I have just completed a really unpleasant trade with PL member Lasernerd. You may recall this thread
http://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/...ead.php?t=5977
where he offered an XYZ positioning table and then updated to say that he'd made a trade for it. That trade was with me. After talking about different things I had here, he agreed to trade for a Lightwave Electronics 210G-2500 laser system. I never had a chance to fully test it because it needs water cooling, but I did run it briefly and it made over 1W of green. Mark was in a hurry because he wanted the laser for a NYE laser show so I sent it to him on Dec 12 after he promised to send the XYZ table the next friday, the 19th. This was my first mistake.
On the 19th, he emailed to say that the table was crated but that he had to wait until he got paid on the 24th before he could ship it. In the mean time, he emailed and told me that he'd gotten the laser hooked up and was seeing over 5 watts green output!
On the 27th he wrote to say that he was snowed in and wouldn't be able to ship until the weather cleared up.
On Jan 3, he wrote and told me that I had to wait again until his next payday before he would ship the XYZ table. At this point I was getting really frustrated and worried that he was never going to make good on his end of the trade. I told him that I wanted either the XYZ table shipped or the laser system returned to me by the end of the week (Jan 9). I didn't think it was unreasonable for me to expect him to make good on his part of the deal within a month of me doing my part, but he freaked out and accused me of all sorts of nasty things (not being "human", insulting his family, etc.).
Back when we were negotiating the trade, I agreed to add an AOM and driver that could modulate the laser since the cost for him to ship the XYZ table was higher than the cost for me to ship the laser system ($250 versus $50). He agreed to include the instrumentation that came with the XYZ table. He kept asking me to pay for the shipping despite the fact that I'd given him the AOM to compensate for that. In the end, I agreed to take the AOM back and give him $250 towards shipping.
He finally shipped the XYZ table late last week and it arrived today, 3 1/2 weeks after I sent the laser to him. The table is in fair condition with corrosion on most of the non-stainless/aluminum parts, it does not have a Z axis and he did not send any of the instrumentation that was supposed to come with it. I called him to ask about that and he freaked out again, claiming all sorts of things that were untrue and telling me that if I wanted the rest of the stuff, I was going to have to pay more for it. At this point, I lost my cool and hung up on him. I hate trying to deal with irrational people.
So in the end, I've paid for shipping on both sides of the trade and got an XYZ table that has obviously been stored outdoors and does not actually have a Z axis and he's got a working 5 watt green laser. I'll let you decide who got the better end of the deal.
Bottom line - think twice before doing business with Lasernerd. In my experience, he will not make good on his side of the bargain and will try to change the deal after you've already followed through on your end. This is sad because I've only had good experiences with PL members in the past.