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17-4-2014 19:22:33  #11


Re: Shady Stuff on Ebay

Glad you got your cash back.  With TWs there's always another one coming at you round the corner - patience.

Just had a seller send me something of a lesser quality than described in the listing.  Excuse when I confronted them was; "We are about to change the listing." (!) - yeah, I believe you - and what difference does that make to me!  I persisted in trying to get a refund, and they tried to pressure me by saying that they would give a refund if I left positive feedback first - right, I'm bound to do that!  EBay / PayPal gave them the hard word, and the money was returned.

Have met many generous and charming people when buying on line, but there are always going to be one or two rotters.


Sincerely,
beak.
 
 

17-4-2014 20:50:05  #12


Re: Shady Stuff on Ebay

I just received a typer from eBay yesterday that was non-working. The escapement was seized, but after taking it apart and cleaning it the machine is working fine. Of course the description of the machine didn't mention it wasn't working even though it was obvious that the seller knew it; there was a test page in the carriage with multiple keystrikes in the same place (because the carriage wasn't advancing). Regardless, I gave the seller a positive feedback because they had packed it really well, the machine was only $20, and I was very happy to get it. Most sellers don't know how to test a typewriter anyway or aren't familiar with how they work, so I'm willing to still provide a good review if the typer only needs a quick repair.

One thing is for sure: buying typewriters through eBay is not for the feint of heart - and until you open the package you never know what you're going to get.


The pronoun has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
 

18-4-2014 01:39:58  #13


Re: Shady Stuff on Ebay

I detect a true Canadian. (Canadian politeness has become legendary in certain websites.) I bow to your generosity, although the seller was still dishonest and should have been confronted about it. The buyer could have been a novice who was just buying their first typewriter, eager to get to type out some poems with the machine their recently passed father used to twenty years ago.

Seller knows if they don't know how to properly test a typewriter.

 

18-4-2014 16:26:06  #14


Re: Shady Stuff on Ebay

I agree with Uwe.  Buying on e-bay is a minefield.  As many people on this forum know, I am a typewriter engineer, and yes I sometimes buy machines on e-bay to refurbish.  Many, many, times I have received a machine with faults.  I often think that it was just as well that it was me that bought the machine because I know how to fix it.  But I would really pity an ordinary person who thought that they were going to be able to use that machine in 'as bought' condition.  The trouble is, not many people understand typewriters these days so with buyer and seller it is often the blind leading the blind !

 

18-4-2014 17:12:22  #15


Re: Shady Stuff on Ebay

tatte wrote:

I detect a true Canadian. (Canadian politeness has become legendary in certain websites.)

Ha ha! 

In Canada no one says "you're welcome." They say "thanks" instead, as is demonstrated most often in interviews with Canadian hockey players:

"Well, thank you for answering a few of our questions Sidney," the interviewer will say in ending.
"Yeah, thank you," the player replies.

 


The pronoun has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
 

18-4-2014 17:16:00  #16


Re: Shady Stuff on Ebay

thetypewriterman wrote:

The trouble is, not many people understand typewriters these days so with buyer and seller it is often the blind leading the blind !

As my friend Valiant in this forum likes to say, "the carriage lock is a collector's best friend."

Sometimes ignorance can work in the buyer's favour too. How many people have sold machines at a deep dicount because they were convinced it was broken when it was just the carriage lock that was preventing it from typing properly? 
 


The pronoun has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
 

19-4-2014 16:42:04  #17


Re: Shady Stuff on Ebay

Again, I agree !  About 20 years ago, I bought an immaculate Remington Fanfold in a Brighton street market for next to nothing because the vendor could not unlock the carriage !  That one was for my personal collection, and I still have it.  Of course, the carry case had lost its' leather handle, so I had to carry it all the way back to the railway station tucked under my arm.  I'll swear that one arm was longer than the other by the time I got onto the train :-)  How we suffer for our art !

 

19-4-2014 16:54:39  #18


Re: Shady Stuff on Ebay

thetypewriterman wrote:

How we suffer for our art !

 That's so very true!

At least it was only a portable. I met up with Valiant last weekend at a local antique market to do a little typewriter shopping. He picked up a nice Hermes Rocket, and I snagged another Olympia SG1. Of course I was parked several blocks away and after the second block I began to think I wasn't going to make it. My legs were beginning to feel like rubber, my arms were aching, and I was huffing and puffing so hard that I sounded like a blacksmith's bellows. Then there were the strange looks I got from others on the sidewalk (the market is in a busy downtown area); no doubt many wondered who the weirdo was struggling down the sidewalk carrying such a massive and bizarre looking lump of metal.


The pronoun has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
 

19-4-2014 23:36:40  #19


Re: Shady Stuff on Ebay

Uwe wrote:

thetypewriterman wrote:

How we suffer for our art !

............

Take a folding trolly next time!  An essential market item?  Have myself been seen staggering around the massive Camberwell market in Melbourne under the weight of some outmoded piece of technology.


Sincerely,
beak.
 
 

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