got tons of toys today! ungsunghero claimed how his toy came today also. i was VERY EXCITED. (if you know what toy he was talking about, you’d be excited too! don’t worry, you’ll find out what my toy is later on). UPS came by around 3pm-ish. they actually rang the bell, but no one heard, so they left the packages on the floor. thank god! or else i’d have to wait another day!!! well, got 2 boxes. 1 small and 1 GIGANTIC! opened the small one first and i got my IBM Optical Scroll Mouse. it was $5 after rebates and i was getting pretty mad @ the normal 2 button wheel mouse i was using. it’s like what they say, “Once you go optical, you can’t go back.” plus the wheel is always a bonus. get to scroll down those forums faster now. hehe. now time to open the mystery box! this was a 22x13x13″ box. Open it and i find… TONS OF PEANUTS!!! lol. Time to dig for the treasure. Way at the bottom I find… ATI ALL-IN-WONDER® RADEON™ 8500. (thought i was gonna say “more peanuts” huh?) hehe. it’s another Christmas present for me! I’m sorry i’m unable to disclose the price nor store I bought it at since i promised my friend to keep it a secret. but just say that i got it at a very cheap price. ^_^x too bad i won’t get to use it for another 18 days (yes i’m counting) cause my computer is back at the apartment. this is so SWEET!!! now i can have 2 TVs running on my computer simultaneously with 2 remotes. *drooooooools*
harrybons dropped by later in the afternoon. brought over my No One Lives Forever 2 which i asked him to help me buy @ Fry’s since it was only $5 after rebates. he came over leech my Hikaru no Go collection. episode 7-60 (6gb worth of anime, actually more since he borrowed some of them on cds). hehe. i also found out my firewire enclosure could act like a hub. it has 2 firewire ports in the back. i connected one end to his laptop and the other end to my sister’s computer and BOOM! XP detected a network connection and before you knew it, the were talking to each others computer transferring @ ~8MB/s. not exactly as fast as firewire speed as we hoped (sustained ~20MB/s), but it was good enough.
then of course, there was ungsunghero’s near death experience. he got to experience his power supply blow up right in front of him. mines blew up last year too, but i was in the shower when that happened. his computer automatically shut down and pushing the power yielded nothing. however the diagnostic LED was still on. so he was the cellphone with me while we tried to diagnose what was wrong. little behold who knew what was going to happen next. KABOOOM! the power supply blew up in his face. now he swears he’ll wear goggles and static wrist-wrap whenever he works on computers again. welp. problem found. now for the solution… which brings me to my eBay story:
i was auctioning off my sister’s 14″ LCD because my dad recently got her a 17″ LCD. the auction ended today on Sunday @ $167.50, however the highest bidder emails me and states that Best Buy is having one on sale for $150 and asks me to be fair and lower my price (including shipping) so it would be fair for him to buy it. i mean this is ridiculous. here are transcripts of the email the went through:
BUYER:
Hi <insert my name>, thanks for the response. I will try for the first time to pay through paypal but I have a simple request as a fellow student told me that in Sundays paper local Best Buy was seeling 14″ lcd’s at $149. instead of $199. I guess after the christmas they have reduced the price especially 14″ are not that popular as opposed to 15 or 17″. Further it is safer to buy locally but since I have made the bid I will prefer to buy it from you if you kindaly as a fair person reduce the price as I will be paying shipping in addition so it does not make sense to buy for lot more and then pay the shipping or I have no objection if you want to contact the next bidder and he is interested in buying for $165 and then I will send you the difference of $ 2.50. Please consider and let me know, thanks and have a nice week !
ME:
Hi,
I never caught your name, but I’m very sorry to hear that you would like to break your contract. As quoted from eBay:
Your bid is a contract – Place a bid only if you’re serious about buying the item. If you are the winning bidder, you will enter into a legally binding contract to purchase the item from the seller. Seller assumes all responsibility for listing this item. You should contact the seller to resolve any questions before bidding. Auction currency is U.S. dollars ( US $ ) unless otherwise noted.
As a fellow college student myself, i can understand that money can become a problem. But that’s why I wouldn’t bid on anything I believe I would not buy at the price I bidded at. I’m sorry but I won’t be able to lower the price for you. I’ve already contacted the 2nd highest bidder. If he/she responds and is willing to take the offer, all will be great. Or else i’ll still have to hold you to the price you bidded.
