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eBay items too cheap to believe... but on the level and a good deal.


Omega-TI

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There is lots of CHEAP STUFF from China on eBay. I buy electronic components on eBay because it's cheaper than the gas alone to go to the store. The only drawback is a three week wait on average before the Bubble-ope arrives.

 

I'm curious have you ever 'taken a chance' on a BuyItNow from China because it was so cheap, that you just had to gamble on it? If so, AND IT WAS A GREAT DEAL... please post it here!

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Practically everything you buy locally is made in China anyhow so I view it as cutting out the middle man. Back about 5 years ago I need ed some tactile switches. Radios Shack wanted $5 for 5. I got 50 for $5 shipped from China, they worked well. I ended up buying another 50.

 

I buy lots of electronic parts from China. I can get my stuff in as early as 1 week living in NY not far from the ISC. I generally get all my stuff within 2 weeks or less. If I order on Sunday many times I can have it by the following Monday.

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Yes I had to take the gamble when I was buying the YM3438s for the Genesis synth upgrades. Though I had heard stories of people getting fake YM3438s, I never encountered that myself. I also found it odd why a manufacturer in China would even both making fake YM3438 chips as they were pretty much only used in arcade games back in the day. Point being there would be a Very tiny market for such an item and I wouldn't think it would be worth it to create semi working fakes of them?

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Yeah, I've heard stories about fakes from China too, although I've not experienced any that myself. It could be because I'm not a high-volume consumer, just a hobbyist. I'm also not saying that it never happens, but I'm beginning to wonder *IF* that is an 'urban legend' started by someone looking to protect his high markup and profit margin.

 

In any event I find that buying my components online save me time, effort, gas and money. Heck, even environmentalists should be happy that I'm not polluting the environment by making a special trip to pick up a couple of parts.

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I bought some of these USB cables..

http://www.ebay.com/itm/272315731003

..and they seemed to be exact OEM in every way including the style of printing, fit, finish, and texture. Less than $2 shipped to my doorstep as opposed to probably $10 from WesternDigital. Not to mention it was easy on ebay, no need to set up yet another account or wait for 1/2 hour to talk with a fake american/english representative who may or may not understand me.

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I have no idea how they make any money considering the cost of shipping.

 

Pretty much because the USA subsidizes imports from China by not regulating/taxing it and also footing most of the bill for postage. Anything paid for 'shipping' is just to get it to the mainland docks, USPS takes over from there. (Oversimplified explanation but you get the idea)

 

I've never run into fake chips but it has been obvious that various ICs were salvaged parts, evident desoldering on the legs, scuffing, and so on. The economy over there is such that there is an entire industry of product reclamation where circuit boards are broken back down to their basic components, profitable, or at least sustainable. It's also incredibly toxic for those involved with the labor.

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I've definitely bought cables and such from China in those $1 listings, though I can't remember specifically what at the moment.

 

I still view it as a crapshoot, though, and not exactly like "cutting out the middleman". The thing is, the US has a lot of consumer protection and safety laws that don't exist in China. If anyone here watches YouTube channels like bigclivedotcom or eevblog (both blogs by electricians who mostly just test a bunch of random stuff), then you'd see how unsafe a lot of this stuff is. Big Clive especially tests a lot of Chinese stuff he buys from Ebay and while he's impressed with some of it for the money, other items are so dangerous that they could actually kill you.

 

So I mostly stick with stuff like video cables or things I know don't carry any sort of high voltage. Though usually I don't want to wait the 3-6 weeks for epacket service from China, so even in those cases I will try to look for a US seller selling the same thing, even if I have to pay a dollar or two more for it. There's almost always somebody who's bought a bunch of that same item in bulk and is reselling it from the US for only a little bit more.

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I get lots of arcade stick parts I'm happy with. I actually tend to prefer the clicky nature of their cheap, generic buttons to fancier Sanwas and the like. Zippyy arcade sticks have always held up well for me. Etc.

 

I just bought some tiny microswitch joysticks to fiddle around with. I don't even have a project in mind yet but for 12 bucks for 2 of them, I'll invent one, and have fun doing so.

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I've made numerous posts in the past about buying memory cards and other forms of external memory devices from china. It isn't something you want to do.

