Once burnt-lesson learnt!

[Madhatter]

Upto now i have been stuck with a cheap 800-80 reflector that iv had fun with but iv been craving more apeture for DSO viewing.

By my own stupidity i bought a telescope that i knew i shouldent be buying-it was from ebay and it was cheap (£75 pounds inclusive of postage) it was advertized as brand new and unused but with a tatty box but contents completly uneffected, the seller has over 500 positive feedback so i took a gamble.

Its 150P so i hoped too get a significant jump in terms of what im able to see in the night sky-i knew nowhere else could i get that apeture for that price and the mount and EPs looked significantly better than what i have.

First impressions i was very excited, comparing it too my jessops it looks like a much better bit of kit, but looks can be decieving.

apon removing the protective cover...oh my word..theres corrosion and dirt all up the secondary mirror bracket, a horrible mark on the secondary mirror, the primary mirror is covered in dust and grit (dosent show well in the pictures) and there is a optic at the end of the focuser that was also covered in dirt. (sperical mirror with added lense too extend focal length i believe) and the assesory tray designed too go on the tripod wont fit where something has snapped of inside the screw hole. Quite shocking for a seller with such high feedback, theres no excuse for that. It looks like its been stored in a garage somewhere without protective covers-i believe the seller is a trader and probably picked this up very cheaply and is playing dumb, im sure anyone knows to look inside the OTA.

Views were shocking, saturn was blurry and kept splitting in two-the double cluster in Perseus revealed slightly more stars than the jessops, but so very slightly (and this is with the better plossil EPs) if the jessops shows 100 stars there this scope shows mabey 110, very marginal. The EPs didnt even seem too improve views in the jessops and that supprized me. In the end i just used the jessops.

the design is awful, there isnt even a center dot in the primary mirror for colimation, even the jessops has that.. the tripod whilst sturdy when legs are not fully retracted-seemed awfuly flimsy for the weight. This wasnt a completly wasted excersize, i had my first taste of an EQ mount and finderscope (been using red dot) and i have come too realize that i dont like the mount, i like the point and look factor of the jessops and this confirms that a dobsonian is deffinatly for me.

Im not looking for sympathy, this was completly my own gamble and risk that i understood before buying. Im desperate to see more and was prepared too take a gamble over it.

I have contacted the seller and made it clear this is completly unnaceptable and that i want a full refund including postage costs-i will have too pay the return costs as per ebay rules-im awaiting a reply from the seller.

This is just a heads up to anyone considering buying second hand, forget it unless you can inspect the mirrors/optics before buying.

Lesson learnt!! I wont be messing around with second hand again-the jessops will have to do until we can affored a brand new telesope and look after it properly.

[Cornelius Varley]

Lesson learned - never buy a 1400/150 telescope new or used. New they are junk. Used they are used junk. Hope you get your money back and put it towards a decent telescope.

Peter

[Madhatter]

Thanks CV , lesson deffinatly learnt! I briefly considerd just reselling this and listing the damage to save on packing and returning..but i wouldent even want to sell this to anyone, its more likely to just put them of from whats a great hobby.

Saturn looked better through the jessops, and thats about one of the most basic cheap scopes out there. Shocking.

Patience is not my greatest virtue and im really craving more apeture, but it will have too wait.

Im quite confident i will get my money back, i payed with paypal and should be fully protected.

[Ad Astra]

Wow,

so sorry about your poor experience. I commend you for speaking up and sharing the pain here publicly (not an easy thing to do), so that others can be spared.

Your analysis is absolutely correct as well, never purchase used optics unless you can inspect them personally. The correct collimation and optical figure of mirrors and lenses are all very subtle - no photo on a website will ever suffice to assure you that they will perform as described.

Good luck to you, I hope you get your cash back and move on to a more functional scope.

[ollypenrice]

Yes, good post. I have never got to grips with Ebay which stikes me as an irritating minefield of nonesense. However, I have spent thousands on used kit without ever having had a bad experience. If you buy from here there is a strong community of people who are known and who value their reputations.

A telescope is a lovely thing and will not kick you in the teeth like a car, snapping its fingers and demanding two thousand quid for a meaningless bit of fixing. Worth buying with care and, above all, seen in the flesh first.

