Horrible Ebay Experience #1

Back in January, I was headed out to cover CES. To ensure that I had a good data connection, I went out and purchased an AT&T Hotspot, the Elevate 4G. I only planned to use it for CES and then sell it or keep it for future shows. I purchased it for full retail to avoid a contract so I paid $249 + $96, which included $50 for 5GB of data, taxes, and fees. I could easily pull the cheap trick of buying it and then returning it within 30 days, but I think that practice is quite rude. I would rather take the loss and do it the honorable way. I used the hotspot for a week at CES and got back to town and canceled the service and account a couple weeks later, still within 30 days mind you. Still, I wasn’t planning stick AT&T with it. Instead, I put it up on Ebay for $150 or best offer. I got a $100 offer and countered with $115. The buyer agreed and paid promptly. Aside from losing about $250 on the deal because I am too nice, everything was going good at this point.

The photo above is the image I used in the auction. After snapping that photo, I packaged the box and set it aside until it sold. I put the auction online and the deal I mentioned above was made later that same day. Like I said, the buyer paid promptly and I headed to the Post Office the next day. I packaged it with bubble wrap inside a box slightly larger than the factory packaging.  The device was actually still active and service was still on in the Ebay photo above. I called to cancel the morning I mailed it out. I sent it out at a cost that was more than what I charged for shipping and I included tracking.

A couple of days after the buyer received the Elevate 4G, I got the following message through Ebay:

AT&T says that I need the old number associated with device to switch over. Can you please provide otherwise I’ll have to send back. Thanks.

That didn’t sound quite right so replied and asked him to call me. He called and explained to me that AT&T said he needed to old number to activate service. I explained that he didn’t need it. I let him know that this device was purchased at full retail to avoid contracts.

He went on to explain that he bought it to replace a hotspot that he had been using that died on him. He wanted this one to avoid a contract himself. He explained that he had tried popping his current simm card in the Elevate 4G and it didn’t work. I asked him if it was a 4G or 3G hotspot he had before. It was a 3G and he need to go to a store to get a new simm card that supports 4G. He also told me he tried calling AT&T to get them to move his service to the simm card I left in it. Well, that simm is deactivated for good when you cancel service so that wasn’t going to work. He went on to say that he ended up going to the store to get a simm card and that’s when he told them that he needed the number. I sensed some evil right there. I told him to hang tight and that I would call him back after I checked with a friend. I hung up and called my local AT&T store and explained the scenario with the assistant manager. He agreed with me that something didn’t seem right and that what I told him he needed to do was correct.

I called the guy back and the story changed some. He said that the AT&T store told him that he needed to go to the warranty repair center and there just happened to be one in his town. He said he’d go there and call me back. To this point, I didn’t know it was broken. I wondered why the warranty repair center, but it didn’t register yet. We hung up and he headed to this center apparently.

He called me a couple hours later and told me that the Elevate 4G wouldn’t read a simm card and that this warranty repair center said there was water inside the device, voiding the warranty. He went on to tell me that they told him that, since it changed ownership, it wouldn’t be under warranty anyway. I am calling BS at this point. In the two days that it took the USPS to get this to the buyer, there was no rain on the radar. There wasn’t in Tuscaloosa for sure and all our weather goes northeast towards this guys location. Typically, our weather makes it to his area 16-18 hours later. Yes, this guy was just a couple states over and up. My point is, unless this buyer dropped it into a toilet, no way it should have any water in it.

Let’s pretend there was a major rain storm and the package did take on a little water, or even a lot, the device sits in the tray above. You see that little hole? Yes. Water wouldn’t stand in that tray, it would fall into the bottom. Spoiler Alert: When I received the device back today, the was no sign of water in or on the box or contents.

