$$$ Buying Electronic precious metal scrap! $$$

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Originally Posted by Scrappah

Thanks for the prompt hf. There was a bit of thread drift so i was going to bow out.

As i said in my intro i've been lurking / reading / studying here for months now. It's only within the last few days that i joined.There are a lot of buyers listed here and on the web. I've done a few deals with others and they worked out more or less okay.

Ewasted comes very well recommended and for good reason. It's a class act ! :)

The customer service is very responsive.
The shipping arrangements that they can provide for you are the best that i've seen so far.
There's a rapid turnaround time.
He posts his buy prices and updates them on a regular basis. It's pretty up front.
The pay outs are prompt.

I contacted customer service with my concerns and this was their final determination.

Issue 1: Not credited for cd/dvd boards.

As those here explained they were lumped in with the large socket motherboards. It's not like they didn't credit me for them. As a newbie it's just confusing when they combine things like that.

Issue #2: The Eproms:

We talked about that. The mix of Eproms,proms,and IC's that i sent out in the first load was similar to the ones that i sent out on the second load. The payout per pound on the second load was less than 1/10th of what it was on the first.

Customer service determined that the sorter on the first load had overpaid for the material that i had sent in.

Issue #3: I felt that they were being too picky when they downgraded the gold fingers that i had sent in. I'm a finish carpenter. I'm used to working within tolerances of + or - 1/32". The cuts were good with little or no green showing except for one.

Customer service offered to look into it but i asked them not to. It was just a small thing. The difference between 100% and a downgrade to 65% only amounted to a few dollars because it was such a small amount of material. It was not worth spending a lot of time on.

Issue #4: Sorting of the processors. I can't remember if i raised that issue or not with them. I know i raised it here. It would be too easy to get bogged down in trying to figure out what the older oddball solder in main processors are and what they're worth. The total weight of all the processors came out right so they probably got lumped in with something else. Maybe the green fiber capless ?

It's a small thing. It's not worth fussing over.

Anyway .... this is the Ewasted customer review thread. This is the review of my experience so far:

There were a few problems related to sorting and human error. ( It's not a perfect world.)

Overall, i would recommend Ewasted as one of the best buyers out there to deal with.

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Hello
Thanks for giving us the opportunity to do business.
As always we preach and practice transparency. Please don't ever hesitate to contact us for more information or inquiries.

Issue 1: The only way to effectively buy low quantities of material and high volume pricing is make it a simple process. By placing Cd/DVD boards in the same category which pays the same, we save a step.
Why don't we cover this up front? The grading can effectively change... and it is reviewed about every 4 to 6 months. There are several factors involved in what we generate for the refinery.

Issue #2: You were overpaid the first time around. This CAN happen. The initial report you compared this to was in April when we had someone else in that position that is no longer with the company, due to that exact issue. We have very minimal opportunity for human error, it happens.

Issue #3: None of us have a background in carpentry, only metals and recycling. It isnt just how close you cut it but the quality of the trim as well. The guys keep their eyes open for trim that may not have gold plating throughout each side.... sometimes there is little to no surface area that is covered. It is a toss up in most instances, but generally we grade them fairly... arguably not always in our favor because we have lost money refining that grade of material.

Issue #4: If you are just starting out, don't sweat the small things. If you have some misc. items, place them in a bag and place a note in there that says "unknowns" or "help". We are happy to provide some feedback. We just need to know you want it.

I strongly encourage you to ask more questions along the way. That is what our chat and email features are for. As always, we are here to help! :)

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Originally Posted by Scrappah

I've shipped out a couple of loads. The first went very smoothly.

Ran into some problems with the second load. FedEx picked it up last Monday. On Friday i got e-mails saying that it had been received,processed, and paid out. The value recovered was less than expected so i logged in to view the report.

It [U]appears[U] that a fair amount of malware was loaded onto my pc when i opened the report. It was obvious so i shut everything down and cleaned out all of the nasties. It's pure speculation but my best guess would be that his system got hacked from outside and it exploited a weakness somewhere in my web browser.

Later ... i logged on with a hardened machine and didn't have any problems viewing the recovery report. It seems as though there were a couple of problem areas in the report:

Problem area 1: I sent in a package of CD/DVD boards that i didn't receive credit for.

Possible cause: Could be anything from human error to lost in transit.

Solution: In the future include a packing slip listing all of the items shipped.

