Quote:
Originally Posted by Foster
I'm confused, ebay just said the auction ended. It was marked as a 10 day auction starting on the 4th, it should have run until the 14.
Did you pull the item?
|
Hello, Foster. Thanks so much for your note. I was just about to post a message here about that. A few minutes ago, I ended the eBay auction early for our extra cRIO because the bidding had reached $780, and all FRC teams can purchase a new cRIO and modules once per year at the discounted price of $750. We didn't want to be unfair to any teams who didn't realize they could purchase a new one cheaper.
By the way, for any teams that would like to purchase a new cRIO and modules at the FRC discounted price of $750 once per year, go to the
National Instruments FIRST page and see the note in the middle of the page that says, "Once per competition season, your team is eligible for an entire additional cRIO-FRC kit (part number 780405-01) at the discount price of $750. Call 1-866-511-6285 to check eligibility!".
As I mentioned a couple of times earlier in this thread, we will make sure to only sell this cRIO to another FRC team, because all of us get special pricing on parts as FRC teams, and we want to be supportive of the generous FRC sponsors that provide parts at discounted or even donated pricing to FIRST. (And also, Bill Miller, Director of FRC, has previously reminded all of us on Bill's Blog that if we sell specially priced FRC parts, we should only sell them to other FRC teams, for this same reason.)
So, we have sent a message to the winning bidder of our cRIO on eBay to find out who they are and what FRC team they are on, so we can carefully check them out to make sure they are really an FRC team. If they aren't, no harm done, we will point out that the eBay description says we can only sell to other FRC teams, in which case we will walk down the eBay bidding list and offer it to the next lower bidders until we find a bidder that: (1) is definitely an FRC team, and (2) would still like to buy the cRIO. In any case, we won't charge the FRC team more than $740, since they can buy a new one (per above) for $750.
Thanks so much for the interest in our extra cRIO. This will really help us, as we need to raise some more money this year. I apologize for the faux paus of listing on eBay (with a big note in both the eBay listing and the Q&A at the end of the listing saying this is only for FRC teams ) rather than listing on the CD-Swap section right here on Chief Delphi (I didn't know about CD-Swap -- my apologies!). I will definitely use CD-Swap if we have more items to sell, to easily ensure that such parts only go to other FRC teams. Thanks so much for everyone's understanding. Have a great 2011 season!