After he told me what this warranty repair center told him, I asked him if I could call him back. I called the local store again and let the assistant manager know the scenario. He said that he felt like the buyer might have gone into the store to activate service and decided to take on a contract and buy it for 1/2 of what he paid for mine. I don’t know that, nor did the manager, but something happened at that store. I asked AT&T if there was anything I could do and he told me that since I was no longer a customer that there was nothing he could do. He looked up my purchase date for a possible return that I wasn’t a fan of doing and I was now 3 days out of the window of opportunity. Now I am stuck. I asked if he’d be willing to let me bring it in to check out to make sure it was broken. Perhaps the buyer was lying and nothing was wrong at all. He agreed.

Reluctantly, I called the buyer back and told him I’d refund his money. I was fairly sure that something in all this was definitely not on the up and up.

A week later, the device arrived and I refunded his money.

I open the package to see what I can see. The 1st thing I noticed was that the cable was missing. I opened the back cover to check out this water damage, removed the battery and what did I see?

What in the hell? How did this go from mythical water inside the unit to the simm card holder ripped off the circuit card?  He didn’t mention this. I don’t think water or vibration or even a drop from 2 a two story building is going to rip the simm card holder off of the circuit board. Did he want to make sure it was broken?

So now, I am out $350 and I don’t have ANYTHING to show for it.

Horrible Ebay Experience #2

The 1st story was too long and too many words that my head hurts so I am going to make this one quick and simple.

1. Dude buys $200 sports card for $140 via best offer
2. I send invoice
3. 1 day later, I send another invoice
4. 1 more day later, I send another invoice
5. Yet another day later, I send a message to buyer asking what the payment arrangements he planned. I had been used to getting payments within a day or two of the auction closing. Instant payment is most common.
6. No answer to any of this correspondence.
7. An option became available to me to report auction as non-payment to get my sales fees back. That fee was ten dollars and some change.
8. After that, I decided to sell this card and 73 other cards in one big sale (LOT), which included 2-3 other cards that sold and payment was never received on. I listed that lot here too.
9. That lot lasted a day and a half before I got a good offer that I liked, I accepted the offer.
10. The buyer of the lot paid immediately yesterday.
11. I shipped out this morning
12. While on Ebay adding shipping number to the listing for the buyer to track, I got a notice from Ebay in my email. The buyer of the card finally paid after 7 days and no contact.
13. I refunded the payment and sent another message to the original buyer explaining that he dropped the ball and missed out.

Oh well!

Here’s what was posted on the T-Town Gallery Facebook page:

AUTOGRAPH SIGNING: Friday January 20, 2012: Mark Baron, Marquis Maze, Dont’a Hightower, Dre Kirkpatrick, Courtney Upshaw, Josh Chapman, and Brad Smelley from 5pm to 9pm. $200 for all signatures or $35 a piece. Saturday, January 21, 2012: Trent Richardson with Roy Upchurch from 5pm to 7 pm. $50 for both signatures. 
We expect the store will be busy so make sure to arrive early! We will have pictures and other things available to purchase for signatures! Be sure to share this with your friends!

The Alabama celebration for their 14th National Championship was at Bryant Denny today, so I figured it would be best get there early to stand in line.  My son and I showed up at the University Mall at 2pm and walked around a little. About 2:30, we made our way to center court to get in line. Before we did, we tried to buy some items to get signed at T-Town gallery but they were closed to set up. A sign on the fence said to wait there for assistance. There were 10-15 people in the store and I waited for 10 minutes and nobody came to assist. I wanted to know more about prices and what type of items would be available to purchase. We went ahead and got into line. I looked the number of the store up and gave them a call to ask those questions. The person that answered was quite helpful and answered the questions. She did mention that they had plenty of white panel footballs to purchase. Remember that for what happens later.

It’s now about 2:45pm and we’re looking at a good 2 hour wait. We had some really cool folks around us in the line, so the wait wasn’t too bad. One of the ladies a couple back from me in line had purchased a few 2011 National Championship footballs before she came. Because her father in law didn’t want to drop $85 to get the autographs, she had an extra. I paid her $10 more than she paid to help her out and as it turned out, it helped me as well.

