Bad Experience with SwimminSurfer256

Guyfromhe · Nov 27, 2011

zdarkazn said:
Who buys used cars unseen? Carmax? People that buy from copart? Ebay car buyers? I didnt want to send it to middleman because i trusted him.. Do YOU have anything that shows that used items can be tested for a little bit only and then put up as "works great"? Go look at ebay's definition of used. Furthermore, the sale thread didnt even say "sold as-is" Even if i asked him to run it for a long time, HOW will i know for sure that he in fact did it? Theres NO way to tell if he actually did it, or if he just turned it on for 20 minutes as usual and says he left it for an hour.

I have some friends that have done so. It does happen, not a lot but it does happen.

Works Great is a judgement call... Wikipedia says an Argon laser should be able to output continuously, so by that standard a 20 minute test and a 1 hour test or a 3 year test would all be the same.

"An item that has been used previously. The item may have some signs of cosmetic wear, but is fully operational and functions as intended. This item may be a floor model or store return that has been used. See the seller's listing for full details and description of any imperfections."

It was used previously ./ (This was clearly stated)
It may have cosmetic wear ./ (I am sure it had some sort of wear)
It's fully operational and functions as intended ./ (You turned it on, it lased there is no indication of how long it will function in here)
See the sellers listing for full details X (There was no indication in the listing of a testing period or if the unit was even turned on recently)

I agree with there being no indication of sold as-is or no returns in the sale thread. I don't see that anywhere. That is usually assumed unless something else is stated however.

No there is not any way to tell if he's lying. He sounds like an honest guy though and based on his responses and feedback from other users I would say he probably wouldn't be running this as a scam.

Clearly you didn't question his honestly at the beginning or you would not have sent him $400. If you honestly thought he was a liar you would have bough it from someone else or bought it new.

swimminsurfer256 · Nov 27, 2011

Guyfromhe said:
I have some friends that have done so. It does happen, not a lot but it does happen.

Works Great is a judgement call... Wikipedia says an Argon laser should be able to output continuously, so by that standard a 20 minute test and a 1 hour test or a 3 year test would all be the same.

"An item that has been used previously. The item may have some signs of cosmetic wear, but is fully operational and functions as intended. This item may be a floor model or store return that has been used. See the seller's listing for full details and description of any imperfections."

It was used previously ./ (This was clearly stated)
It may have cosmetic wear ./ (I am sure it had some sort of wear)
It's fully operational and functions as intended ./ (You turned it on, it lased there is no indication of how long it will function in here)
See the sellers listing for full details X (There was no indication in the listing of a testing period or if the unit was even turned on recently)

I agree with there being no indication of sold as-is or no returns in the sale thread. I don't see that anywhere. That is usually assumed unless something else is stated however.

No there is not any way to tell if he's lying. He sounds like an honest guy though and based on his responses and feedback from other users I would say he probably wouldn't be running this as a scam.

Clearly you didn't question his honestly at the beginning or you would not have sent him $400. If you honestly thought he was a liar you would have bough it from someone else or bought it new.

Actually he knew that what I considered to be good maintenance was at least running the laser for ~15 minutes once a month.

zdarkazn · Nov 27, 2011

rhd said:
Ok, I've edited that post to draw attention to your comment that it's not your Argon up on eBay (just in case anyone only reads my post, and misses your reply).

At any rate that, I see your point about "working great" implying "works as intended". There's some weight to that argument in my mind. I think someone commented that an Argon, if working properly, is intended to be able to run indefinitely (unlimited duty cycle). So how would you test that? 5 minutes isn't any more "indefinite" than 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, or an hour. You know?

This is getting repetitive.. Everyone can think what they want. Im getting sick of everyone not understanding how online transactions work... 10-20 minutes isnt even good enough to say that it works great. Going back to laptops..you cannot just list a laptop you tested for 20 minutes and say it works great. Laptops last a long time dont they? They can be ran for a long time dont they? But you have to test everything too. You have to test for overheating, processor, graphics rendering, etc.. Leaving a laptop on for 20 minutes and saying it works is just dumb.

Ghostchrome · Nov 27, 2011

zdarkazn said:
This is getting repetitive.. Everyone can think what they want. Im getting sick of everyone not understanding how online transactions work... 10-20 minutes isnt even good enough to say that it works great. Going back to laptops..you cannot just list a laptop you tested for 20 minutes and say it works great. Laptops last a long time dont they? They can be ran for a long time dont they? But you have to test everything too. You have to test for overheating, processor, graphics rendering, etc.. Leaving a laptop on for 20 minutes and saying it works is just dumb.