 

attachicon.giforiginal-1.jpgattachicon.giforiginal.jpg

 

Good info,

i looked up some threads here at AA and found this.

reposting this so others don't get scammed.

 

 

Posted Thu Jun 23, 2011 11:46 PM

Basically steer well clear of ANY cheap SD cards or USB sticks from China. If the price looks amazing then you'll be getting an SD card or USB stick that is lower capacity made to look like something it isn't. It is dead easy for them to bang out fakes plus fool Windows into thinking the thing has the capacity on the sticker or badge. When you start to use it you'll find it to be slow and get a shit load of data errors - at best you might be able to get it to work at the original capacity - at worst it won't work at all.

 

Example a shed load of 32GB SDHD cards are actually 2GB SD cards.

 

Avoid like the plague.

 

 

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I recently rolled the dice on a couple of 1GB microSD cards for use on a multi-cart with a 36 year old computer. Even the 1GB capacity was more than I needed, but who wants to buy 1GB cards anymore right? So, at clearance prices, I had two delivered to my door for only $3.78. They work just fine.

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It is perfectly acceptable that goods originate from china. A lotta stuff is made there, obviously. You want to avoid the resellers that get goods from China without any background checks. Usually when you pay a higher price from a reputable dealer some things happen to help filter out the shit.

 

1- Higher volume - more customers see it and that mean more chances to complain if something isn't right. The reseller/retailer is likely to take it seriously and investigate on their own.

 

2- Retailer/reseller has clout and more likely knows where and how to get genuine and original stuff. Retailer may buy in quantity from the manufacturer directly.

 

3- Retailer/reseller doesn't want a bad rap. So they get the good goods. With proper paper trail back to the factory.

 

---

 

It is also important to note that these days, "new" doesn't always mean "new". Might be new to the reseller, but in reality it's a half-ass refurb job or downright fraud.

Edited by Keatah
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I've purchased quite a few things on eBay for a buck or two from China with free shipping and always had good experiences. No idea how the sellers make money on things that cheap, but I always received the items I ordered in the mail 3 or 4 weeks later and never had any problems with them.

 

I do stick to one simple rule of thumb when buying from China though: No electronic components. I've bought lots of simple little things like plastic battery cases, cartridges cases, metal thread adapters, screwdrivers, security bits and so on from China and they've all been just fine, but I've seen more than enough people get ripped off on shoddily made SD cards, rechargable batteries, and things like that to know to avoid buying anything with a circuit in it from China.

 

Stick with simple mechanical goods and nothing electronic and you should have no troubles with inexpensive Chinese products. :)

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But how do we know the memory cards being sold elsewhere didn't originate from China?

 

Yeah, don't misunderstand what's being talked about here. The question isn't buying Chinese vs. buying American or something. It's buying Chinese products that have been imported officially into America by some company, gone through the whole regulatory process and had the requisite markup applied vs. just buying stuff *direct* from China with no "middleman" (or the US government) involved.

 

When Sandisk or something makes a memory card, they go to some Chinese manufacturer and sign a contract saying "make 10 million micro SD cards in 64GB capacity for such and such price" and the Chinese company then makes them to that specification, because they want to get another order from Sandisk for 10 million memory cards. Meanwhile, as an American company, Sandisk doesn't want to get sued in US court or fined by the FTC, so they sell memory cards at the rated capacity.

 

But some guy in China could just as easily contract with that same factory for, say, 1,000 2GB cards for $1 per piece, do whatever it is they do to make memory cards appear larger than they are in Windows, put his own labels on them and sell them on Ebay as 32GB cards for $3 each, and nobody's going to do anything to him. The Chinese government won't because they don't even know and probably wouldn't care. The US government won't because it's some guy in China and they have no jurisdiction. Ebay may or may not if enough people complain, but even if they did, by then he'd probably have sold a million of these.

 

So it's really about unscrupulous random people who could be anywhere, but in this case are almost always from China because that's where a lot of today's manufacturing is.

 

I do think you have to be really careful buying computer or electronic stuff direct from China. Some of it's fine and some of it isn't.

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  • 1 month later...

At the risk of sounding like a Trump-a-phile'....

 

I refuse to buy anything straight from any Asian countries. It really kills our local economies. Heck if I wasn't disabled and broke (financially....I guess I'm 'broke' in two ways!), I wouldn't buy anything online if I can find it here at a store.

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