Brett with a new haircut waiting in line to meet Trent Richardson

During all this, the store has a couple loudspeakers, amp, and mic to facilitate the event and make announcements. It didn’t work so well. Only the people right in front of the store could hear. I am not sure if anything important was ever said on it.

Now it’s 5PM and we’re still standing in line. We have approximately 100 people in front us at this point and an estimated 1,000 behind us. The line isn’t moving at all.

Finally around 5:30pm, the players are all set to get started. According to my receipt, Brett and I got into the store and paid for the signatures (all $255 of them) at 6:19pm. This is where it gets very disappointing.

Initially, my plan was to buy one thing to get signed and hope they would sign my son’s Bama cap too. While waiting, I decided to get something for Brett, something for me, and something for my father-in-law. Since I was there, waited so long, I might as well get something nice for my father-in-law and myself. But yes, the day and the idea to do this was more for my son than me anyhow. I am trying to remember that as I sit here disappointed.

As I mentioned earlier, I was told on the phone that there would be plenty of balls and photos to purchase once we get into the store. There were plenty of photos, none of which I felt were a good match for getting autographs of all 3 players on. I could have got 3 individual photos, but I wanted something I could get all 3 on that I could display in my home.

We got into the store and like I said, I wasn’t thrilled with the choice of photos so I wanted to grab a couple white panel balls similar to the one I bought from the lady behind me in line. They ran out of them a couple people ahead of me. They had a one mini white panel football on the table, so I bought it. I still needed a 3rd now. All they had left were official NFL and NCAA balls for $35. With very few options and people rushing me through I agreed to purchase an official NCAA ball. This one would be for my ball case!

3 tickets for each player!

After dropping $60 or so on the two balls and $255 on the autograph tickets, we were on our way to the table to get our balls signed, grab a photo, and meet the guys!

In the photo above, Trent has my third ball in hand to sign and I was still in front of Roy Upchurch. Dre Kirpatrick has his hand on the ball I got Trent to act like he was signing for a photo. The guy on the fence to the left of the video camera is the one that I refer to later in the article. He was the one that refused to talk with me about a deal.

Before we got to the table, the three balls I had were handed over to someone who handed them to the players. I didn’t even get to shake the players hands, say thanks for their service at the University of Alabama, or hand them the balls to get signed. Before I was even in front of the 1st of the three players, Upchurch, all three balls were signed and being handled by a security guard or policeman (can’t remember) and we were being shuffled out of the store. I grabbed the ball for me and asked a handler if I could at least get a picture of Trent Richardson acting like he was signing my ball since it was already signed (photo below shows him acting like he’s signing it). While he obliged that request, my son had his iPod Touch out trying to get a good picture of Richardson. He was almost crying when he asked me, “Dad, can you ask Trent to smile for my picture?”. I told him to just snap the picture, that’s probably the best you’ll get. We were shuffled along.

Trent Richardson simulating the signing of my football at my request for a photo.

With 3 balls in hand while trying to get through a huge crowd of onlookers with my son by my side we moved on. I had not even had a chance to look at the balls.

We get across the hallway to a shoe shore where I was going to let Brett pick out some new tennis shoes. While he was checking out the selection, I was checking out the balls. The 2 white panel balls looked sweet but when I got a look at my ball, my heart sank. IT LOOKS LIKE ABSOLUTE GARBAGE! I can barely make out who is who. The photo of the dark football was taken when I got home with lots of lighting on it to show it better. While I was checking it out in the shoe store, the two guys helping my son with a new pair of shoes were commenting on how bad it looked too. One suggested that I go back over and get my money back. I considered that, but I thought I should wait another day since it was so busy in there and would be for the next couple of hours. Look at the difference in the one above and the two white panel balls below. I should have skipped over the dark, bumpy football and got photos signed for myself. Roy Upchurch’s autograph is decent.

This is the football I am unhappy with. It has tons of lighting on it. It looks even worse in normal lighting.

We grabbed Brett some shoes and I called my wife to see if she wanted me to pick up some dinner. She could tell I was upset and I explained to her a little but didn’t really want to discuss it until I got home. She suggested I go talk with them before I leave.

