He/she ain’t paying. Basically since the rules changed and sellers couldn’t give feedback on buyers anymore I’ve just seen a rash of people who win stuff and just don’t bother paying for it.

If I get something back like “sorry, just waiting for xxx and then can I pay you” then fair enough. Ignoring two message ain’t cricket. You on holiday for two weeks? Then don’t bid for stuff then.

As wwaswas says, put in a claim for non-payment. Takes two weeks anyway I think, if the buyer doesn’t reply to the claim then you get the fees refunded.

Then add him/her to your blacklist of people you won’t let bid on your auctions. Hardly weeing in their slippers but hey.

If you’re looking at handbuilt but price of Mavic Open Pro rims are off putting then check out the Mavic Open Sport. They’d knock a fairly hefty amount off and maybe stiffer things up a bit (touch wider than Open Pros).

Probably what is more important is a useable brake it seems.

As a parent, the knowledge that the little one can stop the runaway machine before it plows into your car/the elderly woman next door/the road is a big seller for me! The cnoc we’ve got has better brakes than my commute bike.

avdave2 – don’t forget the suicidal slip gear my Arena always seemed to drop into when I least needed it to. Many a bruise from that.

Did he fess up and take it like a man. Yes.

He only ‘fessed’ up when he was pretty much cornered like a rat. Though I do give him respect for trying to promote a cleaner sport. Though it always slightly strikes me as a bit like a born-again Christian, getting a little too high-and-mighty.

You can polish a turd…but it’s still a turd.

But you can roll it in glitter….

Paypal?

And don’t use the work address. So many alarm bells will ring in the bank/credit card agencies they’ll just think you’re doing some sort of fraud.

Think Surly used to do a chainset for the snow bikes on the Iditarod race. Called something like a Mr Whippy or Mr Whirly or something.

Snot naught at all… Just getting around the previously selected arbitrary restrictions.

But you’ll have an unconfirmed address and the seller might get shirty. He won’t have the (limited) cover when sending stuff.

Its fairly easy for the guy to put your eBay user ID onto a white list to avoid any of the restrictions.

cannondale scalpel – no lower pivot 100mm of travel.

you cant tell me that yo get 100mm of lateral movement?

Well to be fair the Scalpel does have a shock and other pivots allowing the 100mm of vertical travel…..

Bigman, I’m not saying that if I rode a Venge I’d be keeping up with Cav, just that even tiny speed benefits can mean the difference between 1st and 2nd. Hence if everything else was equal (skinsuits etc) the rider with a Venge would be slightly faster than a guy on a litespeed.

Presuming you were racing continually into a headwind. You ‘may’ be using 37.675 watts keeping your sail-like aero frame steady in a side wind.

Easy to win the TdF without winning a stage. Well, in my ‘mind’ anyway….

Craghoppers doing a sale at moment spookily – £18 for Kiwis Clicky

What fees? They used to get it back off the mortgage lender, not the buyer.

Ours had contacts in one of the mortgage suppliers to managed to get us a good rate when the offer had actually ended the day before. Gave us some good advice re entry and exit fees (which I’m sure we would have worked out anyway to be fair).

If you live with an hour of your life talking to an advisor they at least might be able to point you at mortgage lenders you hadn’t thought of. Of course nothing stpping you spending your entire day trawling internet/banks to find all the good deals…

Whats the Tyrwhitt returns policy like if they don’t size up too well?

I read somewhere they’ll basically take stuff back with cigarette holes in etdc. obviously worn etc. so don’t think you’d have a problem with returning due to bad sizing. And to be fair Distance selling rules would cover that anyway.

I like CTyrwhitt shirts, though be prepared of a bombardment of emails and post from them. I seem to get a new ‘offer’ everyday, must get round to unsubscribing form the mailing list.

As tomthunb suggested, look for the less ‘macho’ bashguards out there, unless you’re genuinely smacking your chainset off rocks routinely then they’ll be fine, won’t need long bolts etc.

Truvativ did one, Blackspire do one too as well as BBG. Maybe a nose round eBay might pick one up cheapo.

I’ve had a couple of times when I’ve paid via my iPhone and it’s said the seller has got a eChq. Maybe that’s whats happened.

Might be worth getting in touch.

To be honest, both times the seller has just sent out stuff straight away so I don’t know if they took a risk or if there is any ‘guarantee’ with the eCheque (i.e. paypal will cover it regardless).

Was thinking I’d need at least a black long sleeved poloneck shirt. And maybe a beanbag. And must have a manbag. 😛

British drinking culture is the result of the best part of 100 years of uber tight licensing laws. Blaming the current situation on the very recent relaxing of those laws is a bit like blaming a new born child for its parents behaviour. Blatantly wrong.

Sorry, can’t see the point in your comparison. How can it be blatantly wrong?

Thought I’d read somewhere a few days ago something like 25% of all A&E visits were drinking. I seem to remember that was an increase, so technically “are” seems to the the critical word.

But definitely keep a copy of the images used in the auction just in case. I’d be surprised if the seller agrees to knock off £250 for the refurb, so you should be able to post back and get the refund.

If seller is snotty maybe he won’t be in too much rush to return your postage costs. Make sure you get signed for in case they go “missing” in the post.

its irrelevant, it’s a delusion to think that paypal review every case.

I know they don’t but they give the seller a chance to reply first. If he can point at the fact there is positive feedback it may muddy the water.

Aren’t distance selling regs more to cover new items?

To be honest I do know you stand a fair chance of getting the refund, but plenty of STW have been on the other side of the argument and often the reply is pretty much tough to the seller, they’ll have to fight for the money. Rightly or wrongly.

