THE GREAT "E-BAY" RIP-OFF

Well, it had to happen sooner or later! After having varying degrees of sucess using "E-Bay" to acquire

Boat-Anchor type radios for restoration, I finally got severely BURNED. actually the Mrs was the one

who got burned, in purchasing a Fathers-Day gift on E-Bay for me. The item she purchased was an E.F. Johnson

Thunderbolt Amplifier. She had been hearing me say I'd like to get my hands on one that was all original, not

too beat up and easily brought back into original condition. She saw this description on E-Bay by one Larry

Hughes Jr, of Moreno Valley California.

Description

COLLECTORS ITEM. 2000 WATTS PEP, 1000 WATTS CW, 800 WATTS AM (AS A LINEAR).

COVERAGE FROM 3.5 TO 30 MHZ. SELF CONTAINED WITH POWER SUPPLY. DRIVE REQUIRED

10 TO 20 WATTS. THERE SEEMS TO BE A SHORTAGE BUT NOT SURE WHERE. AS IS

CONDITION. BUILT IN 1950'S THRU 1960'S. UNIT IS IN ORIGINAL CONDITION. BACK IN THE

1950'S-1960'S THIS UNIT WAS SELLING AT $525.00. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE A PICTURE

E-MAIL ME AND I WILL SEND YOU ONE.

 

Since no one had bid on it She asked for pictures of the unit front and inside, the persons at the other end

sent the following pictures to her!

Face view!

Inside view number one!

Inside view number two!

Note the fuzzy images and the distance shots! The wife assumed it was reflections from the carpet. She bid on the

unit the only bid, as she wanted the thing for fathers-day, won the bidding, and promptly sent Larry Hughes, E-mail

describing the packing and shipping of the unit. Requested all the tubes be removed, and if possible the transformer

and choke removed and shipped separately. She asked for a shipping and packing quote. Requested the cabinet and innards be "Double Boxed" and that the item be insured for $1000.00. All very straigh-forward requests and asked

to be notified as to the costs for shipping and packing again.

Larry Hughes asked that the "MONEY ORDER" be sent to an address in California and "NOT" to the address

provided by E-Bay, so she checked for the E-bay information on this "USER".

The E-Bay info:

From: aw-confirm@ebay.com <aw-confirm@ebay.com>

To: favorstn@ecc.edu <favorstn@ecc.edu>

Subject: eBay User Information Request

Date: Tuesday, August 29, 2000 3:26 PM

Dear queen-tabatha and ymarrufo@aol.com,

 

This message is an automated reply to a request made by

 queen-tabatha

This contact information may be used only for resolving matters related to eBay. Any other use is strictly prohibited. Use of this feature to acquire contact information for the purposes of soliciting eBay customers is both illegal and a violation of eBay rules. If you believe that the requesting party is making this contact request with this intention, or if you have been contacted by someone who you believe secured your information via eBay for this purpose, please send a copy of this email to eBay's S

The information contained herein has not been checked for accuracy; users are responsible for entering their own contact information accurately. If you receive information which you believe to be erroneous, please let eBay know.

Contact information for ymarrufo@aol.com:

 E-mail:      ymarrufo@aol.com

 User ID:     ymarrufo@aol.com

 Name:        Larry C. Hughes

 Company:     N/A

 City:        Santa Clara

 State:       NM

 Country:     United States

 Phone:       (505) 537 - 3716

 Time/Date:   May-11-00 19:01:47 PDT

 

Contact Information for: queen-tabatha

 E-mail:      favorstn@ecc.edu

 User ID:     queen-tabatha

 Name:        Tabatha N. Favors

 Company:

 City:        Buffalo

 State:       NY

 Country:     United States

 Phone:       (716) 838 - 1183

 Time/Date:   Apr-27-00 20:33:10 PDT

Thank you for using eBay!

 http://www.ebay.com

The Information was and is incorrect for this E-Bay user. She sent the Money Order to Larry Hughes requested

address and MR HUGHES promptly dropped off the face of the Earth for three weeks. No word, no e-mails,

no response to multiple e-mail queries. By this time I entered the fray, I checked for his real address (California),

left a fraud claim with E-Bay, No response from E-Bay to this day, filed a claim with E-bay for the cost of the item

500.00 Their response, Items are insured by lloyds of london for up to 100.00 or less if the item bid is less than 100.00

and it takes 30-60 days to receive any info back as to if the claim will be honored.

Monday of the 4TH week and a power cord arrives by U.S. Postal Service, with a note that it was left out of

the box for the Amplifier. The return address on the mailer is in Moreno Valley, California.

The line cord!

Monday of the 5TH week UPS pulls up to the house, the driver struggles a single badly damaged box off his truck, swings it up onto our front porch and leaves it there, wouldn't bring it inside the house for the Mrs, said it was too

heavy, said it looked very damaged and left a Damage Claim form.

The Box at the front door!

I was really upset when I heard the tale of UPS, I had a serious talk with the driver on his next appearance!

We opened the "BOX" to find it was not double boxed (Knew it already), and that the front of the case was

bent, the meter control knob had completely disintegrated, leaving only the brass insert with set screw there.

The cabinet which is supposed to have three (3) long screws, and twenty-two (22) short screws was being held

onto the chassis by just the three long screws. The outer cabinet was dropped and bent as were the screws.

The cabinet with screws!

The Cabinet corner damage!

I was told to survey the damage, or get an "Appraiser", and advise them "UPS" of the cost to repair or replace

the item. So I took the item to the workbench and looked it over, the damage outside was bad the damage inside

was extensive as well, the top two fuse holders had been sheared off completely breaking the fuses and leaving the

residue in the cabinet. The Plate RF choke was completely broken from its mount and laying inside on the chassis.

The bracket holding the HV DC choke in place was bent, The solid state rectifiers had jammed and broken. The

Meter switch inside the chassis was broken in half. All this happened as a result of the NOT SO CAREFUL packing

job of PAK-MAIL Inc. which cost the Mrs $88.00. Also we still had not heard from Larry Hughes. The Mrs

filed a FRAUD Claim with E-Bay for the item and requested info on how to get this thing back to the seller, and

reclaim her money, E-Bays' response was they would investigate for fraud ("NOT") and get back to her, after three

days she received an automated E-mail generated by computer (no Human intervention) that said her request had

been received and would be handled as soon as possible, (took a week) and the findings were a list of suggestions

to resolve the differences ourselves.

Well I was apalled by the condition of the item, the damage not withstanding, as the description on "E-Bay" was

"Collector Quality" and "Original Condition". I started the evaluation of the actual condition of the item we

received.

The unit had major RUST everywhere, Rear cabinet, front panel, meter covers chassis top and bottom. It also

had some sort of green fungus growing on every thing inside. The plate cap on a "Solid State Rectifier" was broken,

all the capacitors on a board that was not original (meant to replace the 8uF 2000 VDC oil filled cap) had spilled

electrolytic out on the chassis. The HV power choke had BURNED leads and read short to ground. Equalizing

resistors were burned in half on the cap board. The 866A filament leads were cut off and dangling inside the unit.