There was an old Kenner game years ago that used my headline above as part of the jingle … it went something like “Man, dontcha bug me … I got my own bugs too … If you think you're gonna give your bugs to me, I'm gonna give them right back to you.”
The lyrics came to mind the last few days when I've been dealing with damaged goods due to inadequate packing by my eBay sellers.
I've been corresponding with the fellow whose keys I bought in one auction recently. After winning the auction, I e-mailed him and told him that I was willing to pay extra for packing and postage to have the keys packed carefully and mailed individually. He assured me they were packed fine and not to worry, he knew what he was doing. Worry? You betcha.
Actually he did a pretty good job. The big problems with shipping heavy semi-automatic keys is their weight and the movement of the keying lever. The best thing to do is to remove the weight(s) and the plastic finger and thumb pieces, then tie the keying lever down so it doesn't move in transit.
And to his credit, the seller did this — with one exception.
He had the generic Japanese “coffin” bug (aka Skillman, Lafayette, Allied and other brands) in mint condition. Now I've had these bugs get beaten up terribly in the mails, particularly via UPS. The keying lever will beat the key's innards to death, and the paddle is terribly fragile.
This time, the plastic paddle was undamaged. Unfortunately, the seller did not remove the weight from the keying lever, nor did he tie it down to prevent movement. The keying lever beat the crap out of the key's damper, actually knocking it literally into pieces. I felt lucky the damper's parts didn't destroy the clear plastic cover (which has happened before). Maybe FedEx's gorillas don't throw packages with as much force as UPS.
I was pissed, I'll admit it. After nearly begging the seller to let me pay him for adequate packing, he turns it down and what do I get? A broken key. I fired off an e-mail expressing my disappointment about it, including a photo so he saw exactly what happened. His reply didn't settle well.
He didn't seem to be able to figure out what the pile of parts was from in the photo. His theory – perhaps they just fell off from vibrations in transit. No, there's a shaft that PRESSED into the other part, it isn't designed to come loose — EVER!! I sent him back a photoshop composition of an assembled damper and the one that's in pieces. I even labled in red, with circles and arrows and a paragraph describing where each part went.
The guy's attitude was that he didn't seem to think there was a problem, so I spelled out in no uncertain terms that what happened was his responsibility. He later e-mailed me — before I had my reply finished — offering to refund part of my money. It wasn't the money, I just wanted to vent a little, so I did. I gave him positive feedback, he's not the first whose had problems packing those Japanese bugs, its just soooo frustrating to get them in kit form.
HARD TO SWALLOW. Yeah, bad pun, considering my latest key arrived today was named the “Swallow.” It's the BK-50 Swallow key shown at right. It's a very interesting key, and I was delighted to have it arrive today — until I picked it up at the post office.
Right away I suspected trouble — the seller had used a shoebox to ship the BK-50, and the poor box was beat to hell — by the key bouncing around inside. Oh brother, here we go again!
I took the package to my car and opened it in the parking lot. I was shocked by what I found.
The seller had wrapped the key in two layers of bubblewrap, then dumped it in the shoe box. That's it — not a damned bit of packing, not even crumpled newspapers. So the key bounced around in the box all the way here from Florida. Ugh!!!!
I unwrapped it to find the key was intact for the most part. One of the feet had been broken off from the body of the key. The plastic shards were still in the wrapping. Other than that, the key seemed undamaged. I was pissed at the guy, but thankful it wasn't a bag of plastic shards and assorted metal pieces.
The damage was simple to fix. The key has feet similar to those found on many of the Japanese Skillman bugs — they resemble suction cups and attach with a screw at the four corners. I crazy glued the broken plastic pieces (this bug's body is made of the same stuff used in the Skillman bug) in place. I had more trouble working with my old tube of crazy glue than I did repairing the key.
I didn't bother complaining to the seller. I wasn't going to ship the key back. I mentioned it in my feedback, but I didn't give him a negative comment. His packing stinks.
I had to clean the key's contacts, and once that was done, it works quite well. I checked into the CW net with it. It's a fast little key. The thumb piece (paddle) is shaped to fit comfortably in your hand, its really unique. I don't know why the company didn't use this style paddle on the Skillman (“coffin”) bugs, I suspect the one-piece design on the Skillman keys was cheaper to produce.
I probably shouldn't complain a lot about the key damage on any of these, I was able to repair it all anyway. The key is in very good original condition otherwise, and operates nicely. I think my next purchase on eBay will be a larger operating desk, hi!
73 … de KY4Z … dit dit …