I've had my brother list my extra empeg up on eBay for sale. The auction has currently met my reserve, but the current high bidder is absoltely new with 0 feedback.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1391827645

This unit was listed before and was snatched up with Buy-it-Now within the first few hours. However, the purchaser, from Germany, sent me (twice) two cheques which are completely useless internationally. They're not fully micr encoded and have no address information for the bank. He didn't seem to understand that I needed a valid international instrument such as a draft or money order or even bank transfer. So it's up for sale again.

The buy-it-now price was $699 before my reserve was met. I'm in no rush to sell it, but I'm moving in a couple of weeks and could definitely use extra money for things like furniture, plates, rent, food... And even though I'm moving, now starts a whole new search for a home to purchase for next year. In the meantime I need to clear out some stuff so I don't have to store everything.

If anyone wants to take the buy-it-now price, I'd be willing to have my brother nuke the current high bid from the new user (for some reason I'm just not trusting of new people for this type of item).

Just thought I'd throw a heads up. It's not the cheapest that a 10GB has sold for, but it's brand new and has been loaded and unloaded with music to make sure it's working. It's also been flashed to 2.0 and then back to 1.2 to make sure the serial port works. The drive cable is fine (after all this testing) and the unit has never been serviced or taken apart. It's looking for a good home. COntact me if interested. Or just take your chances bidding on the auction of course.

Bruno

LMAO, and to thing, I'm glad your auction is doing well.

I thought about auctioning mine off but decided to just give it back to the forum at my cost.

Evidently that cost me about 150$.

OUCH, oh well, you live and learn, well you live at any rate...

I've spent way too much time and money with my empegs to let it go "at cost" - which would still be higher than what the sticker price of the blow-out sale was. There was shiping, tax, me driving half way accross town to the airport to pick it up, etc. Besides, I've done some freebie (near freebie) service for a few people, by using my own money to buy units for them and then sending them off to various places around the world at cost.

$699 is the price I paid for the unit I have installed in my car right now. Plus another $200 x 2 for 30GB drives. Ouch. And there are people who've paid more than double that for similar.

With the right advertising I have no doubt that I could get $1000 USD for an empeg. Especially if other people selling them weren't low-balling the prices. But I only have this unit to sell. I'm not going around buying close-outs as a cottage-industry or anything.

Bruno

You can cancel his bid if you don't think he's going to pay.

Yeah, by the way, that is the coolest empeg listing on EBay that I have ever seen. Perhaps, one of the coolest listings on EBay that I've ever seen, period. I've been thinking about how to make that listing reach out to unaware shoppers. Like, including key words in the text (ie: DVD, Changer, Kenwood, CDR) so that it would come up on their searches. Sure it's sharky, but you could put those words in sentences and make it legit.

I wonder how many people actually simply browse EBay. I know I never ever ever do. But if some people do, maybe cross listing it in many categories, including more search-hitting words in the title and body, using Gallery Pics, showing the thing installed in a car, etc, to make it really grab the eye of the unaware sucker(s) who WILL pay $1000.

Good luck. I'd love to see that listing rise above the usual, "If you're looking at this, then you know what it is and know how much everyone else pays for it" listings. Good luck.

Excuse my ignorance, but what is a volumetric fluorescent display? I saw that in your listing. I always thought VFD stood for vacuum fluorescent display.

Stu

What I found interesting was the advertisement on eBay says that it is unopened. How do you load, unload and hijack an empeg without opening the box?

Just a rhetorical question.

Maybe he means the case?

Stu

I think that the warranty information is misleading... IIRC, SB sold out by March, so that would mean there's only 5 months maximum of warranty remaining.

Yes, the warranty would have begun with the original purchase (whether it was from SB or through retail). The new owner will need a copy of the original receipt to make a warranty claim.

I don't think this applies here, but ex-demo retail units probably don't quality for warranty at all, although David tends to err on the side of the customer.

Rob

I didn't create the listing HTML. It was created by a user who I came to an agreement with. Here's the scoop for anyone else curious...

A while back (months) someone put up an empeg for auction using text ripped from my AutoMobile Matrix Page (http://www.mypocket.com/mobilematrix/) and I was pretty pissed off about it. Before complaining to eBay however, I gave the person a chance to explain themselves. He added a credit to my work in his auction and sent me a nice appology.

I let him continue running my text on the condition he let me use his HTML and some of his images if I ever needed to post an auction. And there it is.

That explains the "fluorescent" and may account for an instance of "un-openned" - however, I did write something about the case never having been cracked open. The warranty stickers are still in tact.

This is also not a demo unit and obviously the warranty applies from when it was first purchased (I think the original writer had one year in there - anyone emailing me gets the full details of course). The unit was purchased last December (end of) so there are about 2 months left of original warranty.

If it doesn't sell this time (due to buyer flaking out), the price will go UP again the next time. I'll likely wait a couple of months though.

Bruno

The problem is that your advertisement gives the impression that it is an uponed unit with fully warrantny coverage. If the highest bidder was basing his bid upon an unoped unit with full warranty coverage, you are going to have a major problem. The buyer can claim (at the very least) misleading advertising.

It *IS* an unopened unit. And it does have FULL warranty coverage. The warranty coverage ends at the original purchase date however. All potential buyers should email prior to auction close for more details. Thusfar, everyone who has emailed knows what the empeg is and knows that they were all sold-out by the end of last year (through SB). Should I have been a bit more careful when changing the few things in the original auction HTML? Yes, I missed a few things. I don't think it's a big issue here and I believe the interested parties are all clear on that matter.

If for some reason a winning bidder does not want to complete the sale for these reasons, then I will not force them to pay. I won't leave negative feedback and we'll just agree not to complete the auction. Simple. I re-list, as mentioned, and this time, buy-it-now goes to $799.

I doubt very much that anyone willing to sell units over the next 6 months will have a hard time selling NEW units for about $1000. if people would stop low-balling the price, we'd be over that resale value right now.

But, bottom line.. Do you buy from some joker with 0 feedback with no clear origin for their player? Or do you buy one from a long-time BBS member who can provide the serial number which David or Rob will verify?

Bruno

That's a good question. Your inital concern over selling to 'andypier' was warranted -- that individual informed the seller of another unit that he had changed his mind after winniing the eBay auction. Only selling to members of the board limits your ability to sell your equipment. You could insist that the winning eBay buyer must have a rating of 10 or above -- at least there is some existing history.