's existing 2400+ PC. Each job lot consisted of 12 or 13 AthlonXP CPUs, mix of models, but
between two and four 3200+ CPUs were in each lot aswell. I expect everyone had the same idea: keep
one, sell the rest.

Every single chip received by all the buyers was faulty. One guy even had his mbd fried, and really
lost out as he'd bought two lots (don't know if he got anything back). Key thing is, the "Untested, sold
as seen" cop-out is not legal in the UK, according to Trading Standards, police, etc. PayPal just
ignored this for months on end, but I won eventually.

With Escrow payments, such a fraud could not happen. It was a clever fraud though, involving at least
two people (perhaps as many as 3 or 4) in two different countries.

Irony is, in the month following the scam, I was able to obtain a much better mbd/CPU/RAM bundle anyway
(Asrock Socket754 K8Upgrade-1689 with a 2.4GHz Athlon64 3400+) via the very economic route of
swapping a lowly GF4-MX440 AGP card for it all (my brother's old gfx card). I bought a better cooler, oc'd
the CPU to 2.74GHz (way beyond what a working Barton could have been pushed to), and bought a new
X1950Pro AGP to replace the MX440 (paid for by selling off a Dell-650 for 2X what it cost me). Got a 2GB
OCZ DDR400 kit off eBay, was faulty (seller was a creep), but had the kit replaced by OCZ under their
lifetime warranty (good bunch at OCZ btw). The final setup Oblivion/Stalker very nicely! Funny old world...

Btw, a friend tells me eBay is now booting off people who receive more than two negatives out of every 100
feedbacks. Seems like they're going full steam ahead with their to-hell-with-the-seller policies.


Meanwhile, I've had a bid on the Octane2 motherboard , so I'm happy, which is how one's existence
anniversary is supposed to be.

Ian.

Happy birthday!

andyjpb wrote: Happy birthday!

Thanks! I'm impressed you got that one, hehe...

Ian.

PS. Have sent off for my free eBid T-shirt aswell.

I've looked at eBid a few times - and the problem's always been that there's not actually anything of interest on there!

I guess it's a critical-mass thing... but if enough people start to move to eBid, then I'd be more than happy to abandon eBay and PayPal!

stuart writes:
> I've looked at eBid a few times - and the problem's always been that there's not actually anything of interest on there!

Depends what you're looking for. Recently a PS3 went for 140 UKP on eBid, so somebody was happy.


> I guess it's a critical-mass thing... but if enough people start to move to eBid, then I'd be more than happy to abandon
> eBay and PayPal!

I wouldn't say abandon is the right word; I will still buy things on eBay, but only very carefully. For me, the key point is,
having a lifetime account and not using a thumbnail image for auctions on eBid means the total listing cost is zero. If
one is listing a fixed price item, this is clearly very beneficial, and compared to eBay's fees will quickly pay for itself,
especially with respect to not having to pay anything on eBid if an item doesn't sell. For sellings items I'll only be using
eBid; I've already listed a few bargains . I have maybe another hundred or so to add, but it'll take a while.

I've asked eBid if there can be a dedicated SGI category. If they say yes, that will make having a thumbnail image
largely unnecessary, whereas at the moment on eBay searches for SGI bring back results for Stargate, Audi car parts,
Bosch drill components and other things. But even with a thumbnail image included, the final value fee is only 2 or 3
percent, there are no listing fees at all and nothing whatsoever to pay if an item doesn't sell. Note that by thumbnail I
mean the mini-image that's shown for each item in search results; each auction would still have its own full size image
of course.

In other words, using both sites is logical, but for something that's fairly specific like SGI items, eBid is a safer system by
far. None of eBay's crazy feedback changes would be necessary if they had an Escrow payment service. Clearly eBid
has a smaller viewership just now in general terms (which means genuine bargains if fewer people are looking!), but for
SGI items Nekochan is the main forum these days, so it shouldn't take long for people to learn there is a second place
worth checking. I will be updating my site pages to mention eBid, etc.

So far I've listed a couple of motherboards, RAM kits, Extreme set, etc. Got loads more to put up. The 1GB RAM
for Octane I've listed (4 x 256MB DIMMs, ie. two 512MB kits) has a 3 UKP starting price, no reserve, finishes 7 days
after the first bid is made; the RAM will work in all types of mbd for Octane. It's fairly typical of the kind of thing I will
be listing and I hope people will agree this is good value. Sure, eBay has lots of items, but what's the point when it's
full of auctions such as Octane2/Onyx/Origin parts with a tiny start price but a very high reserve (waste of time, eg.
on one occasion not a single item out of more than a dozen on offer from a particular SGI dealer met its reserve) or
fixed-price high-end systems at company-style prices? If systems like that do sell, they must be paying huge fees.
And of course, buying something valuable on eBay from a foreign country is a dodgy business, whereas eBid's
Escrow service makes it safe for both buyer & seller.