How long of a test on this laser is long enough?

Guyfromhe · Nov 27, 2011

zdarkazn said:
This is getting repetitive.. Everyone can think what they want. Im getting sick of everyone not understanding how online transactions work... 10-20 minutes isnt even good enough to say that it works great. Going back to laptops..you cannot just list a laptop you tested for 20 minutes and say it works great. Laptops last a long time dont they? They can be ran for a long time dont they? But you have to test everything too. You have to test for overheating, processor, graphics rendering, etc.. Leaving a laptop on for 20 minutes and saying it works is just dumb.

If I was selling a used laptop I would make sure it turned on the OS loaded fine and that I could open an app or two, check the keyboard and trackpad worked, that is all.

Unless I was making claims about battery life that would be the extent of my testing before saying it worked great; and as far as I am concerned that would not be a lie.

If someone wants me to run a full multi-hour diagnostics on a laptop they are buying, they can pay for my time just like my clients do.

If you buy a used car the seller doesn't pay for your mechanic to check it nor does the seller check anything other than that it drives.
The buyer covers that and makes any requests for things to be checked before he buys.

You can't buy a used car that is not checked by an expert, drive it 45 miles and then the engine dies and claim it's the sellers fault because he only drove it 20 miles when he tested it before selling it to you.

Guyfromhe · Nov 27, 2011

Ghostchrome said:
How long of a test on this laser is long enough?

Infinity +1

zdarkazn · Nov 27, 2011

swimminsurfer256 said:
It's a bit much to think it's coincidence that this laser pops up on eBay right now... Exact same model. In your exact area. Not working. No remote. AND the power cable was "routed to a standard US plug."

Not my listing..

Ghostchrome said:
How long of a test on this laser is long enough?

Look here, its not even a full day that the laser was ran before it died, its not even a full hour. But everyone says 5 minutes is good enough..whatever. Im not going to argue with that anymore..pointless. Think what you want.

Guyfromhe said:
If I was selling a used laptop I would make sure it turned on the OS loaded fine and that I could open an app or two, check the keyboard and trackpad worked, that is all.

Unless I was making claims about battery life that would be the extent of my testing before saying it worked great; and as far as I am concerned that would not be a lie.

If someone wants me to run a full multi-hour diagnostics on a laptop they are buying, they can pay for my time just like my clients do.

If you buy a used car the seller doesn't pay for your mechanic to check it nor does the seller check anything other than that it drives.
The buyer covers that and makes any requests for things to be checked before he buys.

You can't buy a used car that is not checked by an expert, drive it 45 miles and then the engine dies and claim it's the sellers fault because he only drove it 20 miles when he tested it before selling it to you.

No one pays online...to have a laptop checked out completely. The seller has to do that. Now, you just stated that you wouldnt fully test a laptop before you sold it. You said you would only test the OS, keyboard, and trackpad and then list it as used? So if the buyer gets it, and the wifi dies after he tries to create a homegroup, graphics card burns out after he loads up a graphics intensive game, motherboard dies due to those 2 things dying, you say thats is the buyers fault because you said it was used? I think thats misleading buyers just the way i was by this argon.

zdarkazn · Nov 27, 2011

Guyfromhe said:
If I was selling a used laptop I would make sure it turned on the OS loaded fine and that I could open an app or two, check the keyboard and trackpad worked, that is all.

Unless I was making claims about battery life that would be the extent of my testing before saying it worked great; and as far as I am concerned that would not be a lie.

If someone wants me to run a full multi-hour diagnostics on a laptop they are buying, they can pay for my time just like my clients do.

If you buy a used car the seller doesn't pay for your mechanic to check it nor does the seller check anything other than that it drives.
The buyer covers that and makes any requests for things to be checked before he buys.

You can't buy a used car that is not checked by an expert, drive it 45 miles and then the engine dies and claim it's the sellers fault because he only drove it 20 miles when he tested it before selling it to you.

About the car..usually locally, buyers pay to check it out and have it tested. But online, sellers MUST pay before listing it up. If you list up a car on ebay and say it works but all you've done is turned it on and drove it forwards only, and the buyer gets it and the transmission dies once they drive in reverse a bit, its the sellers fault for not accurately describing it...

