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Bravo Sierra Computers and Ben's status


Justin Payne

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7 hours ago, tjlazer said:

I visited him in person to buy some Atari stuff around 15 years ago, and saw he had some issues with weight. hygiene and extreme hoarding so I can’t imagine what these last 15 years have been like for him! I really do hope he can get well. But that usually requires hitting rock-bottom and doing a 180° change in your lifestyle, health and habits.

 

Yeah, that's a tough one with mental health issues mixing with physical ones, I hope he's turned it around but they rarely do..

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi all, I had a reply from Ben today about an order, which is good news.

 

The less good news is that apparently, since "customs stopped using the short form and dropped the small packet rate, I have not and will not ship internationally."

 

So ordering from UK might be a problem...

 

W.

 

 

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5 hours ago, wesmond said:

The less good news is that apparently, since "customs stopped using the short form and dropped the small packet rate, I have not and will not ship internationally." 

I'm not even sure what this means?  I've been shipping internationally for nearly 20 years.  There used to be a small green and white customs form that you had to manually fill out, but it contains the same basic information as current customs forms. Here's the old one:

 

image.png

 

I haven't used one of these in many years.  I can fill out the current form on the computer and print it out, which is much easier to deal with than this old CN 22 form.  As for the "small packet rate", I'm guessing he's talking about shipping games internationally in a bubble envelope?  That also hasn't been a thing for a while, and it's not something I ever did (I always ship games in boxes), so I'm not sure when that went away.  Anything in a bubble envelope like a cart would just go via normal First Class International Mail, and for a single cart it would cost the same as shipping in a box (assuming the weight is 8oz or less).  Neither of these should be a hindrance at all for shipping internationally.  You just charge the individual the cost to send the item, it doesn't cost the seller anything more.  And it's faster for me to fill out the customs form electronically, print it out and affix it to the package than that old form you had to write out by hand.  So his statement sounds like someone who was used to doing things one way and isn't willing to change.

 

 ..Al

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Yes, it sounds like perhaps he's having trouble shipping things at all. I asked whether shipping to someone in the US who could forward it might work - he suggested "How about someone come to me?" - in Portland Oregon...

 

(If anyone does live in Portland, Oregon and would consider helping me with this, do PM me - I'd like to support Ben by making an order if that is somehow made possible...!)

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On 10/2/2019 at 1:55 PM, wesmond said:

Hi all, I had a reply from Ben today about an order, which is good news.

 

The less good news is that apparently, since "customs stopped using the short form and dropped the small packet rate, I have not and will not ship internationally."

 

So ordering from UK might be a problem...

 

You could use a remailing service, preferably with a warehouse in Oregon. Convenient but not cheap, relatively cheaper if you combine several packages, so always an excuse of a US shopping spree for me.....really depends how urgently you "need" his stuff.

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  • 4 months later...

When I was a kid I would look through some amazing toy catalog, or an ad in a comic book and ask mom to take me to the post office for a money order. Then mail it off and wait what felt like forever, then be disappointed when it arrived. Ordering from Ben a couple weeks ago was all the good parts of that experience and none of the bad. I emailed him and told him about the bad link to his catalogs, so he sent me text files, and holy crap he has some Gems. I asked for a quote including shipping for 4 items and mailed off a money order. Yesterday I got the items; Cyber Sculpt, Degas Elite, STOS and an Abacus book, so great. I will order again.

 

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  • 2 months later...

I was just thinking about Ben the other day.  I wish him the best in his health.  I remember ordering an original 800 from him back around 2001 or so and got it quickly.   

 

I hope he is doing well.  I'm hoping to go to Portland this summer provided things open up.  Maybe I could stop by. 

 

I never had problems with him even though I remember how he used to spam comp.sys.atari but honestly who cares anymore.  

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58 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said:

I find it's best to just give him a call from time to time... you'll get quite a conversation if you catch him...

OH yeah!!  I remember that he kept on calling me just to talk about Atari stuff.  At the time, I didn't have a good job so I couldn't afford much so I only bought the 800 from him but he kept on calling frequently.   We would talk about atari computers and so on.  Nice guy.   

 

I believe that all of us weirdo ancient tech hoarders are on the autistic spectrum to certain degrees, I think he just was a little more than some others. 

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Well,

 

I tried to order something from Barvo Sierra Computers and this was Ben's reply:

 

-----

 

"Most Dearest Andreas,

There are 3 obstacles keeping me from shipping to other countries.

1) There is no longer a short customs form, so I'd be forced to fill out
the long form.

2) There is no longer a small packet rate, so I'd be forced to send it
by Global Priority Mail, no longer by Parcel Post.

3) I can't and won't do paypal, bank transfer, or any kind of credit or
debit card.

There are 3 conditions I need met for selling to other countries.

1) I can't ship outside the United States, so you must have someone in-
side the United States receive your order. Preferably someone you trust.

2) Then that person can repack your order (if necessary), fill out the
customs forms and you can arrange payment with him or her.

3) The only payment I accept is Cash(American Dollars), even through the
Mail, Western Union, or a Postal Money Order. The kind you buy at a U.S.
Post Office, the kind I can Cash at a U.S. Post Office, in U.S. Dollars.
They sell These in the United States, Canada, and Japan. I'm not sure
where else. You might be able to do this at a Post Office on a U.S. Post
Office at a U.S. Military Base. I don't believe a German Post Office can
do this. The best you can do is have someone pay me on your behalf. May-
be the same person receives your package on your behalf. "

 

-----

 

So, to make a long story short, could someone from the US order a few items from Bravo Sierra Computers for me and pay on my behalf ? If so contact me via pm for details... (I can pay with paypal or bank transfer).