Sincerely,
<insert my name>
BUYER:
Thanks <insert my name> for the consideration but you did not get my point on fairness if something is available for less. Technbically you are right but I asked you on a moral basis if you would be fair and that I would not object to your selling to anther person because it is much easier to just buy cheaper locally. Please let me know what the next bidder says I will pay you the difference. Thanks and have anice day
ME:
Hi,
How can I be fair if you’re the one that’s trying to get yourself out of this contract? Unlike some stores that has Lowest Price Gaurantees, eBay sellers do not unless stated otherwise. This has nothing to do with morals. I would like to ask you think if you were in my position and what you would do if someone who just won your auction asks you to be fair and lower the price for him cause he can get it cheaper somewhere else now. Now it’s my turn to ask you to be fair. Because if you’re trying to get out of this contract, I am screwed out of my eBay fees which is $7.43. I mean if this deal went through successfully, I’d be more than happy to pay those fees, but because you’re UNWILLING to complete your part of the contract, I lose that $7.43 to eBay with no compensation! I am now asking you to ask yourself if what you’re doing is morally justified.
Have a nice day. Maybe yours will be much better than mines.
Sincerely,
<insert my name>
BUYER:
Hi <insert my name>, you are a very fine man in that you have honored me by explaining your sitaution with Ebay instead of getting mad and I do not want you to lose any fee to Ebay. Please remember I honored you too by explaining that the monitor was now selling cheaper and it is only fair since you have used it to lower. Is it fair to pay more price and on top of that pay another $17. for shipping. No matter what I will pay your ebay fees and if you can be fair to come to the fair market price that will be nice and I will just buy or you can just pay the shipping that way we split.
I cerntainly like to trust you with respect to the good condition of the monitor. I just got a note book that does not have charger and the arrow keys do not work while the seller put on the ebay that it olny needed operating system. There is another man who has not sent me the cpu ven though got paid in october; these are additional reasons for me to think that sellers on Ebay are not really fair in many ways and it is better to just buy locally.
Please be fair and let me know how we can work it out so that you do not feel bad that I cost you any loss and I do not feel bad that I paid $ 34. over the local price. You be the judge and let me know. Thanks
ME:
Hi,
I agree it’s more beneficial for you to purchase it at Best Buy, but I do not agree that it’s fair to break a contract. It is a smarter thing to do, but it is unfair to me that you bidded on something that now you’re unwilling to pay at the agreed price. it is not fair for me to lower the price for you because there were other bidders who were willing to pay just a little bit less than what you bidded for my LCD monitor. it is unfair that you cheated the other bidders from what they could’ve gotten. I’ve decided to relist this item and will be going through the Non-Paying Bidder process to get my $5.23 final auction value fee back.
I’m sorry that you’ve encountered bad sellers on ebay and had unhappy experiences. but sellers are also afraid that bidders will go back on their word and not pay. unfortunately, you’re the first bidder I’ve had this problem with.
Once again, there is nothing i’m being unfair about. The price you agreed on is higher than a price you find locally now. Being unfair is to charge an unfair shipping price. Being unfair is to ship a dead item or an item different from the description. You paying the agreed price has nothing to do with unfairness although you may feel bad for paying extra. Like I said above, I’ll be relisting the item and will be filing a non-paying bidder form to obtain my ebay fees back.
You may be read up more on Non-Paying Bidder here:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/bidders_overview.html
http://cgi3.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?NPBComplaintFormSincerely,
<insert my name>
welp, the story ends there for now. well, why did i introduce you to this story. well, it’s true that part of it was for entertainment, but the real reason was because i found a buyer! he said he needed it asap and wondered if i can ship it out overnight and he’ll pay the extra. i was cool with it. supposedly it was for her girlfriend who was coming back tomorrow and he wanted to give it to her. i was cool with that. OfficeMax has this $10 off coupon for shipping through airborne express so i went to the one in Pasadena… (wait rewind!) I called up ungsunghero and asked if he would like to go with me. i insisted that i’ll drive him to PC Club to buy a new power supply for his system. knowing how it feels to be without my computer for 2 DAYS made me pity his situation. after arriving @ OfficeMax, the lady quotes me $60 for Express delivery. i was airborne.com only quoted me $47. she says we’re sorry, but our systems do have differences and i can’t do anything about it. i took my package and left the place. decided to go with UPS or FedEx. called up my brother and asked him to find when the fone # of FedEx in City of Industry so i can find out when it closes. he was unable to locate the service center. thanks to ungsunghero’s cuz psychobreed, he told us FedEx closes @ 7pm. we were like cool! but the traffic on the 210 was nasty. it a lot better on the 605 and 60. got there @ 6:30 and found out that Overnight delivery ends @ 5:30. b00000000000. well, the fastest delivery to TX was by Thursday and hoping the buyer would find that acceptable (since there’s no delivery service on 1/1 new year’s). we then went over to PC Club and looked around the power supplies and the cases. ungsunghero was going to purchase a Allied 250W for $30 when the sale clerk pointed that they were having a promotion on the Allied 300W for $20. he was like cool bought 2! went home and now his computer boots! w00h00! ^_^x
wow, this has been a long entry. hope u didn’t fall asleep halfway reading it. hehe ;p