Ian.

It's definitely become difficult to find true bargains on eBay these days - pretty much the only times I do come out ahead are for items with a low BIN that I can find quickly before the flocks descend, items that sellers don't know enough about to properly list or broken items that are easy to repair. Most of the cool stuff I'm looking for has a huge BIN price with no option to bid low, or simply winds up skyrocketing in price due to multiple (insane) bidders. I do a lot more local buying via Craigslist as a result.

So basically yes, I'm open to alternatives

Most of the things I buy on eBay are BIN-only auctions with small computer items from China.. occasionally a small thing from Germany, but then you can usually trust a German...

Only time I thought I had a bargain on eBay I threw over 100 euros out the window like an idiot on stupid pills. If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is!

I have to say I think the idea of an auction site is suboptimal. For anything that costs more than I can afford to lose, I really prefer to have a look first.

noisetonepause writes:
> ... For anything that costs
> more than I can afford to lose, I really prefer to have a look first.

That's what eBid's Escrow payment option effectively allows you to do. The seller doesn't
get the money from the 3rd party (pppay.com) until the buyer is happy.

Buying things on eBay, whether via an auction or a fixed price item, has always been a
judgement of risk. The nature of the item, the seller's supposed reputation, where the seller
is in the world, how much money is involved, etc. As I understand it, Escrow removes much
of this risk. One can still make instant payments on eBid if preferred of course, including via
PayPal.

Ian.

mapesdhs wrote: That's what eBid's Escrow payment option effectively allows you to do. The seller doesn't
get the money from the 3rd party (pppay.com) until the buyer is happy.
Ian.

Ian,

In the case of eBid Escrow what triggers the release of the buyer's funds to the seller ?

Neil

Note that one does pay a fee to pppay.com for using the Escrow service, which is a fixed
99p no matter what the payment amount is.


rothers writes:
> In the case of eBid Escrow what triggers the release of the buyer's funds to the seller ?

See:

http://uk.ebid.net/help_payments.php

If the buyer isn't happy, they'd enter the details into the eBid/Escrow system (eBid uses pppay.com
for the Escrow service), which would mean the funds would not be released until the problem is
resolved, or at all if the buyer decides to have the item returned (and hence, safety for the seller, the
buyer wouldn't get their funds returned until the seller receives the item back ok, ie. better for both
parties in all ways). Note that eBid makes it clear on their legal page that, under UK law anyway, a
buyer is entitled to have the delivery costs refunded (how many eBay auctions say this?), though
the seller is also entitled to expect the buyer to cover the return delivery costs.

After the buyer has received the item, signed for it, etc., the Escrow service releases the funds to
the seller 24 hours later automatically if there have been no issues logged. The item must be sent to the
buyer using a trackable delivery service with proper insurance. Part of the procedure involves the
seller filing the tracking number with the Escrow system so that the delivery process can be followed
automatically.

Of course, if the seller is someone who the buyer trusts/knows/etc., then the delivery process can be
handled in whatever way the parties decide. The eBid FAQ says:




The pppay.com site has a more detailed explanation here , with some examples of how it works in
different scenarios.

Ian.

mapesdhs wrote: And of course PayPal have a reputation for simply locking accounts and grabbing the funds when
things go wrong. Worse, one's money is not protected anyway and it's very hard to get it back if
they lock an account (180 days or more). Many people have had their accounts cleaned out. I'm
sure you've read paypalsucks.com..

If Georgie-Porgie puddin' and pie were not the leader of the Free World, PayPal would be controlled by the banking laws. They walk like a bank, they quack like a bank, they eat snails like a bank, in effect they are a bank. So how they get away with their crap ...

It's time to string up the right-wingers, guys. Eisenhower Republicans are one thing but these people ... you're being fleeced at every opportunity.

Taobao (Chinese site, ran eBay out of China on a rail, har har) has had zhifubao for ages. Escrow system similar to what Ian describes. Works really well.

hamei wrote:

mapesdhs wrote: And of course PayPal have a reputation for simply locking accounts and grabbing the funds when
things go wrong. Worse, one's money is not protected anyway and it's very hard to get it back if
they lock an account (180 days or more). Many people have had their accounts cleaned out. I'm
sure you've read paypalsucks.com..

If Georgie-Porgie puddin' and pie were not the leader of the Free World, PayPal would be controlled by the banking laws. They walk like a bank, they quack like a bank, they eat snails like a bank, in effect they are a bank. So how they get away with their crap ...