Ghostchrome · Nov 27, 2011

zdarkazn said:
Look here, its not even a full day that the laser was ran before it died, its not even a full hour. But everyone says 5 minutes is good enough..whatever. Im not going to argue with that anymore..pointless. Think what you want.

I'd say it's a very valid point in this case.

So you think it should have been tested, what, for at least an hour? At least a full day? What if it broke on day two of use, would we still be here talking about this?

swimminsurfer256 · Nov 27, 2011

Looking back at some power tests I did for this argon the longest I ever had it on at one time was 32 minutes right after summer break. I literally never had a single problem with the laser. The only thing I can think of is somehow you just got really unlucky with timing or you somehow ran it non-optimally (e.g. shut off the switch rather than the key when you were done or put it up against a wall/poor ventilation or something).

Guyfromhe · Nov 27, 2011

zdarkazn said:
Not my listing..

Look here, its not even a full day that the laser was ran before it died, its not even a full hour. But everyone says 5 minutes is good enough..whatever. Im not going to argue with that anymore..pointless. Think what you want.

No one pays online...to have a laptop checked out completely. The seller has to do that. Now, you just stated that you wouldnt fully test a laptop before you sold it. You said you would only test the OS, keyboard, and trackpad and then list it as used? So if the buyer gets it, and the wifi dies after he tries to create a homegroup, graphics card burns out after he loads up a graphics intensive game, motherboard dies due to those 2 things dying, you say thats is the buyers fault because you said it was used? I think thats misleading buyers just the way i was by this argon.

I think we have differing opinions on misleading... If any of those things happened it wouldn't be my fault as the seller. Nor do I feel it would be my responsibility.. I would probably check the wifi and try and browse the web with it but that would be the only other real step I would take.

If you think every seller spends days testing every single component of a piece of kit before they sell it I think you're living in a dream world.

That's a risk you take buying used.. No one knows how long it will last... It could last minutes it could last years... If that sort of risk worry's the buyer that much than buy it new and get a warranty.

EDIT: Most people test stuff under their own use conditions.. I would never run a game on a laptop because I don't play games. And I have burned in computers for clients with software and still had stuff fail on them anyway and that was NEW gear.

SpyderFire · Nov 27, 2011

Next time the OP should buy an argon setup new so he/she can have a warranty along with it.

zdarkazn · Nov 27, 2011

Guyfromhe said:
I think we have differing opinions on misleading... If any of those things happened it wouldn't be my fault as the seller. Nor do I feel it would be my responsibility.. I would probably check the wifi and try and browse the web with it but that would be the only other real step I would take.

If you think every seller spends days testing every single component of a piece of kit before they sell it I think you're living in a dream world.

That's a risk you take buying used.. No one knows how long it will last... It could last minutes it could last years... If that sort of risk worry's the buyer that much than buy it new and get a warranty.

You just showed what a bad seller you are.. you're saying its not your fault just because you didnt test it? I think YOU are the one living in a dream world. It was YOUR laptop and you didnt test it and you sold it to an unaware buyer just cause you were greedy for money and didnt WANT to test it? Most comsumers purchase used items online through ebay and amazon where sellers are at fault when used items stop working due to little testing.. Usually its 7 days on ebay and amazon. Here..this isnt even one hour and everyone says its my fault. Whatever. THINK what you want. Its NOT the correct way to have misleading listings and then not accept returns when the item fails. The correct way to list the argon would have been to say "This laser has worked everytime i used it for 10-20 minute intervals, and ive done this for 8 times. Laser is sold as-is, i am not responsible for anything that happens to your laser after 7 days". Something like that..now since everyone is against me here, the only way out of this would be insurance claim if swim is unwilling accept returns. But i cant even do that..i WISH i could. If i could, this thread wouldnt even be here.. The scan of the insurance article lable shows it was written by hand..wtf..? Those things are entered into a machine so the machine prints onto it..

rhd · Nov 27, 2011

zdarkazn said:
This is getting repetitive.. Everyone can think what they want. Im getting sick of everyone not understanding how online transactions work... 10-20 minutes isnt even good enough to say that it works great. Going back to laptops..you cannot just list a laptop you tested for 20 minutes and say it works great. Laptops last a long time dont they? They can be ran for a long time dont they? But you have to test everything too. You have to test for overheating, processor, graphics rendering, etc.. Leaving a laptop on for 20 minutes and saying it works is just dumb.

