Saturday 14-07-19 eBay Disputes

I don't use eBay that much, mostly to sell unwanted (but pristine) comics, and to buy some cheap electronics. I managed to get a lovely Barnes & Noble HD+ 9" tablet for under £100, which I was very pleased with, although I got stung on p&p charges :( But those fade in the memory over time and I am able to enjoy the tablet.
You may have noticed by now that I love a bit of technology. I was counting up the number of electronic devices I own the other day, or actually that exist in the house, and we arrived at the following answer:

HP Laptop - 15" running Vista, due for replacement
Samsung Netbook - 10.1" running Linux Mint
Samsung Chromebook - 10.1"
Barnes & Noble HD+ 9"
CnM 7" tablet
Nexus 7 tablet
Samsung Tab Original 7"
Barnes & Noble Simple Touch e-reader
HTC One X

I did buy a 'broken' Samsung Tab 2 cheaply off eBay, all it needed was a factory reset, then I decided that I didn't need it so I sold it on eBay, again, and made a few pounds. The trouble is, though, that eBay and PayPal fees eat into any small profits, and in the end it ends up costing money rather than being a benefit.

The one tablet I'd not tried was an Amazon Fire. So I bought one which was again sold as 'not working'. It switched on, but didn't get past the initial power-up screen. I thought that maybe I could do something following an XDA script, and possibly recover it? So unfortunately I didn't get it to work, and relisted it on eBay as 'spares or repair', and that's where the disputes bit comes in.

I was quite pleased with the price that the device sold for, but then the buyer started asking questions about the device. I had described my attempt to replace the bootloader, and I had also included the fact that I had taken the back off and tried to repair it. Admittedly, the focus of that was that I had damaged the edges of the Fire, but the information was there. I had also advised that returns would not be accepted as the device was described as not working.

So, the buyer's first gambit was that it wasn't the type of Kindle Fire he was looking for. I asked what his intentions were, and he advised he was thinking of returning it, which came as a surprise to me, as this was the first I'd heard. Then he claimed that I'd interfered with the tablet and it was not as described. At no point did he actually ask for a refund, and I think he was hoping that I would offer one. Unfortunately I had listed the item as 'no returns', so I wasn't going to offer voluntarily. And now there is a case open against me, because apparently the item is 'not as described'.

I think he was hoping that he would be able to plug the device in and get it to work, in a similar manner to the method I had employed with the Samsung tablet earlier. Unfortunately that wasn't the case; as I'd described in the sale, the device was completely unresponsive. And now the buyer is trying to back out of the sale, claiming it was not as described. And that's just part of the problem with culture today, in my opinion; no-one is willing to take responsibility for their actions.

If the buyer had asked for a refund, I would have considered it, which is the strange thing. If he'd said that actually he hadn't read the description, that he had made a mistake, I would probably have (reluctantly) refunded him. After all, I would then have to relist the device, or contact the 2nd highest bidder and offer the tablet to them. But I cannot accept that the device was 'not as described', I spent a lot of time ensuring that the description gave any reader fair warning of what to expect. And so we have come to an impasse. I rejected his claim, because in my opinion it is as described, and the buyer hasn't actually asked directly for a refund. Of course, we are now past the point where that kind of request might be accepted. So it is now 'sub judice' with eBay and we are waiting for their adjudication. We'll see how that goes.

This is all of course the turn of events from my point of view, and actual facts and happenings may have occurred differently in reality.

Friday 14-06-20

Friday was spent at school, preparing for the school summer 'fayre'. It was a day of hard work, lugging tables about and generally faffing. We put up gazebos, because the weather was great, and left them up overnight. TW drove to school and I walked with the children, which was nice. I'd taken the day off work to help TW set up, and it was a bit manky really. Obviously she had a plan of what she wanted to achieve, but to be honest, she's not very good at sharing the big picture. So I did bits and pieces, and everyone else (all women) remarked on how 'good' I was for taking time off and volunteering. I don't feel I did very much; I went to pick up a shop from Tesco Click and Collect, and I also went to the Post Office to pick up a Kindle Fire I'd bought from eBay.
I was begging to leave by 4:30, but as Molly in the Middle had a final practice for her country dancing demonstration on Saturday, we stayed quite late on Friday, putting the finishing touches to it all.