 

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9 minutes ago, CharlieChaplin said:

1) There is no longer a short customs form, so I'd be forced to fill out
the long form.

I'm not sure what he means by this, I print all my postage electronically and the customs form is pretty simple.  Even the regular customs form (which I did have to fill out recently for the first time in a decade for one particular package) isn't that much work.

10 minutes ago, CharlieChaplin said:

2) There is no longer a small packet rate, so I'd be forced to send it
by Global Priority Mail, no longer by Parcel Post.

Well, there's First Class International Mail, which is what I use to ship 95% of my international packages.  And it includes tracking to most countries I ship to.  Not sure why he'd need to use Priority Mail, which is considerably more expensive.  If he's passing shipping costs to his customers, I'm not sure why this is important.  Packages over four pounds do need to go via Priority Mail International.  Again, just have the customer pay for shipping and it's not a problem.

13 minutes ago, CharlieChaplin said:

3) The only payment I accept is Cash(American Dollars), even through the
Mail, Western Union, or a Postal Money Order.

What year is it??

14 minutes ago, CharlieChaplin said:

So, to make a long story short, could someone from the US order a few items from Bravo Sierra Computers for me and pay on my behalf ? If so contact me via pm for details... (I can pay with paypal or bank transfer).

Sure, I'd be glad to help.

 

 ..Al

 

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36 minutes ago, Albert said:

What year is it??

Well, he might have reasons to not want to have easily-traceable, secure funds transfers, but that's between him and his local and state government, I suppose. He also might just not want to pay the several percent service fees to the the credit card companies or PayPal in exchange for instant payment and convenience. I dunno. 

 

That said, a well-known, very long-time member and collector here on AtariAge recently sold me some items at a very nominal charge, but asked for payment and reimbursement of shipping charges via a return-addressed envelope in cash. It's been a very long time since I mailed cash but I did, and they received it just fine. It still made me nervous as hell. But in any event, a private member here doesn't claim to be operating a business either. 

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On 5/17/2020 at 3:01 PM, Albert said:

What year is it??

 

I guess he's not interested in selling too badly.

 

I think the amount of customers he'd gain would far outweigh any service fees. He could also sell with an added fee for using any of those payment methods. I'm sure most people wouldn't have any problem paying a little extra, in order to gain the convenience.

 

I know how it goes with these guys by now, though. Whatever methods they've defined are the ONLY methods that will ever be used by them. So, really, not much use in discussing it. These guys are locked into their ways of doing things.

 

I wonder if he owns a cell phone? Maybe one of these.

 

0_sbt3Itba5xfuOnsq.thumb.jpg.1579170b1092545a5ba1788f004a8449.jpg

 

 

Edited by MrFish
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I've ordered from Ben a number of times. Like, but in a different way, Ben is eccentric like the guys from B & C and Best Electronics.  I've got a lot of rare stuff from him at a decent price. Yes, it's not like ordering on eBay but it was definitely worth ordering from him. In fact most of what I ordered has been archived for everybody so I am glad he is around. The only sad part is others have ordered stuff from him and then stick it on eBay for high prices.

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I'm not saying Ben isn't a good guy, or that he doesn't have good prices or desirable products. I'm an old guy too, and I'm not interested in jumping on every modern bandwagon that comes onto the scenes either. But I know for a fact that a lot of people just pass over his stuff because they aren't interested in conforming to his antiquated rules and methods.

 

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Also, to be clear, I'm not saying people shouldn't buy from him, or even that I wouldn't consider buying from him at some point in the future myself; but, like these other "old world" sellers, he makes things difficult for those interested in being customers.

 

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1 hour ago, Allan said:

The only sad part is others have ordered stuff from him and then stick it on eBay for high prices.

 

That's what happens when sellers like him, with hard to find goods, make the decision not to utilize mainstream channels or at least provide popular and convenient methods for making purchases. People will gladly take advantage of the situation for profit and even abuse it.

 

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14 hours ago, MrFish said:

 

That's what happens when sellers like him, with hard to find goods, make the decision not to utilize mainstream channels or at least provide popular and convenient methods for making purchases. People will gladly take advantage of the situation for profit and even abuse it.

 

It sickens me.  Ebay is getting to be a bad place.

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"Getting" ?

 

Ordered 2 things last week, both UK stock, both actually in China...Guy writes to me as asks me to do a positive feedback.

 

When I found out the hair trimmer set was both in China and almost certainly not going to have any valid safety, I write back to him saying I was expecting stuff from a London address so that he had liedl but its going to take ages and told him I didn't trust the safety of the electrical item. I also said that if I have to return it I will only send to a london address. He wrote back and refunded me and told me to keep the clippers as a gift.

 

But the item before that was yet again Chinese and broken on delivery..

 

Its already a very bad place..

 

Also the quality of stuff is awful at best...Silver conductive paint that had zero conductivity but sold at a not knock off price. And from the state of some of the computer equipment seen in advert its clear its just a turd sale.

 

Edited by Mclaneinc
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