[NTLK] Connecting eMate to XP machine

[James Fraser]

Hello,

--- On Wed, 11/7/12, Frank Gruendel <newtontalk at pda-soft.de> wrote:

>>If so, and you do lack a cable, someone is flogging the one you need
>>on eBay: http://preview.tinyurl.com/b9ttyff...at a sky-high price (at
>>least, the price seems so to me).

>Gosh. Three of those would buy you a Kindle. For the price of one you'd
>get a new DVD player.

At $29 a pop, it's a good thing the OP already had a cable on hand, that's for sure. :)

Interesting price point aside, I'm sorry I posted the URL at all, despite my accompanying commentary being far from a ringing endorsement of the seller.  I say this because, regrettably, I discovered some time after posting the link that the eBay seller in question ("maceffects" aka "macsruscomputers" aka Mark Jozaitis) appears to have a history with the list.

If I understand the facts correctly (corrections are, of course, welcome if I've gotten any of the below wrong), it has not been a happy one.  I wish I could say otherwise, because then I wouldn't need to write all of this.

Unfortunately, this post:

http://marc.info/?l=newtontalk&m=113900735302349&w=2

...appears to sum things up.  As a for-instance, the eMate ordered here on 5/15/2005:

http://marc.info/?l=newtontalk&m=111620101606250&w=2

mentioned on 7/14/2005:

http://marc.info/?l=newtontalk&m=112131225715101&w=2

and mentioned again more than six months later on 12/17/2005 :

http://marc.info/?l=newtontalk&m=113485410030378&w=2

...never seems to have materialized.  In fact, I know it hasn't because I've contacted the fellow to whom the machine was owed (Marco Mailand) off-list and he confirmed that he never received either the machine or a refund of his money (US$49 for the eMate + US$23 shipping = US$72 total).  In the interests of giving the seller the benefit of the doubt, Marco has been kind enough to go over his PayPal "payments received" records dating from 2005 until 2012 and has verified that he's still out the US$72.

I would very much like to believe that the person who wrote the below email was sincere:

http://marc.info/?l=newtontalk&m=113548814411685&w=2

However, the evidence, so far as I can make out, does not appear to support my belief.

The point to all this being: please, if you are reading this, consider carefully whether you would ever want to hand money to such a seller when buying Newton stuff.  Speaking for myself, if I had known all this history beforehand, I never would have linked to one of his current auctions on NewtonTalk.

If the seller would like to refund Marco Mailand his US$72, I would be delighted to hear about him finally making good.  Assuming, that is, Marco Mailand is the only person who is still owed money.

However, since Marco was the only person I was able to successfully track down, please do not be shy about responding with your own story if you, too, are still owed money/product.  The whole point to this post is to educate and inform.  I can't do it completely without your help.

In the interests of moving matters along, I can vouch that Marco is not a hard guy to find and a search of the list archives will yield a working email address.  In fact, one can be found at the bottom of this post:

http://marc.info/?l=newtontalk&m=128611906111624&w=2

In the meantime, I will have to stand by my recommendation that NewtonTalkers think twice before dealing with the seller.  It is unclear to me whether the seller may suddenly again forget where his duty lies and decide to get back into practice, so to speak, by leaving a potential purchaser in the same situation in which Marco found himself.

Should anyone happen to need one of these eMate to PC cables, they might, instead, consider doing business with Frank Gruendel.  I understand that he has a limited supply of these cables and is offering them for 5 Euros + shipping.  As of 12/06/12, the cost of shipping is EUR 0,85 for destinations within Germany and EUR 3.45 for all other destinations.  Insurance for destinations both within Germany and worldwide costs an additional EUR 3.05.

If the buyer chooses to pay via PayPal, in addition to the price of the cable(s), shipping, etc., the buyer will also need to pay 0.35 Euros per transaction plus 3.9% of the total sum transferred (as of 12/06/12) to offset PayPal fees.

(However, since things like shipping costs and PayPal fees trend upward over time, please contact Frank to get an up-to-date shipping quote so you'll know what your full walk-away price will be before you make your purchase.)

Anyone reading this who is not already familiar with Frank and is wondering if s/he should hand his/her money to him can examine the list archives for themselves (you'll find his last name is unique):

http://marc.info/?a=107890160900015&r=1&w=2

There they will find a story which, thankfully, is the complete opposite of the one I related earlier.

I say thankfully because I would like to think that reading posts and trading with people on NewtonTalk is the sort of thing that should cause the corners of your mouth go up as opposed to that other thing where the corners of your mouth head in a distinctly downward direction.  Hearing about people dealing in good faith and getting taken advantage of tends to have the latter effect on me and makes writing dispiriting emails like this one necessary.

(If you think reading this post wasn't much fun, believe me, writing it wasn't much fun, either.)

However, I wrote it because I would hate to think that I was even indirectly responsible for putting so much as a nickel in the pocket of anyone who intends to take money from people, act in bad faith, and treat people shabbily (as opposed to someone who makes an honest mistake, then makes good on that mistake).


Best,

James Fraser