{"id":13471,"date":"2025-04-29T06:32:55","date_gmt":"2025-04-29T10:32:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/?p=13471"},"modified":"2025-05-19T07:53:54","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T11:53:54","slug":"ebay-good-or-bad-source-for-test-equipment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/2025\/04\/ebay-good-or-bad-source-for-test-equipment\/","title":{"rendered":"Ebay; good or bad source for test equipment?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Update: <\/strong>This was delivered on May 2, 2025 in good condition. It took 24 days to get here, 21 of which were sitting in Memphis. Also, it works great!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A cautionary tale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have purchased and sold several things through Ebay over the years. Most of the time the transactions go smoothly. The item is more or less as described and it arrives in a reasonable time period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Recently, I saw this very nice looking Agilent E5061B Vector Network Analyzer. The price was right and it even came with this nice hard case. This is great, I need something like this for an upcoming project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The only very small, almost too small to notice possible issue was; its in Canada. With all the trade rhetoric going around, I thought, perhaps I should look to buy something from the US. Nah, its fine, after all, it is not coming from China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The order went in, the seller shipped the package, it arrived in Memphis, TN and the trail goes cold after that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I have emailed and called FedEx several times. They say, “all good, we have all the documentation we need, it will be shipped out shortly.” Last time I called, I spoke to a woman in the Philippines who’s phone cut out with every other word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It seems probable that all international shipments are stuck in some giant FedEx terminal waiting for someone to say okay or calculate some tariff. The pessimistic view is that it has been stolen. I have lost things in transit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I should have listened to my little voice. While the problem is not with Ebay itself, importing equipment from another country is problematic. I would advise anyone bidding on Ebay to pay close attention to the location of the item you are purchasing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the mean time, I still need to finish my project…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Update: This was delivered on May 2, 2025 in good condition. It took 24 days to get here, 21 of which were sitting in Memphis. Also, it works great! A cautionary tale. I have purchased and sold several things through Ebay over the years. Most of the time the transactions go smoothly. The item is … Continue reading Ebay; good or bad source for test equipment?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":13496,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[327],"class_list":["post-13471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tales-of-disaster","tag-test-equipment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13471"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13547,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13471\/revisions\/13547"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}