I was the winning bidder of a Fluke 99 hand held oscilloscope on Ebay this
weekend. I have never bought anything through the service before, and the
vendor has started to make me nervous because he will not proceed through
the secure transaction service ESCROW. I am in Vancouver, Canada. The scope
is in DUMAS, TEXAS. I am looking for someone in the area of Dumas, that
would have the time to go check this scope out. Plug the probes into the
wall and make sure a 60 hz signal is displayed. I will happily pay this
person for their trouble.
> I was the winning bidder of a Fluke 99 hand held oscilloscope on Ebay this
> weekend. I have never bought anything through the service before, and the
> vendor has started to make me nervous because he will not proceed through
> the secure transaction service ESCROW. I am in Vancouver, Canada. The
scope
> is in DUMAS, TEXAS. I am looking for someone in the area of Dumas, that
> would have the time to go check this scope out. Plug the probes into the
> wall and make sure a 60 hz signal is displayed. I will happily pay this
> person for their trouble.
Good luck! I bought a scope through ebay last weekend, and ended up sitting
in a gas station in michigan (about 250 miles from home) at midnight with
$3k in cash.
It all worked out well though, and my new scope got a gentle ride home
rather than a day in a UPS truck..
They charge for that escrow service, that might be the root of the problem.
I don't know that I'd trust the escrow service to know if the scope is
anything more than a "brick" though.
years ago...before all the 'bad' guys discovered the net, you could rest
assured that you could get an honest transaction via the net (used to be
just on usenet). I once traded a Motorola VME card, new, for a nice dual
band mobile rig.
Sad to say, I don't think I would ever buy anything from Ebay. I stick to
Egghead's auction mostly.
Story on the new a few nights ago, was showing just how easy it was for
folks to sell bad...stolen...non-exitant stuff. Can't blame Ebay, they are
just the publisher.
Good luck on your scope.
Is this a real vendor? If so, check with the Texas BBB, and see if they
have any complaints on file with them.
>> I was the winning bidder of a Fluke 99 hand held oscilloscope on Ebay
this {Quote hidden}
>> weekend. I have never bought anything through the service before, and the
>> vendor has started to make me nervous because he will not proceed through
>> the secure transaction service ESCROW. I am in Vancouver, Canada. The
>scope
>> is in DUMAS, TEXAS. I am looking for someone in the area of Dumas, that
>> would have the time to go check this scope out. Plug the probes into the
>> wall and make sure a 60 hz signal is displayed. I will happily pay this
>> person for their trouble.
>
>
>Good luck! I bought a scope through ebay last weekend, and ended up
sitting
>in a gas station in michigan (about 250 miles from home) at midnight with
>$3k in cash.
>It all worked out well though, and my new scope got a gentle ride home
>rather than a day in a UPS truck..
>
>They charge for that escrow service, that might be the root of the problem.
>I don't know that I'd trust the escrow service to know if the scope is
>anything more than a "brick" though.
It's too far away from Austin. Near Amarillo.
How about trying HAM radio operators there?
Or ask the IEEE (ieee.org) to prepare you a sorted list of members
in Amarillo, Dumas with email and try to hire one of them?
They sell lists by the number of names. Maybe they'd sell ten at a time.
At 04:36 AM 9/8/99 , you wrote:
>I was the winning bidder of a Fluke 99 hand held oscilloscope on Ebay this
>weekend. I have never bought anything through the service before, and the
>vendor has started to make me nervous because he will not proceed through
>the secure transaction service ESCROW. I am in Vancouver, Canada. The scope
>is in DUMAS, TEXAS. I am looking for someone in the area of Dumas, that
>would have the time to go check this scope out. Plug the probes into the
>wall and make sure a 60 hz signal is displayed. I will happily pay this
>person for their trouble.
>
>Thank-you
>
>Andrew Verhoeven
>
>EraseMEandyspam_OUTTakeThisOuTtrickyguy.com
>
Andrew,
I would be very weary of this guy. If he refuses to use an Escrow service
even after you told him you would pay the small fee, it probably means he
does not have the device or it is not in the condition he said it was in
and when you get it and refuse to pay.
eBay and other auction sites need to do a better job of policing the auctions.
Brian
********************************************
Better Produce through Better Control
********************************************
Please don't take this as personal comments, I don't know you but I am
familiar with ebay.
Bidding on an item is the final step in the ebay process.
Did you check the feedback on the guy before bidding? I realize that
hindsight is 20-20, but I have bought a dozen things on ebay and have only
had one transaction that was less than perfect, and even that one was OK. I
made sure to check the feedback profile of the people selling the items
first before bidding. If the item was expensive or I had questions, I
always sent an email to the seller and waited for a response. The
responsiveness before the sale can tell you a lot about the person.
Also, if you have never bought anything on ebay before, YOU don't have a
feedback profile, and the seller will be extremely leery of you.
The seller will naturally be hesitant to enter escrow, because it costs
money and wastes time.
My .02 advice to you is to apologize to the seller for wasting his time,
pleading ignorance as a new user to ebay, get a new ebay ID if he enters
negative feedback about you, and practice buying small items for a while
until you get the hang of it and also build a positive user profile.
trickyguy.com
