Note: Apparently this got picked up by Reddit and Hack a Day. The resulting traffic caused some server capacity issues for a few hours, but it’s fixed. To cut down on wasted bandwidth I have also removed the links to the larger images.

However… I really had no desire to broadcast this to the entire world. Sure, the kid acted like a slimy little weasel (which was really the point of this post to begin with), but let’s keep things in perspective. The point was not the abysmally poor soldering job, though that is quite impressive, but the completely fraudulent and dishonest way in which the person acted. I’ve been selling kits and parts to hams for over a decade, and I can count on ONE hand the number of times I’ve been cheated – and have a couple of fingers left over. I suppose I really shouldn’t complain.



The message here? If you’re a novice, you may mess things up. That’s OK! It’s how we learn. Get some help before or while building if you can, but if you don’t and end up with a mess, ask for help getting it fixed. Most things can be fixed, and if it can’t be fixed I’ll work with you, within reason, to make sure you end up with a working project. Just don’t pretend the kit is defective if your soldering looks like the job in the pictures.

Wow.

So this guy (who I later find out is, apparently, under age as well as ethically challenged) orders an ID-O-Matic III with a voice add-on board. So far so good; the order arrives on 11/4 a little after 5:30 PM; I ship it 11/5, it arrives at his house on 11/7.

Before it’s even delivered the emails start. He’s asking me about some cable he bought from someone else on eBay. Will it work with his Motorola radios? How should I know? Ask the guy you bought it from. But I’m nice, I’m patient, and tell him I can’t make promises about things I don’t sell. But I’m getting a bad feeling already. The day after I mail the package he’s asking where it is. Then it arrives… Doesn’t work, he says. “But when I use the CW is sounds like someone hitting a piece of wood and the HZ does not change it.” He’s asking questions and saying things that tell me he has either not read, or completely fails to understand, the instructions. I give him some things to look at; he’s demanding a new PIC processor, which I tell him would probably not cause the problem he’s having, so if he wants to send it here I’ll take a look at it.

Then I get an email from PayPal — he’s disputing the charge! He claims the kit was missing parts, says he had “an electrician” “professionally install” it and it doesn’t work. I tell him to ship it back to me, and if the kit WAS defective, I’ll fix it and return it. The board arrives, and the problem is immediately apparent…

He’s ignored the instructions, for one thing. He’s got parts in the wrong locations, a jumper installed in place of C9 (which would explain why he’s got no audio!!) and the atrocious mess of a soldering job speaks for itself. I have honestly never in my life seen anything so bad. I mean, come ON. It’s one thing to screw up a project because you’ve never seen a soldering iron before. It’s quite another to outright lie about it and try to cheat someone out of the money you paid for something that you destroyed.

What’s not immediately obvious from the photos is the number of solder globs that are not even stuck to the board, nor the number of PCB pads and traces lifted and broken from excessive heat. I’ve spent a couple of hours on repair work so far, but wasn’t able to get it finished before leaving town for my day job… which I told him about in advance. Now he’s trying to get PayPal to refund the total of his order, PLUS what he spent mailing it back to me.

I would normally not post this kind of thing, but honestly… this situation is so disgraceful I’m just disgusted. Not the assembly job; I have a lot of tolerance for people trying something new and screwing it up. I’ve fixed some pretty bad looking boards for people, and have even replaced a kit that the first-time builder had started assembling from the wrong side of the board. I’ve replaced a couple of others as well, when novice builders didn’t do too well. But to compound it by lying and trying to cheat someone out of money… and the sad part of it is, I had to take time to fight this with PayPal (and good luck with that, for those of you who deal with PP).

So… WØ[deleted], A[deleted] in [deleted], PA… congratulations, you’ve won the “How’d this guy ever get a ham license” award.

[Update: Apparently this got picked up on one or two forums and even hamsexy.com. Thanks for the support and kind words and thoughts, folks, but really — please don’t send me money. Well, you can, but only if you buy something. 🙂 I’ll survive. I have a day job! ]