Olly

[hayju01]

Hi,

I got caught on a VERY similar scope and mount mine was only 700/150 again off ebay at £140 but it appears mine was in good nik compared to yours. There was some debate in here as to whether it had a parabolic mirror and i think the concensus was that it did not as there was no mention in the manual.

I complained to the seller who turned out to be some wheelchair company that had got 5 or so of these scopes in some job lot. Anyways, they were pretty good about it and refunded (after some haggling) £65 so for £75 its not too bad came with some cheap EPs 25 and 6.5 and Bx2. The Bx2 with probably end up as a tube extension and one of the EPs will be the donar to a MS Lifecam mod when/if I get around to it.

But all in all ebay really isn't worth the risk as I like you are still out of pocket.

[Plantins]

Sorry to hear that!

Generally used or new equipment has been well looked after by 99% of the astro community. Looks like you've dropped on something from the 1% group.

New should be new end of!

[Madhatter]

Rather remarkable update-i have spoken too the seller who was extreamly sorry-as it happens they hadent looked inside the OTA and assumed it was new because everything was still in the box, To my amazement they have told me i can keep the telescope and they will send me a full refund including postage costs. Paypal refund has been recieved, however its down as "pending" and due too clear by the 11th of may at the latest.

I think the seller is not an astronomer and just didnt understand the importance of the condition of the mirrors. I feel rather guilty for assuming the seller knew about these problems before selling:( but i think thats because they had "no returns" stated in there listing.

Until the paypal payment clears this isnt over and i dont want too jump too conclusions but things are looking better:).

I will just say that i still stand by what i said in the OP tho and wont be buying second-hand on ebay again.

[MorningMajor]

Wow, if the seller does what he says, then all credit to him and I hope you boost his feedback accordingly - anyway, hopefully that's a result - and lesson learnt!

Also, well done for sharing, not always easy when you know you've been "a bit of a plonker!" - no offence

[Madhatter]

If the payment clear sucsessfully i will leave the seller glowing feedback, not only would it save me the trouble of repacking, but also return postage costs.

No offence taken at all lol:) i was a plonker! haha.

[Orion_the_Hunter]

I'm sceptical because of my experience with people on fleabay. Maybe the seller knew what he was doing and is refunding because he feels guilty and because he doesn't want the junk back.

All's well that ends well!

[Retro]

Hi there,

Sorry to hear about your disappointment, theres nothing worse. I also bought my Celestron 114 compact off ebay, stated as new condition hardly used, which was not the case. It had been messed about with so much it was unusable. Instead of getting mad with the seller i took this opportunity to learn a bit more about scopes. So completely stripped it down and rebuilt it, learned how to clean and centre spot the primary, centred the secondary in the tube and alligned it with the primary and tightened the tweaked the tripod and mount, now its a great pick up and go scope. More lessons learned!

Good luck with your future purchase and do lots of research first.

cheers,

Mike.

[John]

It's good of you to post this experience and I'm glad that it looks as if the final outcome will be positive.

Actually you might find that the mount, if tuned a bit, works quite well with a decent optical tube assembly on it - something like a 102mm F/5 refractor or similar. It looks very similar to a Skywatcher EQ2 which can work quite well if not overloaded.

[Madhatter]

Thanks guys, lots of people must be reading in on these bigginer forums so if this topic saves just 1 person making the same mistake then it was worth it!.

I will certainly keep my eye out for a new OTA!.

Well today iv been doing a bit of DIY..try not too laugh to much! ok..ok..i dont blame ya! yes that is a flower pot

[sevs23]

Did the same thing buying a 'scope' from Ebay. ooops...currently waiting to go in the bin but might reconsider and use it as an umbrella stand

[banner001]

yes that is a flower pot

HAHA! thats the greatest thing ive seen today!

the power of ingeniuty never fails to amuse me, thankyou for making my day!