I stood there telling my son to settle down and give me a sec. After 5 minutes I decided to try to make them a deal. I headed back, asked the police officer keeping the onlookers back to grab someone from the store to talk with me. After he realized I had already gone through the line, he got a guy over there that tried to help. He happened to be the one that told me that they were out of the white panel, 2011 Championship balls. I showed him the ball I was unhappy with and explained to him that I would be willing to let them keep that ball if I could buy something else to get signed without having to pay another $85 for the autographs again. Let me rephrase that… I paid $35 for the ball and an additional $85 for the autographs on it. I was offering to GIVE them that ball back and PURCHASE something else to get signed. The store would not incur any loss since they could give me the 3 autographs again only at the expense of 3 former Alabama player’s 2 seconds of writing. They would make more money off the addition item or items I would purchase and they could even resell the ball I was unhappy with. This guy went into the store to get an actual employee of the store over there to talk to me. Without even listening to my offer, he cut me off with, “NO REFUNDS” and walked off. After standing in line for all that time and spending $300 to be shuttled through the process like an unappreciated prison worker, I was shocked with the short answer without even letting me finish talking. I can understand they were quite busy, but in order for my offer to work… the players needed to be there and if I wait, they will be gone.

After this… I went from disappointed with the whole situation to mad. We left to pick up dinner and return home.

My son is 9, but he’s very bright and he knew I was mad. He tried to cheer me up with a couple of offers. The 1st deal was him offering to get me those autographs when he makes it to the NFL. Cute. I wanted to laugh, but I couldn’t. I can now though. The other offer was for him to get a sharpie and trace over the autographs to make them easier to see. NO BRETT. Please don’t.

On the way home, Brett shared with me his disappointment too. He was upset that he didn’t get to a) talk to Richardson b) shake his hand c) get his picture taken with Richardson, and d) get his Bama hat which is already signed by a couple other players signed. He knew and understood it was busy, but he thought he’d have more than a few seconds. He did get a photo of Richardson snapped with his iPod Touch. I explained to him that each signature was going to cost money and that I wasn’t prepared to pay $85 to get a hat he actually wears signed. The big white panel ball is for Brett anyhow.

When Brett got to meet other Bama players at another store in Tuscaloosa, there was time to chat a minute and the players he’s met have been cordial. Hell, Prince Wimbley even took off his 1992 National Championship ring and let Brett hold and wear it. I wasn’t prepared for this type of situation. The owner of the store, the police, and employees in the store were rushing people out very fast. I was very disappointed in this.

After getting home and telling my wife all about the day, she shared a story that I didn’t know. Apparently she had a bad experience with one of these signings a couple years ago. Terrance Cody was signing at the same place and my wife and daughter were in line to get an autograph for us. He was signing from some time to another time and when that time was up, he got up and left. There were 6-10 people left standing in line. My wife was 4-5 back and she was upset but not as upset as two kids in front of her. They were all left without an autograph.

Let’s recap

• My son disappointed in his chance to meet Trent Richardson.
• I am disappointed in the quality of my prize for waiting for 3 hours and dropping $300.
• There was no interaction with the players we were paying to get autographs from, or very little.
• There were not enough items to purchase for autographs in stock.
• The event started late making it seem like things were more rushed than it should have been.
• I felt as if I paid to be treated as if we were an inconvenience to the players and store staff.

At this point, I am giving the small white panel ball to my father-in-law and I have the large white panel ball I purchased from someone in the line displayed in my son’s room. I am considering using my ball as a very nice, very expensive ball for my son and I to play with in the yard. It’s a quality football and all his other footballs are worn out anyhow.

Bottom line, I won’t be wasting my time or money on any other autograph events put on by this company. Instead, I will wait for Bama Fever opportunities and/or just buy memorabilia from companies that offer autographed items with a certificate of authenticity at retail prices like I have been doing.

Maybe I am overreacting, but for $120, I feel somewhat justified. The ball looks horrible, my feet and back hurt, and my son didn’t enjoy the experience.

