Review for user SamirD from marmasatt

  • marmasatt (187)

    I sold Samir a box full of SAS drives and 25 sticks of DDR/DDR2/DDR3. I consider it almost freebies considering what I shipped him vs. what he paid.

    marmasatt was the Buyer on October 13, 2019 AnandTech

    Wow. This is a first for me. Not once have I given or rec'd a negative feedback in over 16 years of trading. Boy he earned this one. I've had a few days to cool off and I'm still leaving it. Where do I start. Communication was abysmal. We started this trade 8/13 and I shipped 10/13. Need I say more about that? He kept wanting to scour the internet to see if he could find things cheaper. I totally get it. But there comes a time that you just bite the bullet and say you're interested or not interested. I could see him logging on and off AT yet he would refuse to answer. Then he would respond, and ask me to give him a few more days and message him again. I called him out on it after the 3rd time or so and he said he had family in the hospital. I did too. So I chalked it up to being flighty and we still did the deal.

    He told me to get all of this stuff ready and that he would pay for shipping. Then when push came to shove, he would NOT pay shipping. I was a bit peeved and I told him I went through all of this trouble scouring my stuff to get what he wanted and he obviously wants it and I'll get rid of it - so let's get a new deal going. Told him to pay me $3 shipping and I'd basically eat the rest. Well it costs $13 to ship and that was USPS ground. Deal was for $33 total for 2 10K SAS drives and 25 sticks of memory. Where I come from, these are almost freebies. A buck a stick for memory? Well shame on me and I shipped ground and apparently the box came pretty beat up. I did NOT realize that insurance was not included. My fault. So apparently alot of the air bags popped and the memory clanked together. Samir starts taking pictures of stuff and I don't know what I'm looking at. He's claiming that there were little solder dots in the bag (not ram chips mind you) so he narrowed it down to 1 HD and 3 sticks of ram. I wanted more info. I asked him to test the items. He now refused to test them because he doesn't want to damage his old systems. Before you know it, he files a claim with paypal and now wants a refund of $13 when he paid $20 for 25 sticks of ram and 2 hard drives! I was taken aback. I asked him repeatedly where he was getting this figure? Now he starts linking me to prices of the 4 damaged items which total more than $13.. I frankly told him "You refused to pay Ebay prices and said you needed a deal. So why would you now go to Ebay to look up replacement costs of various chips when your costs was a buck apiece?" He said that's how it should be done. I countered with the fact that if he buys a $500 laptop on sale for $300 and he buys it at $300 - and then goes to return it, he's not going to get $500 for the laptop, he should get what he paid. And if he does try to get more, he can be prosecuted in some states... (Just making my example.) So again, he paid a buck a stick. I offered him $8. He refused through pp. I apologized and offered him $10. He refused through paypal. Now I basically feel like he's extorting me for money when 3 sticks of ram out of 25 are bad. And that's "allegedly" because he refused to test! I didn't ask for the memory back and I acquiesced to his demands and refunded him $13. As I said, this was an absolute first for me. He definitely earned this one. I would be very cautious in dealing with him if he's that stubborn that he would refuse to ship back yet also refuse to test and just randomly extort you for some figures he found online that he believes is the value of the damaged items - when again..... he paid a buck a stick.

    Response from SamirD
    Since I have an opportunity to reply, I'll do so.

    Let's clarify on the exact inventory of the items--it was the following:

    DDR2:

    Samsung 2 x 512mgb pc2 5300

    Samsung 2 x 2gb pc2 6400

    1 Gb Nanya pc2 5300

    Patriot 2 x 2gb Pc2 800mhz with heatspreaders

    DDR:

    Kingston 2 x 256 mb ddr 333

    VData - 1 stick (either 512 or 1 gb) ddr 333

    512 x 3 Hynix PC2 5300

    1 Gb Hynix Pc2 5300

    1 gig Transcend DDR2 800

    1 Gb Nanya PC2 5300

    2 x 2 Gig Nanya PC2 8400

    2 Gb Hynix PC2 5300

    DDR3: 2Gb Samsung PC3 10600

    Also 2x 75gb 15k sas drives one in a Dell drive carrier

    Yes, communication was abysmal. I usually interact quickly with someone who's interested. It didn't seem like the seller was really interested (as that does happen), so I didn't pursue it as a 'real' deal, especially when the seller didn't really move from what they wanted vs what I was willing to offer.

    I never actually 'scoured the Internet to find things cheaper'. I know how much this stuff should cost and what a deal for me would look like.

    As it did not seem like the seller was going to move on price to make this a deal for me, I didn't think there was a deal here. Only after he communicated to express his interest in a deal, did I basically lay down all my cards stating what is a deal for me and what is not. I also made an offer that he accepted--$33 shipped.

    When I originally contacted him about this stuff I mentioned that I have a UPS account and can provide a prepaid label for shipping if that makes a deal easier. He seemed confused by this so I never really pursued it and in the end settled for a traditional transaction where the seller handles the shipping, which is almost always insured.

    The packaging was severely inadequate for 2 3.5" sas drives and delicate memory in the same box. The drives were basically sitting on the floor of the box with the large air-bag style packing material, which in no way was going to wishstand the forces of these drives--and it didn't. The results was everything tumbling around in the box until it got to me. And the resulting carnage of ICs broken off memory modules and even the hard drive circuit board was not surprising. I haven't even tested anything else as of now as I don't want to be upset when it is all doa.

    I found almost all the tiny ics that broke off and could figure out even where they came from, documented the damaged modules, and sent it to the seller expecting them to do a damage claim and then do a partial refund for the replacement value of the items. Sounded like a normal and fair thing to me, but apparently not to the seller.

    And then I found out why--seller didn't get insurance so they're sol! Oh man! That sucks! I felt bad, but with $18 replacement cost of the stuff that's obviously physically broken (and saying nothing about the other stuff that may still be damaged), I felt that $13 was a fair refund. Seller didn't like this based on the 'price' I paid for the parts. I think that was irrelevant since the deal was for the parts to be in one piece in my hands, not for a bunch of scrap at a discounted ebay price.

    I told the seller I could send everything back if he wanted to do a full refund. Seller refused. Seller insisted on me putting ic damaged items in working systems--I refused that as I'm not going to risk damaging my systems. We were at a stalemate so I brought in Paypal and Paypal helped resolve it.

    Bottom line was that the seller messed up by not packaging or insuring the package and expected the buyer to eat with with no seller's remourse. To me that's unethical so I'm going to stand my ground on what I deem fair in that situation. If the tables were turned, I would have kicked myself for messing up and inconveniencing someone else who expected nice stuff.

    November 5, 2019