[time-nuts] ebay warning

Chris Albertson albertson.chris at gmail.com
Tue Feb 21 19:44:29 UTC 2012


On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 10:50 AM, Attila Kinali <attila at kinali.ch> wrote:
> On Tue, 21 Feb 2012 10:37:00 -0800
> Chris Albertson <albertson.chris at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> This may be true of the re-worked FE5680s too.   A reworked unit might
>> have been tested for 30 minutes or so while the others only got
>> powered up briefly.
>
> This requires in depth understanding of the device and how it works.
> I doubt that many people have this knowledge. Much less some ebay seller.
> (i wouldn't sell electronics on ebay if i had that kind of knowledge,
> i'd sell my knowledge to some big company and make much more money)

It is different in China.  These sellers might have formal technical
training or more likely access to people who do.   How else are they
able to re-work the failed units?   In a country where the average pay
is close to $2,400 per year a person with trade school level education
will work hard fix a $40 unit so it can be sold.

You can guess that a person in China who can read and write poor
English has better education than most.

In China there are still un-educated farmers who maybe did not
complete elementary school and there are some with graduate degrees
from US universities.  They have the whole range.   I'd bet these
electronics sellers on ebay are in the mid ground, with maybe some
tech-school type training and day job and do the eBay work from home.
They are in the new, up and coming middle class.   It's clear to me
that every one of them is a one-man shop but also there is a network
of suppliers in China who sell locally to the guys who then turn this
over on eBay.

Some day It will be fun to go and see  first hand how this works and
buy some stuff in person.   My wife speaks "passable" Chinese as her
second language so we can stray off the tourist track over there.


Chris Albertson
Redondo Beach, California



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