The perils of eBay

One of the hazards of our particular style of retailing is that we can occasionally spend hours of our lives demonstrating things to clients only to discover that the aforesaid gentleman/lady is actually looking at buying an eBay "bargain" and is using our facilities to evaluate the product.

Needless to say we would greatly prefer people to buy things from us when we have invested time and resources in them.

Unfortunately one common way we discover a client has made an ebay purchase is when they bring in the just arrived item to test it as they "can't seem to get it going"

We find amplifiers with no transformers in them, Surround Receivers that are 110 volt with no switching capability that have self immolated on plug in. Speakers with no crossovers, and the list goes on and on. Alas even more common is the purchase of goods that never arrive ...

In general, if it looks to be too good to be true, it is ...

Manley Labs have an excellent guide on how to deal with eBay purchases and potential frauds.