Tuesday, August 09, 2011

‘Deadbeat bidders’ dog eBay sellers

It’s the quiet fear behind anyone who’s ever sold anything on an auction Web site. What if the winning bidder doesn’t pay? Sellers offering up pricey Cisco Systems hardware on eBay recently know what that feels like. Well over $1 million in Cisco auctions have been ruined by bidders who simply disappear after the auction has ended. Some say it’s an elaborate fraud orchestrated by “the Cisco Raider.” Others think it’s just vandalism. But perhaps of greater concern, some eBay sellers are getting the feeling that the problem of disappearing auction winners is getting worse.

They're called “deadbit bidders.” They ready a bid that’s sure to win an auction, far above market value, and when the auction’s over, they just disappear. After three such incidents, eBay generally suspends the user. But that’s no deterrent. Determined deadbeats just re-register under a new name and start all over.

It’s more than just an aggravation for the eBay seller, who now has to start the selling process over again. eBay doesn’t refund the listing fee — $3.30 for items over $200 — so that’s lost. Any other marketing fees, such as placement on eBay’s front page, are also lost. The seller must fill out two separate forms and wait about a month to issue a complaint and ensure that eBay doesn’t deduct its selling fee.

And the consequences are even worse than that, according to one repeat victim of deadbeats who asked not to be identified. The loss of time can cut deeply into sale prices.

“One item I had to list three times,” he said, because the first two auctions for the Cisco router he was selling were ruined by deadbeats. On the third try, he sold it using eBay’s “Buy it Now” feature “just to get rid of it” at $650. It likely would have sold for $800 at the initial listing, but in the interim four weeks, routers from failed dot-coms flooded the market.

It’s difficult to say just how widespread the problem is, but three avid eBay sellers told MSNBC.com their deadbeat rates can vary between 5 percent and 15 percent. eBay power seller Geoff Giglio, who auctions 300 to 500 items each month, said he sees 20 to 40 deadbeats monthly.

Marc Van Horn or Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., says deadbeat rates are high and getting higher.

“In one month I had 14 percent deadbeat bidders for my auctions,” Van Horn said.

eBay spokesperson Chris Donlay said “that sounds high,” but added that “I have not heard a sitewide statistic.”

“It’s not a large amount,” Donlay said. “If you look at all sorts of fraud, it amounts to just one-one hundredth of 1 percent of transactions.”


‘Deadbeat bidders’ dog eBay sellers

Friday, August 05, 2011

New York Cisco Liquidators

AQT New York network equipment liquidators buys used, excess, surplus Cisco, Nortel, Juniper, and Foundry network hardware OEM manufacturer brands.

Submit an inventory list of network technology surplus and find out how much your idle or decommissioned network equipment is worth.


If your organization has new, open-box, surplus, excess used electronic and network assets; AQT New York used Cisco buyers will quote you a fair market price for your used Cisco router or switch.

We offer de-installation and inventory audits of datacenter central office switches, networking and wireless network equipment.


We Buy Cisco!

Sell Us Your Used Cisco Routers

Used Cisco Switches to sell:


Foundation targets refurbished computers for schools

TELECOMS company Digicel will soon start selling hundreds of refurbished computers to educational institutions at less than half the price of a new unit, through its newly formed Camara Foundation.

Digicel Foundation chair and board director of Camara, Lisa Lewis said starting this September the newly established foundation is hoping to put these computers in some 50 educational institutions islandwide yearly, while teaching scores of students and inner-city residents how to refurbish the units.

According to Lewis, this social entrepreneurship project, will introduce technology to the education sector in a meaningful way.

"It is not just about exposing you to a computer but what are you using that computer to do, so it has to be for an educational objective," Lewis said as she addressed editors and reporters at the Observer's weekly Monday Exchange held at the newspaper's head offices in Kingston.

"The second part of that is to use the facility to teach people how to refurbish and maintain computers so we are focusing on our inner-city communities hence why we are launching and starting our programme in Penwood High School (in Waterhouse)," she explained.

Explaining how this will work, Lewis said the students currently enrolled in the Career Advancement Programme (CAP) programme will be the initial volunteers who will be trained to refurbished the computers before the foundation moves to training community members.

She said the computers will be sold for just what is needed to cover the cost for more computers to be brought into the island and to facilitate the training of more persons to refurbish them.

With the foundation expecting to pump some US$100,000 per year into the programme, Lewis said they were motivated to establish this organisation as it aligns with the sister Digicel Foundation's goal to improve literacy across Jamaica.