I guess what I'd be asking, is how do we know the 34 minute run-time Swim put it through isn't enough? What's the authority, what's the justification, for the position that 34 minutes is not enough, but 45 minutes is?. I really don't know - again, I've never looked into Argons. So, where is that figure coming from.

It's easy to relate to laptops. Sure, if you didn't test the graphics card, and that ended up not working when the buyer received it, you probably hold some responsibility for doing a crappy job of testing. But with the Argon, we're not talking about testing different aspects of the laser, we're talking about testing one specific thing (the basic functioning of it) for a particular duration of time. Also, unlike the laptop analogy where it's obvious that a graphics card needs to be tested, it wouldn't be immediately obvious to me that a 45 minute run-time needs to be tested on the Argon.

So again, can someone just point us to some basic background or authority on the appropriate duration of time to test an Argon for before you can feel comfortable in the fact that it is working?

Pontiacg5 · Nov 27, 2011

zdarkazn said:
You just showed what a bad seller you are.. you're saying its not your fault just because you didnt test it? I think YOU are the one living in a dream world. It was YOUR laptop and you didnt test it and you sold it to an unaware buyer just cause you were greedy for money and didnt WANT to test it? Most comsumers purchase used items online through ebay and amazon where sellers are at fault when used items stop working due to little testing.. Usually its 7 days on ebay and amazon. Here..this isnt even one hour and everyone says its my fault. Whatever. THINK what you want. Its NOT the correct way to have misleading listings and then not accept returns when the item fails. The correct way to list the argon would have been to say "This laser has worked everytime i used it for 10-20 minute intervals, and ive done this for 8 times. Laser is sold as-is, i am not responsible for anything that happens to your laser after 7 days". Something like that..now since everyone is against me here, the only way out of this would be insurance claim if swim is unwilling accept returns. But i cant even do that..i WISH i could. If i could, this thread wouldnt even be here.. The scan of the insurance article lable shows it was written by hand..wtf..? Those things are entered into a machine so the machine prints onto it..

You didn't ask how long it was tested for. In fact Swimm said he tested it for around 15 minutes a month. Why is it so hard for you to understand, there is no set "lasers must be tested ON for this long before they are ok" time.

This is not e-bay or amazon. There are no set rules for every listing. Since you did not ask "has the laser been tested for 1 hour+? Will you warranty it for 7 days?" Trying to demand that stuff after the fact because "ebay does it" is not a valid argument.

And as far as the laptop testing thing? Yeah, checking to make sure it works as it should is plenty, I'm not going to run benchmarks or stress tests or anything to make sure unless I have some reason to think something is about to fail. The same is true for the argon, 15-30 minutes a month testing is plenty. If Swimm had no reason to think the thing was about to break then that is plenty of testing. Since you didn't ask for any further testing before you bought it you are out of luck in my eyes.

RHD, I would call 15-30 minutes a month plenty of testing. Argons run hot, running one for hours at a time will leave your house hot pretty quickly. I've personally never ran mine much longer than 30 minutes and I've had it well over a year now.

zdarkazn · Nov 27, 2011

rhd said:
I guess what I'd be asking, is how do we know the 34 minute run-time Swim put it through isn't enough? What's the authority, what's the justification, for the position that 34 minutes is not enough, but 45 minutes is?. I really don't know - again, I've never looked into Argons. So, where is that figure coming from.

It's easy to relate to laptops. Sure, if you didn't test the graphics card, and that ended up not working when the buyer received it, you probably hold some responsibility for doing a crappy job of testing. But with the Argon, we're not talking about testing different aspects of the laser, we're talking about testing one specific thing (the basic functioning of it) for a particular duration of time. Also, unlike the laptop analogy where it's obvious that a graphics card needs to be tested, it wouldn't be immediately obvious to me that a 45 minute run-time needs to be tested on the Argon.

So again, can someone just point us to some basic background or authority on the appropriate duration of time to test an Argon for before you can feel comfortable in the fact that it is working?

Then what you're saying is that if you sold a laptop but every component was "tested" but only for 1 minute, then its okay? You're saying you dont have to see if the full usage of the graphics card will burn it out? swim never tested the laser that long.. you say its not his fault because he never tested it for an hour to see if anything would burn out?

Bad Experience with SwimminSurfer256

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