In the EU, paypal is actually registered as bank operating from Luxembourg. AFAIK, only accounts held in the EU are under its jurisdiction.

I fully agree eBay/paypal have gone from bad to worse lately. Some of their latest rules are quite odd
- Sellers can now only leave positive feedback for buyers - so it is very hard for buyers to get a bad reputation. In fact, I don't really see the point in sellers leaving feedback anymore - even if you encountered a difficult buyer, you cant let others know, so the feedback system has no value in terms of representing a buyers behaviour.
-I think hiding identities of bidders is a bad move - in the past, my suspicions once led me to spot and report a shill bidder on an item I won, but now it is more difficult to see that type of thing.
- Paypal is now mandatory for some listings, which I think is somewhat anti-comptetitive - when available, most buyers will use it over alternative systems as it costs them nothing.

kramlq writes:
> In the EU, paypal is actually registered as bank operating from Luxembourg. AFAIK, only accounts held in the
> EU are under its jurisdiction.

Uh huh, Luxembourg, the home of honest banking. ;D

PayPal doesn't operate like a bank. Their terms & conditions mean you waive your normal rights and the sole
function of any employee that replies to any claim against a decision they've made is to simply say, "No."
See http://www.paypalsucks.com for plenty of horror stories. If you get scammed, they treat you like dirt, completely
ignore the law and any evidence you might present in your favour. Ye gods, for the item I was scammed on,
I had the very company that made the item (AMD) on my side, yet PayPal didn't care. Dozens of times my
requests for specific reasons & details of their decisions were ignored, as were my requests that I know the
full name of whoever it was I was dealing with each time. I could go on, the list of outrgaeous things they said
is huge. Like I said, it took me months and tens of thousands of words in emails to finally get my money back.
Real banks don't operate in such a dispicable manner; I should know, my fiance has worked for a proper
bank for more than 20 years, so I hear all the tales of woe.

And if eBay had an Escrow payment option, the feedback changes they've made would not be necessary,
because the seller pressure they cite as one reason for the changes wouldn't have been a problem in the first
place.


Btw, thanks to humble moi, there are now more normal auctions for SGI items on eBid UK than on eBay UK.
Update: my 1st auction, an Octane2 mbd , went for 5 UKP, so someone got a real bargain. My next two
auctions (1.5GB RAM, 6 x 256MB DIMMs for Octane) went for a total of 23 UKP to someone in Australia -
another bargain. Further items to list, XBow 1.4, Cherokee PSU, more RAM, etc.

Ian.

ramq wrote: It was me who told Ian about the problem.
It's no network error since we can reach the site, rather a misconfigured(?) Apache webserver that denys access to any webpage on that site.

Strange, works ok from Finland.

Have fun, but as ramq said it's clearly a problem somewhere at the endpoint.

/Matt

Jacques writes:
> V12...no reserve...£0.99 starting price!

Oh look, little piggies at 20000 feet!

Heh, if I listed a V12, I'd end up bidding myself! :}

It's unlikely I'll ever list items like V12 sets, etc. as ordinary auctions since they're worth too much to company
buyers (sold a V12 two weeks ago to a company in Hong Kong for $1K), but the items I'll list will still have
pretty low starting values, and BuyItNow prices no more than half the normal amount I'd sell them for. Just
listed some more items, see my advert in the for-sale forum.


ramq writes:
> rather a misconfigured(?) Apache webserver that denys access to any webpage on that site.

So it's the site itself that is at fault? I'm confused, how does that result in users in certain locations not being
able to access the site, while it works ok for everyone else?

Ian.

mapesdhs wrote: ramq writes:
> rather a misconfigured(?) Apache webserver that denys access to any webpage on that site.

So it's the site itself that is at fault? I'm confused, how does that result in users in certain locations not being
able to access the site, while it works ok for everyone else?

From the traceroute it looks like I'm accessing the same machine as ramq so I guess that rules out DNS and routing errors.

mapesdhs wrote: ramq writes:
> rather a misconfigured(?) Apache webserver that denys access to any webpage on that site.

So it's the site itself that is at fault? I'm confused, how does that result in users in certain locations not being
able to access the site, while it works ok for everyone else?

As I said, it could be that they for some bizarre reason are denying certain netblocks to their Apache webserver. By mistake or some other reason, I don't know. (Seems odd, really)
The mod_access in Apache is one possible option to deny access from certain netblocks and since I get a HTTP 403 (Access denied) response from the server itself, it proves I've got full availability all the way to their webserver, but I'm denied any material whatsoever from it.