ROLL TIDE!

Update: I wasn’t the only one that had a crappy experience today. Apparently some people were led to believe that the autographs were free!

A friend of mine posted this on Facebook tonight!

Went to the mall to get Trent Richardsons autograph..after 30 minutes in line (behind a lot of people that had been waiting way longer) and the radio guy comes across the speaker and says, These autographs are not free by the way, It will be $50….. Needless to say I left & so did a lot of others. I love my Alabama Football but I am not paying anybody $50 for their signature. Ttown Gallery should have been upfront with the people and put that little bit of info in their ads and posters…..

Let’s break them down going into Monday. Even though I am embarrassed, here’s why today sucked. I made bad decisions and players that normally carry me well, sucked.

I got hammered in this one. Jordy Nelson and Victor Cruz have been rocking it lately. They turned up pretty lame today. Aaron Hernadez hasn’t done squat lately, so I rolled with my backup since he’s done as well as Hernandez lately. I also made a huge mistake and rolled with Grossman since I was concerned about Big Ben’s high ankle sprain. With McFadden being out for the last month and half, I have been living and dying with Blount and CJnoK (Chris Johnson). Neither of the really stepped up today. I GOT SMOKED! I finished the regular season in this one 2nd after leading the league almost all year.

I got beat here and other than going with Tony G over Hernandez, there wasn’t much I could do about it. If I rolled with Hernandez like I did most of the year, I would be up 9-10 points with the Steelers D left. I was the 4th seed in this league and the person I faced was dominant all year.

This matchup, rolling the dice with another TE actually worked but Blount laying an egg killed me. I could have won this one! Watch Gore go for 200 and 2 TDs tomorrow night. I doubt it, that’s why I benched him.

Oh Eli how do I love you, let me count the ways. Holy shit Eli, what have you done? An elite QB can score 4 points in their sleep. With all the injuries at RB (AP and Forte), I was happy to hear AP was going today. He didn’t go far though. I don’t think anyone would play DeAngelo over AP. Don’t hate. I figured Eli would outperform Cam this week. A miracle by Antonio Brown is the only way to save this matchup.

I rocked this league all year. I was 2nd and a strong favorite to meet up with Matt Akers of Windows Phone fame for the championship. That’s not gonna happen now. I got shellshocked. This is a 16 team league and talent is thin. I drafted Freeman thinking he’d have a good year. I was wrong!  There was little I could do to win this week, my players just didn’t perform. I almost rolled with Shonn Greene over AP, wouldn’t have mattered.

Well, I have one more league and it’s a money league. Wish me luck.

Here’s what it looked like (Taken with the Samsung Galaxy SII Skyrocket btw):

I hope it was an isolated incident. You guys should send me an unlocked (GSM) Galaxy Nexus…

They are both decent groups, but come on. Bring in the Rolling Stones, Eminem, freaking Madonna, somebody bigger than Maroon 5 and the “I kissed a girl” one hit wonder. Sandisk brought in Linkin Park, Common, Ztrip, Crystal Method, Supernatural, and another band I can’t recall to launch a FREAKING 8GB MICROSD CARD.  I was there and it was a blast.

I post this just to rant. Maybe lots of people like those 2 bands, I don’t, but hey… get what you can get I suppose. I just can’t believe Microsoft didn’t go bigger with the rumored 500 million they are spending on this launch. Oh, I did see the “Really” commercial during CSI tonight.

Oh and if you don’t know what I am talking about, this is in reference to the Windows Phone 7 launch. Apparently Katy Perry will be playing a concert in NYC for the Windows Phone 7 launch or something and Maroon 5 in San Fransisco according to the official Windows Phone blog.

According to the specs, I should be getting a up to 512kbps uploads and 6mbps down.

Well, if you look at my speed tests, I am getting plenty of download and 0.37mbps (370kbps) upload. The problem is that I am not getting those speeds when actually sending an upload.