PS i made mine out of cardboard but couldnt be bothered to cut it down to shape, so its almost a foot long

[Madhatter]

Glad it gave you a giggle banner001:D

I have no idea if it works yet (damn clouds!!) but i live in a badly light poluted area so anything that helps is worth a try i guess:)

[aussi skywatcher]

Hi, I too bought a scope similar to this (In Australia) as a starter for the hobby - Ok it wasnt great but at the time it seemed fantastic. I soon found out its shortcomings but by playing around and fine tuning it I did get it to perform quite well - spent a lot of time checking out the focuser etc and re-aligning the optics - made up some decent screws for collimation etc and all this was a great learning experience. In the end It got me hooked and I bought an 8"dob which I really like. The one thing it gave me was the confidence to keep everything in tune and I suppose for $90 it was cheap learning. The mount is not bad - I use an 80mm refractor on that and its fine. I still occasionally use the tube too when our astro group has a public viewing night and with better quality eyepieces its fine. Don't feel a Charley - sometimes we learn more by our mistakes (of course sometimes we dont do we!!!)

[glowjet]

Although the matter seems to now be resolved, Ebay are quite fair in sales that go wrong, if the seller has wrongly advertised the article as in : unused and new, and proof is to the contrary, although it takes time Ebay, in most cases make a refund and the seller gets black marked, your seller quite obviously does not want to lose his reputation. PayPal are also very good, my Son was taken for quite a few hundred pounds by a rogue Jap car parts outlet, fortunately we had on hand a reputably engineer who was able to provide the necessary proof in writing that what had been supplied was a disgrace to the trade, a full refund was the result and veiled threats from the seller. In the end its a case of Caveat Emptor and as in the old days smacked pandies for not listening to sage old advice from people who have been there and got the tee shirt

[davehunt]

I have used E Bay for years,with less than 1% disappointment-better than I can say for supermarkets,car /motorcycle dealers,local councils or the local butcher. Recognising the language of sellers who don't know what they are selling is a great asset-also making contact with people is good. I bought a motorbike on e bay,much to the derision of my local dealer-it was delivered to the door from Derby.The vendor stayed the night with us,and took his(big!) van back the next day.And I saved a thousand pounds.having said all that,I wouldn't buy an instrument like a telescope from anyone who couldn't guarantee it.

[nebogipfel]

I have used E Bay for years,with less than 1% disappointment-better than I can say for supermarkets,car /motorcycle dealers,local councils or the local butcher. Recognising the language of sellers who don't know what they are selling is a great asset-also making contact with people is good. I bought a motorbike on e bay,much to the derision of my local dealer-it was delivered to the door from Derby.The vendor stayed the night with us,and took his(big!) van back the next day.And I saved a thousand pounds.having said all that,I wouldn't buy an instrument like a telescope from anyone who couldn't guarantee it.

A very sensible view IMO Dave. I too have used Ebay many times as a buyer and seller and have had generally good experiences.

Ebay is a market place like any other. There are honest sellers and not so honest sellers. If something looks too good to be true, it probably is

When buying anything especially expensive things you need to do your research and know what you are buying. ......Caveat emptor

[milkyjoe]

Hi Madhatter,

Sorry to hear about your experience, I agree with other users on here, you have guts for sharing your story with us.

Being something of an experienced ebay user myself, I don't trust anyone on ebay, even sellers who look genuine can still be dodgy-I've heard stories that dodgy sellers setup loads of fake accounts and leave feedback between these accounts so it looks like they are genuine... I am always very cautious.

Anyway, what I want to tell you is that if the seller does not pay up for whatever reason then you can file what's called a 'Item not as described' case. Messages are then sent between you and the seller until either the seller gives in or ebay rules in your favour in which case, ebay will then automatically refund you.

I suspect the seller is playing dumb and is refunding you as to not receive negative feedback from you, which will seriously dent his reputation..., but I could be wrong of course, I am a cynical git! ha-ha

This, of course, is always a last resort, but it does sound like you will get your money back.

Rather remarkable update-i have spoken too the seller who was extreamly sorry-as it happens they hadent looked inside the OTA and assumed it was new because everything was still in the box, To my amazement they have told me i can keep the telescope and they will send me a full refund including postage costs. Paypal refund has been recieved, however its down as "pending" and due too clear by the 11th of may at the latest.

I think the seller is not an astronomer and just didnt understand the importance of the condition of the mirrors. I feel rather guilty for assuming the seller knew about these problems before selling:( but i think thats because they had "no returns" stated in there listing.

Until the paypal payment clears this isnt over and i dont want too jump too conclusions but things are looking better:).

I will just say that i still stand by what i said in the OP tho and wont be buying second-hand on ebay again.