Paranoid or did I get scammed?

timiskander

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Picked up a frogger on CL yesterday. Guy tells me how he's had it for years, etc and it plays blind. Doesn't know what happened to the monitor, it just quit.
No problem.. $150 sounds not too bad for a decent frogger, monitors can be fixed, and I didn't want to risk fixing it in front of the seller.

Get it home and start poking around (I actually picked it up for a fellow klov'er but couldn't resist poking around). Its got a WG 4675 monitor in it... dead as a door nail. Start looking and whoa! the monitor fuse missing... a pigtail fuse and its snipped out. Its not in the cabinet anywhere... hmmm I start to smell fishiness now... clip in a fuse and voila! monitor comes up (out of sync tho). A little pot twiddling fixes that. Now frogger comes up, but with a pretty blatent video glitch (every other row (column to the player) is white or missing). Probably a ram or something.

Question is (after all that)... Seems like the seller clipped the fuse in the monitor to hide the board issue to me.. He _could_ have been telling the truth, but what happened to the fuse? I thought about calling him back and letting him know I thought he was full of %#$^, but that really wouldn't do much.

Still probably an easy fix (hopefully).. I just don't like it when I feel like someone (besides my wife) is screwing me!

Is this different than when we notice a blown fuse and keep our mouths shut to get the good price? Is that just a little white lie...
oh well...
All this babbling is making me thisty!
/Tim
 
I would still call the guy and tell him what the problem was.

Act like it was an easy fix and all you had to do was install a fuse.

Make him think that you had absolutely no problem getting it 100% at all.

I wouldn't let on that you think he screwed you or he may get a shit-eating grin and have a happier day because of it.

-Tim
 
$150 for a Frogger is a good price even with some glitches, I wouldn't worry about it.
 
The guy is a liar if he says he's had it for years and it just quit and now plays blind. So the fuse snipped itself and walked away then? Play the mindgame thing and tell him you got it fixed in 5 minutes and resold it for $350 two days later...
 
Heh, the joke's on him if all you need to do is replace a RAM and you have a fully working game.

Odds are he has NEVER had it working, and just picked it up a week or two ago. He just made up a story, because that's what some jack-o's think they have to do to make a sale.
 
Sounds like a "flipper story" to me. Dude picks up a non-working Frogger for super cheap (or free) then comes up with some bullshit story about it when he sells it a week later. Typical of the craigslist vermin out there...
 
After stealing that F-14 out from under me, you deserve what you got!

(Hehe - just kidding)

But yeah, I think the seller pulled a fast one just to get rid of it. Oh well, what's the difference anyways? Fix the monitor, or fix the board - it's all good...
 
Maybe you're lucky and the board just needs reseating chips or tinkering with the +5V adjustment or maybe the ribbon cable is loose...;)
 
His story sounds like BS, but it doesn't really matter if you don't pay more for the game based on it (his story).

What's much worse are the guys that clip out X-ray protection caps to get monitors to work, exposing the players to harmful soft X-rays.

I've seen that on several machines I bought at auction, so nothing leaves my hands without checking it.
 
I don't get it.

Frogger with monitor w/sync issues & a board with (probable) ROM issues

or

A dead monitor with an "untested, but noisy" board.


Is the latter really more valuable than the former? Why would the seller go out of his way to sell a completely dead Frogger? I doubt he sabotaged the game...probably just flipping or clueless.
 
I don't think it matters. Ignore stories from CL people period. If you can't see the game working on the screen, assume it has a problem when you figure out what your going to offer for it. If anything I really try to not talk to the seller much. It distracts you from doing what your supposed to be doing which is looking over the game in detail. ;)
 
I don't think it matters. Ignore stories from CL people period. If you can't see the game working on the screen, assume it has a problem when you figure out what your going to offer for it. If anything I really try to not talk to the seller much. It distracts you from doing what your supposed to be doing which is looking over the game in detail. ;)

I agree 100%. But, since this scenario would actually work against the seller (IMO), the answer to the original question is "No, you weren't scammed".
 
I agree 100%. But, since this scenario would actually work against the seller (IMO), the answer to the original question is "No, you weren't scammed".

Well, he could have been scammed by stupid seller which is 100% plausible. :D Seriously though... I can see clipping the fuse and thinking that is better than garbage on the screen. That is exactly what someone who only knows how to do a cap kit would see it. People will just think they can cap the monitor and make it work. Of course, board problems for most people mean find someone who can even repair it and send it out for who knows how much $$$ to get it fixed. But yeah, I don't think he got screwed even if he was scammed. ;)
 
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If you want to keep your karma clean, just be happy that you got a semi-working Frogger for only $150, and let it go. ;) I wouldn't go trying to make him regret selling it to you. You may keep another happy KLOVer or another person from getting a similar deal from him in the future if you make him feel like he got ripped off on this one...
 
His story sounds like BS, but it doesn't really matter if you don't pay more for the game based on it (his story).

What's much worse are the guys that clip out X-ray protection caps to get monitors to work, exposing the players to harmful soft X-rays.

I've seen that on several machines I bought at auction, so nothing leaves my hands without checking it.

The K7000 manual has a great theory write up as to how the shutdown circuitry works. After reading it, I can't help but feel nervous playing games I have not checked B+ output on.
 
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