When I got home I tried to fire up the Kindle, but of course it was sold as faulty, and so it turned out. It did get past the boot-up screen to where I should have been able to unlock it; but unfortunately as soon as I touched it, the damned thing rebooted. Since then, I've not been able to get that far again; it's stuck on the boot screen, displaying 'Kindle Fire' in white and orange, and steadfastly refusing to be recognised by my laptop. If my laptop was able to recognise the Fire, it would be relatively straightforward to fix. Unfortunately these things are never straightforward for me... :) So now I've ordered a 'factory cable' and I hope that that might work. I *think* the device is not in fastboot mode, and I'm hoping that the cable can help force that. We'll see. If it doesn't work, I shall just put it back on eBay and sell it, hopefully for about as much as it cost me - £30 inc. P&P.

Sunday 14-06-15

So I have decided to try and write more often in this forum, and it seems like I chose the right day. I went with a friend to watch Sussex play Somerset at Arundel, and although it wasn't sunny, the clouds refused to share their load with us and we had a relaxed and enjoyable time. The only fly in the ointment was Sussex's refusal to win.
Unfortunately when we got home The Wife had to go to see her grandmother who had smoked out her house. She's still at the hospital now, so we'll have to see how things go there. I think that physically she's okay, we'll have to see what the doctors say.
The children all got on well and enjoyed each other's company. Because a friend was with TW, I and his partner had to wait at home with the kids until he returned. That was about nine pm, the two youngest had already gone to bed but our eldest who isn't nine years old yet was still up. I hope that they're all okay getting up in  the morning. I shall be heading to bed very soon... Tomorrow looks like I might be working from home to ensure that The Wife gets a rest and I'm around in case I'm needed. I'm beginning to like working from home, it is a bit more relaxed and on occasion I actually get more done than I would in the office.
So, nighty night and maybe more of an update tomorrow - who knows?

Restoring a Kindle Fire (1st Gen)

In case you weren't aware, the first Amazon Kindlle Fires were only sold in the U.S. This annoyed non-U.S. technophiles who liked the look of the devices, and some people outside the U.S. got their hands on them. Their frustration increased when they found out that access to the Amazon Store through the Kindle was limited to those with credit cards with U.S. addresses.

Anyway, a friend of mine got hold of one, during a trip to the U.S. During an official update, the device appeared to break. It was probably not charged enough, or the update was flawed; I'm not sure. Amazon were running a returns programme, but as he was in the UK and not supposed to have it, he thought he would take a different approach. He knew someone who had rooted the device previously and thought he would do that. 

Unfortunately he 'soft-bricked' it. That is, it would switch on, but would not proceed beyond the power up screen. I read a bit about Kindles and I thought maybe it was stuck in Fastboot mode. I offered to help, and downloaded the Kindle Unbrick Utility (from XDA) on to my netbook and took it in to work. When we plugged the Fire into the netbook, it wasn't recognised as a device - which pointed to a driver problem. So I brought the Fire home and had a play here. 

The first goal was to get the Fire recognised by the netbook - which meant messing about with drivers. I found this site run by Jayce Ooi and followed the instructions there. This involved installing a generic Kindle Fire driver so that the netbook could talk to the Fire, and then the Fire itself installed the correct drivers.

Once that was done, I re-ran the Kindle Unblock Utility and Hey Presto! The 'brick' was revived. 

The Kindle Fire is a nice device, with a good screen and a nice UI linked to the Amazon ecosystem. If I were in the market for a tablet now, it's one I would consider.Unfortunately it don't mean much if you can't actually buy anything from the store...

So, almost as an afterthought I rooted the Fire with the Kindle Fire Utility and installed Google Play. Now, at least, the Fire's owner should be able to access Play Books and other apps from Google Play.

Posted via email from Rob Thorley's Posterous Site