1. HELPING CHEMISTS FIND JOBS IN A TOUGH MARKET. 2. TOWARDS A QUANTITATIVE UNDERSTANDING OF THE QUALITY OF THE CHEMISTRY JOB MARKET.
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| Why the hell not? |
What's the job market like for chemists? Dude -- it's always bad.*
How bad is it? How the heck should I know? Quantifying the chemistry job market is what this blog is about. That, and helping chemists find jobs.
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(*For the literal-minded, this is a joke. Mostly.)
We have gotten rotovaps, pumps, and stir plates from them, and our experience has been mostly positive. That being said, we have had some of these stir plates and pumps break shortly after starting to use them. This is not a huge inconvenience and, overall, the prices are still cheaper than buying new things. That being said, the headache and price associated with having to fix a more complicated instrument (GC, HPLC) would make me hesitant to buy them through DoveBid.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the policy for equipment that craps out shortly after you buy it, or are the sales pretty much 'as-is' and you take your chances?
ReplyDeleteI get the sense that it's as is (as in I've never seen a return), but I dunno.
DeleteIn areas with a lot of failed startups, lab equipment in decent condition is availible. We have purchased 2 Agilent 1100 systems from different vendors; the first didn't send all the plumbing and cords right away. Both systems eventually came up properly.
ReplyDeleteBeware that some so-called Dealers may claim to have an item in stock. They take your 50% deposit and use it to go shopping for one. I would try to deal locally, and ask to inspect the item.
I bought a balance on DoveBid that never worked when I plugged it in. They claimed that they don't have time to plug in instruments to see if they work. The calibration sticker on the thing was several years out of date, which should have tipped them off that they were selling a non-working instrument. They gave me half my money back when I complained, so I didn't dispute the charge on my company credit card (which I regret). Our balance repairman told me the thing isn't repairable. On top of that, I had to complain like hell to get myself removed from their email list. I wouldn't deal with DoveBid again.
ReplyDeleteeven internal asset transfers can be iffy. When Pfizer shut down several sites, many of the remaining employees were weary of accepting responsibility for the remaining depreciation costs for instrumentation without having a friend at the affected site telling them what they were getting. Some instruments would come missing expensive or non-replaceable parts or broken beyond repair.
ReplyDeleteAt another company we are putting at lot of stuff on DoveBid as we shut down our site. The chemists are doing their best to only sell working stuff. However, with the massive amount of work involved in shutting down a site, it seems that some mistakes will probably be made.
Please be careful about DoveBid SCAM or DoveBid Fraud!!! DoveBid representatives can intentionally remove expensive components from the auctioned equipment and sale it on E-bay, also give you empty box as actual equipment under they as-is policy. They sellers also can alter equipment under DoveBid protection policy. I'v just got an IR imaging system from them. It was advertised as a complete system. The IR spectrometer, tunable IR filters together with all optical components were stolen. I have paid over 1K for empty aluminum shell. DoveBid customer representative told that my representative suppose to open and inspect item during pickup, which is nonsense as it requires time, specific tools, and knowledge.
ReplyDeleteHere is they legal masterpiece that allow them stealing from they customers:
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES ARE WE RESPONSIBLE FOR SPECIAL, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES TO YOU OR ANY OTHER PARTY. YOU AGREE TO INDEMNIFY, DEFEND AND HOLD US AND, EXCEPT TO THE EXTENT A SELLER HAS PROVIDED AN EXPRESS WARRANTY IN THE LISTING, THE SELLER HARMLESS FROM AND AGAINST ANY AND ALL SPECIFIED CLAIMS. UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED IN A LISTING, PHOTOGRAPHS, VIDEO, AND WRITTEN DESCRIPTIONS ARE NOT INTENDED AS REPRESENTATIONS, BUT ARE PROVIDED SOLELY TO AID YOU IN DETERMINING WHICH LISTINGS YOU WISH TO PHYSICALLY INSPECT.
I hope they will lost they license soon.