As you can see above, I tried to FTP this video to my own server (got similar rate uploading to Blip.tv’s FTP server too). I also tried sending directly to YouTube. According to YouTube, the video would have taken about 4 1/2 hours. This doesn’t add up for an almost 1gb file according to a nifty calculator I found online.

According to this calculator, the file I am trying to upload will take 5+ hours at the rate I am getting (51k), despite what I see in a speed test. If I was to get the speed I get from speed tests, this file should only take around 40 minutes. I can deal with giving up my internet connection for 40 minutes every couple evenings  to upload a video, but 5+ hours is ridiculous.

I have tried uploads to Blip.tv, YouTube, Vimeo, and even FTP to various servers, including my own. No luck, I can’t get anything better than 60kbps. Unless I am totally spacing something out here, I am having some issues. I called AT&T and worked with tech support. They said everything looks good on their end. They even sent a tech out, the line is great, the speeds are in spec. So what’s the problem?

I realize uploading video, especially HD video is slow, but I don’t think it should be this slow. I have tried running directly from the ADSL modem (bypassing my router) with no luck. I have tried Apple Mac OS 10.6.4, I have tried Windows XP, and I have tried Windows 7 Ultimate with the same results. Hardwired ethernet connection to router and WiFi, same results. One thing I haven’t tried yet is looking for others with the same issues in forums and blog posts. I plan to do that tomorrow night.

What is the hang up? I doubt that YouTube throttles incoming files and I know my own server doesn’t. What could this be? Am I doing it wrong? HELP

UPDATE: On a AT&T Wireless 3G connection, here’s what I am getting on the same upload.

Much better on a cellular network. This has to be something a) inside my own home network (which I doubt considering that I went direct from modem to this same machine) or b) something in AT&T’s network.

Knee down, full ball control. The ball popped out when he hit the ground with  the rest of his body.

SEC Officials are horrible this year. I think someone could create a blog just pointing out each blown call and probably make more posts a week than I make on GottaBeMobile.

So, can we stop the madness? Does it sell products better?

Some of these products have no reason to add “HD” to their names… Before long, I am going to walk into an IHOP and order an Ham and Cheese Omelette HD.

What is the most ridiculous use of “HD” being added to a product name that you have seen?

Apple called the cartoonist Thursday and suggested that he resubmit the app, Mr. Fiore said in an interview. “I feel kind of guilty,” he said. “I’m getting preferential treatment because I got the Pulitzer.”

OK, so I do love the iPhone, I admit that, but the iPad… not so much. Nothing really ground breaking here folks. That’s not what I want to talk about though. I just had to qualify my embarrassing love of the iPhone 3GS before I share this bullshit.

Apple’s app store shenanigans is nothing new, but today, I read a story on Gizmodo that crosses the line. “Apple Blocks Pulitzer Prize-Winning Cartoonist From App Store”. Huh, what’s that all about? Apparently Apple is going beyond declining racy porn-like apps and pushing some other set standards on their app store. Apple declined a Pulitzer Prize winning Cartoonist’s app on the basis of being obscene, pornographic, or defamatory. Here is the letter he received from Apple…

Dear Mr. Fiore,

Thank you for submitting NewsToons to the App Store. We’ve reviewed NewsToons and determined that we cannot post this version of your iPhone application to the App Store because it contains content that ridicules public figures and is in violation of Section 3.3.14 from the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement which states:

“Applications may be rejected if they contain content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, sounds, etc.) that in Apple’s reasonable judgment may be found objectionable, for example, materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic, or defamatory.” Examples of such content have been attached for your reference.

If you believe that you can make the necessary changes so that NewsToons does not violate the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement, we encourage you to do so and resubmit it for review.

Regards,

iPhone Developer Program

OMG Apple, what’s up with this. Political Satire is part of America. Get over yourselves. What do you think of this? Is this a step too far? I think so.

What’s funny about the post is that it was posted yesterday, yet Mr. Fiore received this letter from Apple back in December. I guess he was handling it a little bit like me? Wait to make sure there is no resolve before getting it out there? Who know. Either way, this is complete BS.