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Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.

Category: Oddities

Who’d’a thunk it?

eBay Purchase Gone Bad: Chronology

So those LED filaments weren’t packed nearly well as necessary to get them halfway around the planet:

Broken LED Filament 3

The complaint I eventually filed with PayPal went like this (with commentary in parentheses):

3/15/2017 10:00 EDT – Buyer: eBay issue tracking: xxx Paypal Case ID: yyy

This eBay seller shipped delicate parts without padding, did not ship replacements as promised, has repeatedly offered a refund without actually doing so, and has attempted eBay feedback extortion.

Chronology:

11 Jan – broken parts received in unpadded envelope. Contacted through eBay, sent photos

13 Jan – “we can resend you and it will take 35-45 days，so is it ok for you ？”

(I asked for a refund, which was ignored)

16 Jan – replacements allegedly send by untracked mail, not received by 15 March = 60 days

(and still missing: draw your own conclusions)

18 Jan – “if you still haven’t received within the promised , please feel free to contact me ,i can solve the problem for you”

28 Feb – “If you agree with me, I will send your money to your paypal account, […] And meanwhile I will also send you one ebay feedback revision request, […], revise your negative feedback into positive feedback with all 5 star point.”

(I pointed out that feedback extortion is contrary to eBay policy and asked for a refund)

7 Mar – “I am really sorry for this issue. And please trust me. I’m a responsible eBay seller. I will be in charge of this problem. I will do my best to solve the problem and meet your satisfaction.”

7 Mar – “So could you please do me a little favor to send me a photo?”

(Photos first sent 11 Jan, re-sent 8 Mar)

9 Mar – “I’m so sorry about that issue . we can refund partial money for you. So is it ok for u”

(I disagreed and, again, asked for a complete refund)

10 Mar – “i will refund you soon, may i refund to your paypal?”

(I insisted on a refund through eBay for tracking)

10 Mar – “Please give me some time, I will check it for you.”

14 Mar – The seller will send you a $ 5.13 USD refund after they receive the returned item.

(At which point I escalated this to a claim with this summary)

I put pictures of the broken parts on my blog: https://softsolder.com/2017/01/21/led-filaments-whoops/

The attempted feedback extortion on 28 Feb calls for a complete refund and punitive action.

Returning $5.13 worth of parts to China is obviously absurd and the seller knows that, having avoided mentioning that “requirement” while previously offering refunds.

After two and a half months, it’s long past time for a complete refund.

Thank you.

Those brief snippets don’t convey the flavor of the seller’s correspondence, again with (commentary in parentheses):

12 January 2017
can you use?

(No, I cannot)

13 January 2017
Dear buyer ，
thanks for your patience and understanding .
we can resend you and it will take 35-45 days，so is it ok for you ？looking forward to your reply .
Best wishes.

(No, I want a refund)

16 January 2017
Hello, my dear friend,
Thanks for your kind communication.
I place order for you now and it will be resent in 24 hours. I will call post office to deliver quickly. Hope you can get it soon. If you still haven’t received within the promised , please feel free to contact me ,I can solve the problem for you. Thank you.
Best wishes.

(I asked for the tracking number)

17 January 2017
dear buyer,
we have tracking number but it shows only the information in China, there is no information abroad, as it is an economical shipping, we have to reduce our loss, so is it ok? looking forward to your reply.
Best wishes.

(This was when I realized they were in scammer mode)

18 January 2017
if you still haven’t received within the promised , please feel free to contact me ,i can solve the problem for you. Thank you.
Best wishes.

(The “promised” was far beyond eBay’s claim limit. I said I would file a claim in late February)

28 February 2017
Hello Buyer:
I just got your negative feedback.
From your feedback, I know that you are not satisfied with the item. I am so sorry for that. And I am also so depressed with your negative feedback. It really hurt me a lot.
So I think I can give you fully money back, and you can just keep that item for compensation.
But I really hope you can revise your negative feedback into positive feedback with all 5 star seller performance. That is very important.
If you agree with me, I will send your money to your paypal account, And you can log in your paypal and accept that money. And meanwhile I will also send you one ebay feedback revision request, you can view it in your ebay message box, revise your negative feedback into positive feedback with all 5 star point.
That is the most important for me.
Is everything OK for you?
I really hope your kindly understanding.
Looking forward your answer.
God Bless you and all your family.
Best Wishes

(I filed a claim and posted negative feedback, as I wasn’t thrilled with the purchase)

8 March 2017
Dear buyer，
Thank you for your message. I’m so sorry about that issue . we can refund partial money for you. So is it ok for u？Looking forward to your reply .
Best wishes.

(I dsagreed and asked for their long-promised full refund)

9 March 2017
Dear buyer,
Please give me some time, I will check it for you. Thank you for you email.
Best wishes

(Time was not on my side)

As it turned out, the eBay claim period ended a few days earlier than I expected and eBay’s customer support recommended filing a dispute on Paypal. I asked how to handle issues like this in the future and was told, very firmly, to open an issue immediately when a problem occurs on an order from a foreign seller. A formal eBay issue, rather than just “send a message to the seller”, starts the resolution clock and provide a powerful incentive to Make Things Happen.

