hello.. (ive changed my normal username)

I Sold a couple of new (unopened) computer Hard drives on ebay about three weeks ago… Id had them for a couple of weeks and decided i wasnt going to use them,

Cut to yesterday, and I recieved an email saying that after an hours use the buyer had smelt a strong burning smell.. and that their PC would no longer turn on.

so they had gone out and bought new PSU, mobo, CPU etc..

reinstalled the same drives.. and got the same ‘burning smell’ and the new components had died as well!

cue them emailing me with a demand for payment for the parts they had replaced.

I have phoned ebay and they have said all i need to do is ask for the parts to be returned to me, and if they are returned in the same condition they left me, i should refund just the purchase price plus any postage costs.

the buyer has since refused to send the items back to me, and also tried twice (30 mins apart) to get my contact details through ebay (ebay sent me an email telling me they had done this) so they now have my phone number.

As i work in IT im reasonably sure the drives wouldn’t have caused this to happen..

I have a box of about 100 dead drives (and 15 years of this never happening before..) under my desk at work that didnt in any way damage the PC they where in when they expired..

Its far more likely in my experience they where either installed incorrectly.. there was some sort of power surge.. or the computers Power supply died and took everything else out with it..

or.. its a scam.

does anyone else have any experience of anything like this?

You are dealing with someone who knows nothing about computers or a crook.

I don’t suppose that you made a note of the serial numbers of the drives that you sold ? It is not unknown, I understand, to have something faulty, buy a replacement on Ebay then complain and send the faulty device back to the seller – you then get whatever it is for free.

As for buying a new motherboard computer and expecting you to pay for it, that’s none of your business or concern. I hope Ebay see it that way as well ( it sounds like they do ).

Edit – if they call refuse to discuss anything outside of written communications via Ebay – make them leave a paper trail of anything that they have said.

IANAL but…

The alleged failure of other componants is consequential failure and there is no way that a high st (or online) retailer would entertain paying out for it so theres absolutely no way you, as a private seller, should be expected to either.

If they do return the drives to you, even if they’re fully working they’ll be worth less as the packets will have been opened.

I’d potentially refund them for the drives if they return them with all the packaging at their cost to you and you’re happy that they’re undamaged and fully working but as for the other damage they can jog on IMO

EDIT Cranberry +1, you can clearly type more quickly than I can.

Stop worrying and tell em to jog on…..refund if YOUR drives turn back up…if not then seller trying to scam.

That’s pretty much what ebay have said too.

even going as far as saying that if the packaging has been opened i don’t need to refund them..

I didnt make a note of the serial numbers unfortunatley.. i normally do for stuff i sell on ebay, but didnt in this case for some reason. 🙄

i forgot to mention they also said they have ‘taken legal advice’ and ‘may take me to court’ which sounds like a scammers scare tactic to me..

ask them if they got the legal advice on ebay as well? 🙄 sounds unlikely really

Publish the text of the email on here for us to read. Nigerian scammers always use certain typical turns of phrase that they can’t avoid, they learned them from Irish missionaries.

Stop answering the emails, and inform the scammer this is what you’ll do.

DrP

Did you send them to:

Scammy McScammington,
6 Scamscam Road,
Scammington,
Scams.

?

Even if we assume that the drives are indeed faulty, there is no way a SATA drive could take out a motherboard, CPU and PSU, not while I’ve got a hole in my arse. I could believe, just about, that they’d taken out the SATA controller (I’ve seen it happen in IDE days, pulling out the ribbon cable ‘hot’ is a great way of destroying IDE controllers) but even that sounds unlikely to me.

I’ve know PSU and MB failures take out drives, but never the other way around.
Generally if a drive fails it doesn’t affect any other hardware, unless its been connected up incorrectly its pretty hard to cock up.

Yeah. And even if it was plausible, the story doesn’t add up. Who on Earth would be able to correctly diagnose a failure of all those components but miss such a catastrophic drive fault? And then reliably conclude that the drives were the root cause? It’s nonsensical.

Best case scenario, even if we give the buyer the benefit of the doubt and assume they’re genuine, I’d have a big fact question mark around whether the allegedly failed components all actually needed replacing.

Your dealing with either a chancer or a bell end.

Ebay will see a lot of this and it sound like good advice. Play it dead straight, offer a refund for the return of your drives. Go no further.

If they go to court they would have to prove all of the BS they have given you. I wouldn’t worry at all about it getting that far!

cheers all.. 🙂

much as i expected..

the postal address of
General Shyster McFlimFlam based at RAF Scampton

should have been a giveaway really.. 😆

Ive done the IDE cable pulling whilst on before…

(on purpose on a pc destined for the big scrapheap in the sky..)
that was fun..

but not as fun as the PCI card though… *FZZT* 😈

SATA though.. In the past ive unplugged and replugged in a different drive (same make and model) whilst imaging with DOS ghost and its imaged the second and third.. and fourth.. etc.. drives as well afterwards without missing a beat.