Quote:
Originally Posted by mwibbels
Unless the controller and modules do not function for non FRC purposes and do not have a value on the open market higher than the discounted price available to FRC team (neither are consistent with my understanding), it seems this ebay listing is very likely going to result in a non-FRC purchase.
Personally, posting on the CD-swap seems like a reasonable idea to me too. Teams are always looking for extra controllers http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=87765 |
I want to apologize for any error we made in listing our extra FRC cRIO for sale on eBay. We totally did not intend to do anything wrong, and we really appreciate everyone's comments and suggestions on this issue.
I think the suggestion to instead list extra FRC parts on
CD-Swap here on Chief Delphi is excellent. That makes a lot of sense. We did not know about CD-Swap when I posted the eBay listing for the cRIO last night. My sincere apologies for that.
There are already 4 bids on the cRIO on eBay at this point, so I don't feel like it's fair to those FRC team bidders for us to remove the cRIO from eBay at this point. However, I think it's a good lesson for us, and everyone, going forward, to use CD-Swap instead.
And, I also want to reiterate my promise, earlier in this thread, that we will make certain that the cRIO only goes to another FRC team. Whoever wins the cRIO, we will carefully vet the buyer and make sure they are really part of another FRC team. As I mention earlier in this thread, we are deeply grateful for the FRC vendors who provide special pricing and donations to the FRC Kit of Parts. We totally agree with Bill Miller, Director of FRC, who has asked all FRC teams to make sure they only sell their spare parts to other FRC teams, to respect the FRC vendors and make sure not to undercut the non-FRC business of those vendors. That has been our intent from the beginning in the sale of this extra FRC cRIO that we have. We just didn't find the ideal way to go about it, and for that we are very sorry.
We think it's great that National Instruments (and all the other vendors) are so generous with their pricing and donations to FRC, and we want to support them and respect that. Our purpose in selling this is to raise a little additional funds for our team. Also, it might help out another team that would like to buy another cRIO but would like to save a few bucks. The reason we thought of listing it for sale on eBay, rather than listing it for sale at a fixed price here on Chief Delphi, is that we don't know what price to ask for it, and we want to bring in a fair price to help out our team financially this year.
But I see now that CD-Swap exists on Chief Delphi, and that it is a better vehicle than eBay for selling spare FRC parts, because it helps ensure that only FRC teams will buy those parts. That makes a lot of sense to us.
By the way, in both our original eBay listing, and in the question response we just now posted for that item on eBay, we made it clear that we will make sure that the cRIO only goes to an actual FRC team, and that we will not sell it to anyone outside of FRC. If the winning bidder is not an FRC team, we will cancel the sale to the high bidder, and instead go to the highest bidder that is a legitimate FRC team, whom we carefully vet.
I hope the Chief Delphi community, and the wider FRC community, can forgive our faux paus in listing this cRIO for sale on eBay. We totally didn't understand that it might be a problem. We thought carefully about it, and thought it would be sufficient that we ensure that the winner is indeed another FRC team (and include that caveat in the listing). But we see now that CD-Swap is the way to go if we sell any other FRC parts.
Mea culpa. Thanks again to the folks here on the thread for pointing out the correct way going forward to handle the sale of spare FRC parts (using CD-Swap), and we promise that we will only let the cRIO on eBay go to another legitimate FRC team, after checking out the winning bidder carefully.
Thank you for your understanding!