Isn’t it the whole countries culture thing that needs assessing first?

Relaxing the licensing laws was mean to turn us into a country of red wine drinking open air cafe loungers like the French (or Portuguese?). We just seem to be putting more people into A&E on a weekend instead.

Paypal will be on your side, they always rightly or wrongly support the buyer.

Though if you’ve already left positive feedback and had the goods six/seven weeks they may not be as supportive.

Tricky one. I’d be annoyed as a seller if someone waited that long to complain…

(sorry, how rude of me – thanks for the information 5AM)

5AM – it’s the Samsung CLP-320 on Amazon.

To be honest I mostly do documents these days, the odd Google map which hardly pushes the bounds of colour printing.

I’ve a little printer for photo snaps and as mentioned above, the online photo printers almost make it pointless to do prints at home.

Just maybe need the odd print for the little ones homework maybe for school at short notice (ie 10 mins before leaving for school)!

I’ve got a Lexmark s605 inkjet that is pretty rubbish, never got a good print off it and now the starter inks have run out and I’m loathed to fork out another £50+ – vaguely remember they’ve chipped the cartridges too so can’t buy OEM either.

Would rather buy a new printer (even like a Canon Pixma (ip4850 or similar) than give Lexmark anymore money unless you are in the ‘know’ with Lexmark stuff too…

HP on the other hand are an absolute dream.

Blimey, £3,500 for an inkjet! It’d better be a dream!!!

tiny 6×4 sublimation prints aren’t much good for me. And the media is well expensive…

I know. Picked it up off eBay with 2 pack of photopaper for £15 so can’t complain and it keeps Granny supplied with granddaughter photos. Worth it just for that! For that price could almost bin it after they run out.

Whiles you’re there, set up countries you will post to (or rather countries you won’t…). Saves some guy from Lituania bidding and winning then starting the whole “my mates in the UK next week, can I get him to pick it up…” scam.

If orange juice had a proven positive effect on performance that wouldn’t be there for non-orange juice drinkers, yes.

FlyingOx – so if it was found out that person A training harder than person B had a positive effect on performance then by your reasoning they should be banned.

People drinking water will have better performance than non-water drinker. Should we ban water? And hang all cyclists who drank water in 1973?

Armstrongs denials are very cleverly worded. Never failed a test, never used illegal substances – well in 1999 there was no test for EPO and I am not sure it was on the banned list.

So if we banned something orange juice tomorrow and went back through old samples and found traces of orange juice then everyone would be a drugs cheat? Whilst I don’t agree with the pushing of limits to what is legal/illegal, surely if something wasn’t banned then you can hardly implicate someone for actually using it?

Ideally I was thinking more of some widget you could iFrame into the page.

Probably obfuscating the mailto is all he needs in truth.

Always worth checking the mainline carriers like British Airways too. they are often competitive. Bear in mind some of the low cost carriers don’t fly to the main airports so add in extra costs for transport when you’re there, plus all their sneaky checkin fees, baggage fees etc. etc..

Whilst everyone is on their soapboxes don’t forget it’s only for a couple of years until the heartless parents kick them out into places with cowboys and strangers and all sorts in schools.

Quality, not quantity. Next doors kids are looked after 24/7 by their parents. Well, when I say parents I actually mean Mr Sony TV and Mrs Panasonic DVD player….

yeah, cabin crew still got the travel perk, just their ranking in the pecking order for standby seats (if there were less seats than staff wanting to travel) was taken away.

Cabin crew always get upgraded becuase their buddies are flying the plane and it’s all nudge nudge wink wink (even above other staff who by rights should get the upgrade first I’m sure)

A great example of a useless dispute. Walsh tried and failed to break the union and ended up with pretty much what the union offered before the strikes which was most of his claimed aim(setting aside the union breaking)

Actually TJ, BA has got a lot more out of this than you seem to know. New contracts and working conditions for cabin crew. The unions didn’t want this, so they’ve really been beaten and the last few mexican standoffs have actually been the unions just wanting to save a bit of face and keeping the perks for cabin crew members. That’s small change really as it’s only standby, so if there ain’t seats they don’t fly anyway.

Ollie, I’d probably do one night down Osbourne Road in Jesmond (5 mins in taxi from town centre) and a night in Town Centre. Restaurants in Jesmond are quite small/expensive mostly but centre is fairly well geared up for 15 people having a curry so they won’t blink.

Much of the outlined suburbia is fairly sparse with pubs. Some nice ones out in the sticks, don’t get me wrong, but it’ll be the only one for a fair distance so hardly a lads night out.

If you end up in a housing estate with one pub, then consider that tribal! Socialising with the locals 😉 in there may get you spoken to by her boyfriend/father of her child/son.

M_F – Was there a bucking bronco in the same pub as the cage?!

Just follow one of the other group of lads/girls dressed up as nuns/fairies etc.!

Asking in terms of hotel/b&b, pubs or sightseeing?

Town centre is fine. Maybe best to avoid the Bigg Market. Loads of decent bars around the central station these days. The quayside was decent but seems to have gone quiet in the past few years. To be honest it’s ten min walk from end to end of town centre so not unknown to do a crawl from Quayside up to Haymarket (near unis).

Jesmond is nice too, plenty of bars but not sure what the bouncers are like with stag dos. Few b&bs too so a short stagger home.

Probably avoid any other outer area. Some of them get a bit tribal, and really just local pubs for local people. Gosforth is fairly safe but probably wouldn’t make the (10 min) trip to go drinking there.