"As stated before the Mac was packaged in a sturdy computer box made to house a system of the same weight. As you stated Ebay's own guidelines state "Pack the item with bubble wrap, polystyrene beads or peanuts, foam, or paper so there is no room for your item to shift." This is exactly how it was packaged, with bubble wrap for packaging, and with the polystyrene wedging in the system, there was no room for movement. Some of the packaging can be seen in the the photo's that the buyer has supplied back to me when I asked for photos of the box's condition."
Points covered one by one.
segascreamer: ...the Mac was packaged in a sturdy computer box made to house a system of the same weight...
davidhayesesq: Yes, it was a sturdy box. No, it wasn't designed for a computer of the same weight. It came in a box for a 21.5" iMac. Here's the dimensions of that imac straight from the apple website http://www.apple.com/uk/imac/specs.html
Segascreamer: "...it was packaged, with bubble wrap for packaging, and with the polystyrene wedging in the system, there was no room for movement."
davidhayesesq: Yes, segascreamer did use polystyrene and bubblewrap. Here is the sum total of both pictured.
Just to quantify this for the record. There were two pieces of polystyrene. Each piece measures 15cm long x 9cm deep x 15cm high. That's a total volume of 2025cm cubed.
In the images below you can see the empty space inside the box (with segascreamer's polystyrene placed in shot as originally received).
Now let's calculate the volume of packaging needed to fill this empty space as per Ebay's (and Parcelforce's) guidelines.
Ok, so 23cm x 7cm x 54cm = 8694 cm cubed each end.
Multiply that by 2 for both ends of the computer and you get a total empty space of = 17,388cm cubed.
Subtract Sega Screamers polysterene from that and you are left with 15,363 cm cubed of empty space, or put another way, 12% of the empty space was packed, and 88% was left unprotected.
I haven't mentioned that there was no packaging AT ALL on each of the sides of the box pictured below (apart from the 2mm thick cardboard):
The bubble wrap didn't do much to fill this gap. It was laid on the bottom of the box, and as you can see from the picture above, wasn't sufficient in quantity to offer any real protection for a 25kg machine.
For the record, I have now tested the machine daily in case Segascreamer offered a partial refund, and it doesn't boot around 1 time in 4.
In a response to segascreamers implication that I'm either trying to defraud him or am lying about the packaging, I'd like to present some evidence that I'm an upstanding character.
Please note again that my simple complaint is that I received a computer that is damaged cosmetically and functionally, it would seem that it occurred in transit, and I would therefore like a refund while the seller deals with Parcelforce as the insured party.
davidhayesesq.