Lewis explained further that the other component to the programme will be the training offered to the users, hence the reason why computers will not be sold to individuals.

"When we sell you a bulk of computers it is not just the computers we are selling.

"Along with that comes a warranty and training as we will be training teachers to use this technology to improve the educational standards, presumably literacy," she said.

She said the first 600 computers to be refurbished have already arrived in the island from Ireland.

The foundation is hoping to get the rest of the equipment from the United States.



Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Foundation-targets-refurbished-computers-for-schools_9198285#ixzz1UDqm9MDU

Foundation targets refurbished computers for schools

Wednesday, August 03, 2011

Sell Used Cisco For Cash

Qctest buys used Cisco routers, switches, Extreme Networks, Juniper Networks, and test equipment!

We liquidate data centers throughout the US. Sell used Cisco Systems equipment to QCTEST, nationwide Cisco liquidation services of corporate and business environments.

We buy used Cisco routers, used Cisco switches, used Cisco equipment, and all types of networking equipment.

Equipment we purchase includes: Foundry, Juniper, Cisco 2600 Routers, Cisco Catalyst 2900, Cisco Catalyst 3500, Cisco PIX 500 Firewalls, Dell Poweredge, Compaq Proliant, 3Com Switches, IBM Servers, 3Com Phones, Cisco Catalyst 6500, Alteon, Brocade, Extreme Networks, Intel Switches, Memory and IBM Servers.



Buyers Used Cisco, Data Center Network Surplus: 800-654-1302

Cisco Catalyst 6500 upgrade leaves classic users behind: So what?

Network Hardware Resale – reseller of refurbished Cisco equipment and continual thorn in the networking giant's side – has a beef with the Catalyst 6500 upgrade announced at Cisco Live 2011 Las Vegas. That is, if a beef can be considered a new way to make more money.


While some Cisco users were confused that the company announced a Catalyst 6500 upgrade instead of releasing the Nexus 7009 at Cisco Live, Network Hardware Resale (NHR)vice president of marketing Mike Lodato says the real problem is that Cisco only upgraded the Catalyst 6500-E series, but not the classic chassis.


Cisco will officially end-of-life the classic Catalyst in November 2012, ending all customer support for the components. That will mean classic Catalyst customers will either have to upgrade to the E-series – or turn to NHR for support (enter violins for NHR here).


The meantime between failure of a typical Cisco product is 20-plus years. They build an awesome product. Ninety percent of failures are manufacting errors that happen in the first 90 days,” said Lodato. “So how dare you make me buy a new chassis when there is no business need?”


Meanwhile, one network engineer at a multinational firm, who uses a mix of classic and E-series switches says it's unrealistic for customers to demand Cisco or any other vendor support components that are 12 years old.


At some point every company has to move on,” he said.


Meanwhile, if customers choose to move on to the E-series, but wait close to November 2012 to do it, they will likely end up facing a lengthy shipping backlog (some predict it to be about six weeks). That will also be a boon to NHR, which keeps both E-series and classics in stock and ready to ship within a few hours, Lodato says.


For those that don't want to upgrade to the E-series, NHR has a clear message:


If you like what you have, we're here to support you,” Lodato said.

AtWork! plugs in to statewide electronics recycling effort

Evergreen State consumers recycle old electronics by the bushel — more than 100 million pounds of outmoded computers, monitors and televisions since January 2009.
The haul is equal in weight to 181 fully loaded Boeing 787s.

Some 400,000 pounds of the statewide tally started as drop-offs to AtWork! The nonprofit organization helps connect employers and people with disabilities.

AtWork! operates a recycling center in Issaquah. The organization started collecting electronics in 2009 as the state rolled out E-Cycle Washington, a program to collect old electronics.

“That 200 tons of electronics has translated to more than $65,000 in revenue for our organization,” said Andrea Simmonds, director of development for Bellevue-based AtWork! “For us, every dollar that’s made in one of our social-enterprise businesses is a dollar that we can plow back into our mission of helping people with disabilities to find jobs in the community. So, for us, it’s kind of a win-win situation. We get to help the environment and it helps our ability to execute our mission.”

The organization sends, on average, two full trailers to E-Cycle Washington for processing twice each month.

Schools in the Issaquah School District also joined in the e-cycling effort. Liberty High School parent volunteers joined e-cycling nonprofit organization 1 Green Planet to host drop-off events during the school year.

AtWork! plugs in to statewide electronics recycling effort