So noted.

2017-04-09
Form Letter With That Special Touch

For reasons not relevant here, my middle name is Edward and, on some semi-formal documents, I appear as E. Edward.

Which leads to personal greetings that make me feel so special:

Form Letter Salutation

I’d be satisfied if they’d stop pretending they care …

2017-04-02
Turkey on the Rail

We’ve often seen turkeys perched on horizontal tree branches and split-rail fences, but this is new:

Turkey on patio rail

Apparently she wanted to use the bird feeder atop the post festooned with plastic squirrel deterrence. Not being Elastigirl, she couldn’t quite stretch from rail to feeder, eventually gave up trying, and flapped to the driveway.

We’ve been turkey-watching for nearly two decades, it’s been eight years since we saw a turkey on the patio, and a few days after I set up the yard camera, shazam, this bird shows off for my friend in Raleigh while I’m in the Basement Laboratory. I’m insane with jealousy.

In point of fact, turkeys seem perfectly aware of people inside the house, so it’s not surprising they avoid the patio. When we move close to a window, the flock decides it has business elsewhere and, generally without haste or confusion, flows over the hill and away.

Obviously, I must set up motion detection and capture some images …

2017-03-26
Snowplow vs. Plastic Fence

We spotted this on our regular walk around the block:

Plastic fence vs snow

The horizontal rails have a latching ramp that’s good enough in most circumstances:

Plastic fence – rail latch detail

Perhaps those latches released as designed under an overload. The snowplow would have been traveling toward us on that side of the road and pushed the snow against the fence panels hard enough to dislodge the rail latches from their sockets.

I suppose they can zip the fence panels back in place, one by one, without rebuilding the whole affair.

2017-03-25
Cheap WS2812 LEDs: Failure Waveforms

The failed WS2812 pixel remains defunct:

WS2812 array – failure 1

Attach scope probes to its data input and output pins (with the fixture face-down on the bench):

WS2812 LED – fixture probing

The output no longer comes from the Land of Digital Signals:

WS2812 Array Fail 1 – in vs out

I immediately thought the broken bits occupied the first 24 bit times, when the WS2812 controller should be absorbing those bits from the incoming stream. The vertical cursors show the failed bits occupy 54 µs = 40-ish bit times at 800 kHz (or you can count them), so it’s worse than a simple logic failure.

A closer look:

WS2812 Array Fail 1 – in vs out – detail

At least for those bits, neither output transistor works well at all. On the other paw, the output shouldn’t even be enabled for the first 24 bits, so there’s that to consider.

Lo and behold, it also fails the Josh Sharpie Test:

WS2812 LED – test array failure 1 – ink test

You may recall it passed the leak test shortly before I assembled the test array a month ago. Evidently, just few days of operation suffices to wreck the seal, let air / moisture into the package, and kill the controller. Not a problem you’d find during a production-line test (assuming there is such a thing), but it should certain appear during the initial design & production qualification test phase (another assumption).

Weirdly, a day after taking that photo, the controller began working perfectly again and the LEDs look just like they should: there is no explaining that!

2017-03-21
Check Your Zero

A recent OpenSCAD mailing list discussion started with an observation that the dimensions of printed parts were wildly different from the numeric values used in the OpenSCAD program that created the STL. Various folks suggested possible errors, examined the source and STL files to no avail, and were generally baffled.

Finally, a photo conclusively demonstrating the problem arrived:

Caliper – digital vs. analog scale

Note the difference between the digital readout and the analog scale printed on the body.

Turns out it’s his first digital caliper: he simply didn’t realize you must close the jaws and press the ZERO button before making any measurements.

We’ve all been that guy. Right?

FWIW, our Larval Engineer can probably still hear me intoning “Check your zero” every time she picks up a caliper or turns on a multimeter. Perhaps she’ll think fondly of me, some day. [grin]

2017-03-18
Credit Union Email: Phishing or Not?

The Credit Union recommends we practice “Safe Computing” with this helpful advice (clicky for more dots):

HVFCU – Safe Computing – sketchy URL

The link leading to that page was on their website, but the page is on trabian.com, whoever they are. Should I trust the links on that page to return me to the credit union site or not?

Here’s their definition of “phishing”:

HVFCU – Phishing description

Having just switched to “paperless statements” at the Credit Union, a recent email prompted me to look at my statement. Let’s start by seeing where the email came from:

HVFCU – Statement email – From address

Huh.

It claims to be from the credit union, but does its actual address (insofar as anything concerning email can be actual) of statement2web.com sound a little phishy to you, too?

Well, let’s look at the full headers, which I can do because, yo, 1337 H4X0R. Here’s a snippet from the bottom of the stack:

HVFCU – Email detail header

Huh.

So the email started from statement2web.com and bankshotted off kbmla.com. Further up, the headers show it rattled through pobox.com and eventually arrived in my inbox. As far as I can tell, it never touched its alleged starting point of hvfcu.org at any point in its journey.

Quick: phish or no phish?

Of course, it’s a perfectly innocent message from the credit union, but it contains every single warning sign we’re supposed to notice in spam or phishing emails, complete with a clicky link!

[heavy sigh]

2017-03-12