beecherbowers.com

Before anyone gets upset, this article doesn’t describe all computer sellers on eBay. I know there are some that are honest and occasionally just have a problem.

I recently received a call from a lady whose son had purchased a computer on eBay for her and had it shipped to her house. He lives on the other coast and never saw the computer, other than the pictures in the auction. The seller contacted him after the sale and said the case had been tipped over and the plastic on the front cracked and he had to remove the innards, and put it in another case. (hint #1 there was a problem)

The computer arrived at the lady’s door and appeared in good shape, however a couple days later, it wouldn’t turn on. They had me look at it and it appeared the power supply had failed, but upon closer examination, there were several problems. First, the chassis was a very cheap case made of about the thinnest sheet metal I have ever seen. Second, because of this, the case had torqued enough to prevent the motherboard from aligning correctly with the external panel on the back. The video card couldn’t seat completely causing the back edge to pop out randomly. Evidently, the power supply failure had messed up the motherboard and it was no longer trustworthy. Faults included mouse/keyboard issues.

As it turned out, the motherboard was from an e-machine, and the power supply wasn’t worth its weight in gravel. It was very, VERY light which is a good indication of a less-than-worthy power source. Additionally, the seller had also used the power supply prior, and had literally cut the motherboard connector to get it to work with a different motherboard. He had also removed the Windows XP seal with the validation key and glued it to the back of the “new” case, and it was obvious.

Unfortunately, the lady ended up having to mail it back to the seller for an exchange. Just a suggestion, but if you purchase something on eBay and are later informed that the deal has been altered, refuse it and demand your money back.