Someone sent me a Suzuki engine

Based on the efforts you've gone through to find the owner, and the no return address issue, I'd guess that the original packaging was destroyed by the carrier, and they threw what was left into a box and guessed at the final destination.

Well, yes, that's no less possible. Go figure.

Heh...I had a lady buy a lowish-value Walking Liberty Half from me on eBay couple weeks ago. Her total was $7.84 with shipping. She sent me cash (grrr...), $7.85. Just for giggles, I sent her the coin she ordered, _and_ an AU-50 1958-D wheat cent. Bright copper, nice looking, worth all of maybe 3 cents or so. Packed it in with her purchase, mailed it to her. She contacted me immediately to tell me I had made an "error" and shipped an extra item - I told her thanks, no, that's just your change ;)

Thing is, with the low value coins like that one, they're not worth the listing fees (even on an eBay store format), but you throw one in for free, and people remember your auctions. Cheezy, perhaps, but seems to be effective; I get a lot of return customers.

But, yes, a buyer emailing me to let me know of an error is definately appreciated. Iggy, however, has done probably more than I would to try to figure out where this thing came from. I think it's time to sit back for a month or three and see what if anything happens, after which, he's got an engine. Bit of research (including cost of repair parts to cover evident damage) and sell the sucker, I say.

Dave Hinz

Sure there is. How else would they do recalls?

The DMV may have just that, but I don't know if m/c's are tracked by engine number any more.

Occasionally, I sell taco holders that I manufacture on Ebay. I charge a flat fee of $1.99 for shipping and handling regardless of order size. I had one lady argue with me for 2 weeks that the fee was too high AFTER she bought, paid for, and received the items. She wanted a refund of the shipping cost. Finally I decided the refund was cheaper than fighting with her and taking the chance of getting negative feedback

I hate ebay for small items. It's just not worth the effort.

That's some sort of Suzuki GSXR engine. Any dealer would be able to tell you displacement and model year if you give them the serial number. It sure looks like this came from a bike that had been raced, or at least ridden on a track, judging by the safety wire on the oil filler cap. It's quite possible this bike was destroyed in a crash on the track and the owner was trying to recoup some of his money by parting the bike out on ebay. __ Pete Snell Royal Military College Kingston Ontario snipped-for-privacy@rmc.ca

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. - George Bernard Shaw

I'd drop the thing off asap at police station, and be done with it...

Can you imagine the legal Pandora's box should that engine turn out to be hot? The silly little cops/lawyer bastards would be up 'yo' ass like a pack of starving Chihuahuas on a pork chop.

I'd at very least run the story by my lawyer (if I had one) before doing anything other than dumping it with the cops.

Erik

you don't like cash? Why not, because there was change? In this case, I'd have probably sent you $8.00 in folding money

Rex

Yea, I think that you are mistaken here.

My explanation that I received it in a fedex package, should be enough.

I have not done anything illegal and would not be in any trouble. It is as clear as night and day.

I already called the cops, and am least worried, sitting here and eating sunflower seeds. Detectives are not at work today, they will call me back in a few days, according to their secretary.

The worst outcome would be that I would lose that engine AND it would not get to its rightful owner. If I find the owner, I will be happy. It is not my engine. If I do not find the owner, and after 2 weeks sell it, I will be happy too. If it stays in the police holding yard, rusting under snow, then I would be upset.

yep

I guess that you can be right, although I thought that the damage to one of the crankcase's side covers was shipping damage. I looked in ebay completed items and did not find anything.

Its variously called the DMV in most states. Sometimes they charge a small fee to run an engine number, other times if you have a good reason, they will do it for free.

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

Perfectly reasonable. I have no idea what a taco holder is, but I'll search for it when I get home.

What a pain in the ass.

So she held your feedback hostage pending the results of her extortion. Just lovely.

I just started a test subscription to an ebay "store", where it costs me all of 3 cents (with gallery image!) to list items. They stay up for 30 days, auto-renew for 2 cents unless cancelled, unlimited number of items. If your stuff is all the same, might be worth a shot. 15 bucks a month, but I'm burning much more than that on fees right now. They're fixed price, not auctions, though.

I plan to list low-value stuff like circulated mercury dimes in non-key dates, and that sort of thing. Not worth listing a dime worth 75 cents, when it takes 35 cents to list it. Make that 3 cents, yeah, I can sell it for scrap value and not lose out compared to selling it to the corner coin dealer _for_ scrap. We'll see how it goes, but they're doing a free month trial thing right now. Worst case, it sucks, and I sell the silver to the scrap guy.

Might be worth looking into.

Dave

No, because if it had gone missing there's the hassle factor.

...then I'd probably have thrown in a buffalo with the wheatie ;)

I don't have any on Ebay right now because of the hassle factor. If you want, I can send you a link to my website.

Yep. The real kicker is, she wouldn't tell me how much she wanted refunded. She said I should decide what was fair. I told her the $1.99 was what I thought was fair so we were right back to where we started. I ended up refunding ALL of her money in hopes that it would eat at her conscience. I never heard from her again.

I've found that I have to raise my price on ebay in order to cover all the stupid little fees. This may be a good operturnity for me. I'm paying much more than that for Google Add Words with limited results.

That'd be great - my email works if you want to do it that way. I'm guessing it's something for...holding tacos? I'm just not seeing it, but I'm sure it's brilliant ;)

It'd be interesting to read the "feedback left for others" by her.

It's free for a month, so as long as they don't "convert" the fixed price items to full price listings on the sly (that'd piss me off, I should check that) it doesn't cost anything to try.

Hadn't even _thought_ of that; how much volume would I need before it's worth doing? How much per click, or whatever?

Dave

to the taco holder guy, you sell the wrong kind of goods. That's the main issue.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Is that a technical term? Does it refer to a protective coating or a form of abuse? :-)

Chris

On Wed, 26 Oct 2005 16:26:38 +0000 (UTC), with neither quill nor qualm, Christopher Tidy quickly quoth:

'Murrican slang, Chris. It combines a technical term with a low opinion of what someone has done to an innocent inanimate object. When I worked as a wrench, I used to hate the used cars which would come in with rotted hoses from the lacquering the used car dealers would put on everything under the hood( including dirt in many cases.) Disgusting, that.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Life is full of little surprises. * Comprehensive Website Development --Pandora *

Larry, can you explain what is that lacquering?

Is that referring tp spraying everything with shiny lacquer to make the item look better to an unsuspecting eye?