Let the buyer beware...

This is the email conversation I had with the so-called "seller" jsdrives.
To date, I finally received 2 drives. One 840Meg with bad clusters(errors) and one 1.6Gig
that seems ok. So much for the "no bad sectors" he is advertising.
You be the judge after reading this:

Here's the winning email from Yahoo! Notice that is says hard "drives". That usually means
more than one. In this case, "drives" means two.

Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 05:57:40 PST
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Reply-to: [email protected]
Subject: Auction Winner:1.6 GIG & 840 MEG QUANTUM HARD
DRIVES IDE!

Dear CowboyMick,

Congratulations! You have WON this auction: 1.6 GIG & 840 MEG QUANTUM
HARD DRIVES IDE!

You may wish to PRINT or SAVE this notice for future reference.

1. AUCTION INFORMATION

     Auction Title: 1.6 GIG & 840 MEG QUANTUM HARD DRIVES IDE!
        Auction ID: 56880177
    Total Quantity: 2
    Starting Price: $19.99
       Date Opened: Jan 16 08:17 PST
       Date Closed: Jan 19 08:17 PST

You can view the closed auction here:

http://page.auctions.shopping.yahoo.com/auction/56880177

2. YOUR BID SUMMARY

    Quantity requested: 1
      Quantity Winning: 1
        Price per Item: $19.99

3. NEED ADDITIONAL HELP?

Visit the Sellers Guide:
http://help.yahoo.com/bin/help/redirect.cgi?to_url=http://help.yahoo.com/help/auctions/asell/

Or contact customer care:
http://add.yahoo.com/fast/help/auct/cgi_feedback?auction_id=56880177

Please note that our Buyer Protection Program has changed. In an
effort to promote secure transaction methods and encourage buyers to make
safe purchases, the program no longer covers payments sent by wire
transfer, payments sent to a post office box or payments sent to any
international location. You can find complete details here :
http://auctions.yahoo.com/phtml/auc/us/ins/protectionpromo.html

Thank you for using Yahoo! Auctions
http://auctions.yahoo.com

So I sent an email saying that I would like to pay him by money order.
Here's what I received.

From: "Joe Storms" <[email protected]>
To: "Mick" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: yahoo auction 56880177
Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 12:35:10 -0600

Send payment to

Joe Storms
(address removed)
(address removed)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mick" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2002 8:20 AM
Subject: yahoo auction 56880177

> I would prefer to pay you by money order. Please send
> me a mailing address and I will get it out to you
> right away.
> Thanks in advance,
> Mick
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Send FREE video emails in Yahoo! Mail!
> http://promo.yahoo.com/videomail/
>

Out of the blue I receive another email. This confirms that there is
not one, but two drives.

From: "Joe Storms" <[email protected]>
To: "Mick" <[email protected]>
Subject:
Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 12:57:10 -0600

Hello i have your 1.6 gig and 840 meg drive ready for you send payment to

Joe Storms
(address removed)
(address removed)

Total is $25.50

Thanks for oyur bid!

Joe S

Here comes a wonderful piece of spam from him. Nice touch.
Right here is where I began to wish that I never sent that payment....

Subject: Weekly special1 Hard drives Hard Drives
Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 23:06:31 -0600

QUANTUM HARD DRIVES ALL DRIVES ARE IDE TEST FOR NO BAD
SECTORS EXCHANGE WARRANTY!

840 MEGS FOR $6.00 EA

1.6 GIG DRIVES FOR $15.00 WITH FREE 420 MEG HARD DRIVES

32 MEG NON PARITY 60 NS 72 PIN SIMM $10.99 EA

SHIPPING IS $5.00 FOR 1 DRIVE $6.50 FOR 2 DRIVES, $7.50 FOR 3
DRIVES AND $9.50 FOR 4 DRIVE PRORATED FOR HIGHER QUANTITY
DRIVES!

JSDRIVES

PAYPA, BILLPOINT AND m.o. ACCEPTED PERSONAL CHECK ACCEPTED
5-6 DAY WAIT

After waiting and getting no response from him after 4 days of emailing him
I FINALLY get a reply. Funny how something that was "ready to send" can
slip through the cracks....

From: "Joe Storms" <[email protected]>
To: "Mick" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: yahoo auction 56880177
Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 18:26:20 -0600

Mick when doid you send the M.O. I need to check a see. What was the
items
or item I will look for you ASAP. You might have slipped thru the
cracks
here if so I will get this taken care of after a little research

Jsdrives

Joe

So I ask if he has received my email with all of our conversations and
money order number. I have to ask twice to get a response.

From: "Joe Storms" <[email protected]>
To: "Mick" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: yahoo auction 56880177
Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2002 22:06:35 -0600

Yes I did and I will be sending a drive out I think I did get your
money
order last week . But I cannot find your paperwork.

