[How-To] RF-30 X-axis Power Feed

[pontiac428]

I think doing shady business through eBay sellers (whoever and wherever they are) will result in disappointment a good portion of the time. I don't think that says anything about how Chinese vendors do their business, but it does say something about how eBay does. Every time I have used Alibaba to deal with a China vendor directly has been a distinct pleasure. Alibaba polices their vendors for doing bad business, whereas eBay is helpless to do anything at all. Just something to think about when you are trashing an economy many times larger than our own for being inept. It might just be the fact that eBay is a cesspool, and that is the cause of customer unhappiness, not the country of origin for your goods.

 

[C-Bag]

I agree with your assessment P428 and to be clear I’m not a xenophobe. If not for Chinese equipment I’d have a quarter of the equipment I enjoy in my shop. For the most part eBay has been ok and less hassle than even my local CL. But that one instance with the U3 taught me a lesson about me going for the too good to be true deal and trying my utmost to not get burned or entangled but still got into a deal that almost 6mo to resolve. I asked them up front will the machine be able to chuck up 3/4”/.750” endmills because it was not clear in the dubious info. They assured me it would so I used PayPal and it was sent from one of their warehouses in like Michigan.

It got here with some damage because it was way under packaged for a machine that weighs 110lbs. In looking at the machine it‘s largest collet was 12mm, and that’s as large as this deckel style is, not what was described. And there was no way it would do another shipping trip in the packaging without even more damage that I would be liable for. i pointed all this out to them and asked if there was a model that used R8 collets and was told oh yes, but it’s more expensive. But they had them at their warehouse in LA and SF. Either way was going to be 5hr roundtrip but I felt like I had no choice. I was not offered a discount because I was saving return and send shipping even though I was delivering it down there. Got to the warehouse and it was one guy who acted like I was there to rob him and took over an hour to find the unit. It was the right one, but without the attachments the original came with and would not work on the new machine. That started another round of back and forth and was not fully settled for another 2mo. because they kept sending me the wrong attachments. This all got me over the time that I was supposedly covered by any transactional terms so I felt like any time now even though they seemed like they were acting in good faith they were going to wash their hands of me even though I was acting in good faith.
sorry for the long story, but it’s easy to write these kinds of things off as bashing when it’s just about long supply lines, language barriers and the lack of specific competence.