Jsdrives

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mick" <[email protected]>
To: "Joe Storms" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2002 8:19 PM
Subject: Re: yahoo auction 56880177

> Did you receive my last email with all the
> information?
> Mick

Notice how it says, "drive". Drive to me means one. The auction was for two.
But he cannot find any paperwork. Funny thing about those "ready to send"
drives.

So I send off yet another email, saying that the bid on his auction was for two drives.
I'm also getting a little upset. Here's that conversation:

From: "Joe Storms" <[email protected]>
To: "Mick" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: yahoo auction 56880177
Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2002 16:13:07 -0600

2-1.6 gigs work for you let make this right Give me the address again I
will
send 2 of these on Monday via priority mail

> > > Ok, you said you will be sending a drive out. The
> > > auction was for 2 drives: one 1.6 Gig and a 840Mb.
> > > I think I have been more than patient in this
> > matter.
> > > I would like the 2 drives I bid on last month. I
> > > suggest that you send me at LEAST a GOOD 1.6Gb and
> > a
> > > 840Mb drive ASAP to avoid getting a terrible
> > rating on
> > > the auction. Now if you want to substitute a bigger
> > > drive instead of 2 let's talk about it before you
> > > ship. I don't think this is too much to ask.
> > > Mick

Notice that he needs my address again. This guy is not very organized in my opinion.
So I ask the obvious:

I dropped them off tonight they should get there by Thurs or Fri.
> Just a quick question. Did you send the drives?
> Thanks
> Mick

And FINALLY I received 2 drives on 2/14/02. To my dismay, however, I received
a 1.6Gig and a 840Meg. And, the 840Meg has errors on it. He said in the email above
that he would send 2 1.6Gig drives for my trouble. The auction said that
there would be "no bad sectors." Hmmm.... I don't know what kind of test he runs,
but I am running the manufacturer's certification test. And it fails.

Process I went through to test the drives that were auctioned
as "no bad sectors."

1) Ran Scandisk. Ran the thorough test and looked for
bad clusters. I seen an area marked bad on the 840Meg.
And this was right out of the box.
2) Downloaded OEM software. I got the software from the
manufacturers website.
3) Certification test. (failed due to errors)
4) Wrote zeros to the drive and re-certified. This
ensures that someone hasn't tried to hide anything.
And the 840Meg drive had errors. So that sector is
marked unusable by the OEM program.
5) Fdisk, format, Scandisk. You can still see the bad clusters.
This was all done 3 times to make sure.

Conclusion:
It didn't pick up a bad sector in the mail :)
Someone just didn't know or didn't check. Now I wouldn't
have minded if it were offered "as is" but it wasn't.
He said...."no bad sectors" and "tested good."
What is a "IDE TEST" anyway...LOL!!

So I decided to end this tragedy with a final email. After all that I have been
through with this guy, I explain my displeasure:

Thanks. Here I was expecting 2 1.6Gig drives for all my time and emails. Just in case
you didn't remember, you sent me a 1.6Gig and an 840Meg. Below you said you were
going to send 2 1.6Gig drives for my time and trouble. But here's the better news.
The 840Meg drive has errors on it. Nice. You must think I'm some stupid backwoods
hick and wouldn't have noticed. I guess I should be happy I got anything at all out of you.
So...I will be expecting a response by Monday 2/18. I am not interested in wasting much
more of my time with this auction. I do not plan on packing up the bad drive and driving
30min to get to town for your mistakes. And I am tired of having to remind you that I won
your auction, and had to email you over 10 times just to get anything sent to me, and had to
send my mailing address over and over to you.
Tell me again why I shouldn't make a web page with all of these mailings and link it to the
BAD comment I am about to leave so everyone can see how you are?
Mick

To date, still no email from him. But amazingly, within an hour of giving him a BAD
rating and making this page, I receive an email from Yahoo! saying that
this guy has rated me a BAD buyer. To date, this was the fastest response I have
ever received from him. Usually it takes days to get a response from him.

Huh, I guess getting the payment out within 24 hours of winning is bad.
Maybe I should've been like him and forgot he even HAD an auction :)
Oh, and having to constantly send emails to him for information that
he "loses" makes me a bad buyer also. Don't be fooled by this guy.
He obviously doesn't know anything about hard drives-including drive sizes.
He didn't send me 2 1.6Gig drives like he said, and he couldn't have checked them for errors. Otherwise I wouldn't have a drive with bad sectors in front of me. But I still won. I get to blast him on a web page :)

Thanks for reading this. I hope that this helps you make a decision not to bid on this
chuckle-head and his stuff. Yahoo! has a lot of nice sellers, but this guy is not one of them.
To date this is the only problem I have had at Yahoo! Auctions.
Good Luck!
Mick