Problem area 2: It gets a bit complicated with eproms,IC chips,old processors that aren't easily identifiable, and gold connectors. It's a judgement call on the part of the person taking the items in as to their value. It's a bit of a mystery as to what they're looking for and what the fair value of those items would be. There's potential for problems. If the person on the other end makes a bad call you could get burned. A bad call could just as easily end up hurting Mario's company if they over pay. Either way it's bad for everyone involved over the long run.

Solution: KISS it ! ( Keep it simple Sam)

Don't ship those items.

Just focus on shipping the things that are easily identified like main boards,memory,common processors, HDD boards, CD/DVD boards etc. Be mindful of your shipping costs per pound. If it costs 75 cents a pound to ship something but it only has a value of 20 cents a pound you're losing 55 cents a pound on that item.

Ship the higher value items and sell the lower value things at the local scrapyard when it makes sense to do so.

Bottom line: ewasted has an excellent reputation for customer satisfaction here. I'm impressed ...i'm trying to incorporate some of the things that i've learned from his example into my own business and step it up a notch.

This may just be a " One off " kinda thing. Mistakes get made and things go wrong sometimes. We don't know the whole situation.

It's better to focus on preventing problems and misunderstandings in the future.

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Hello
We always appreciate feedback... the good, the bad and the ugly! It is of course, reality! We aren;t perfect so i do want to know when we make mistakes.
However I think you had jumped the gun on your posts. Many of these posts can be a misrepresentation of your final post on how we actually did.

I strongly encourage anyone who wants to leave feedback after a transaction to do so on a single post so the message is clear and concise so it is fair for everyone.

Thanks!

what I don't understand is how the individual said he received malware when opening the CFCS website??........I have never experienced this issue.........Oh well just thought this was odd

In my centuries of running a Computer Repair shop, I have found that many PC problems are like my Uncle Ernie. Uncle Ernie was just fine yesterday; today he is lying dead on the living room floor. Everything breaks sometimes. The PC was probably already on the brink of having an issue; it just happened when opening CFCs's report. Their site is very simple and the reports are straightforward, too. I'm not saying Scrappah didn't have a problem, I just think it was ready to happen anyway. Just my Humble Opinion.
Scrappah: Keep on Scrappin!
Mario: Thanks for your service to us here on SMF!

I don't want to run off topic but i did want to address your question.

( Maybe the admin could delete this later ?)

I have different computers for different jobs. I've got a nice older Dell with an 800 mhz front side bus that i use in my office for business. It works quite well for that particular purpose. It's running XP with a very good antivirus program and windows explorer as the browser. The antivirus software updates every hour or so.

I checked my e-mail and the notification came in from CFCS that the value recovered report was available. I followed the link provided and logged into my account there. When i opened the link to view the report my machine started opening windows to different websites.

It's not supposed to do that so i shut everything down and ran a full system scan including start up.It turned up quite a bit of malware. It's not a big deal ... more like swatting away an annoying horsefly ....but it eats up time. It ties your machine up for awhile and a simple task which should take less than a minute delays you for an hour or more. You end up getting bogged down sorting through a problem instead of getting things done.

XP is considered obsolete by Microsoft. The internet explorer browser is known for problems.

After i got the problems sorted out i logged in with a machine running windows 7 and Firefox as the browser. Had no trouble viewing the report this time.

That's about the long and the short of it. The more likely thing is that the trouble started when i tried to open the value recovered report.If i were troubleshooting and trying to track the cause that would be the logical place to start.

ETA: I'm pretty careful about maintaining my machines. Frequent cleanings with CCleaner, defrag w/ defraggler, wipe free space, regular antivirus updates, regular scans.

Those darn Dells are pretty well built. If you take care of them they will hold up for a long time.

PM Sent to Scrappah

Should I seperate older gold ram from the newer ones to mnake more money?

Also should I remove mylar wires from CD/DVD boards before I try to sell them?

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Originally Posted by happyisthealero

Should I seperate older gold ram from the newer ones to mnake more money?

Also should I remove mylar wires from CD/DVD boards before I try to sell them?

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Hello
Memory only needs to be sorted by type: Gold, Silver, Rambus, Blanks
Remove the mylar wire from CD/DVD boards.
Thanks!

do you buy lithium laptop batteries and cell phone batteries?

I'm not Ewasted, but he did accept cell phone batteries. I shipped some to him once, an he paid me for them. ;)

Tape the contacts. Bad things happen when they touch during transport. You know, fire, falling planes, not good business.

I think I had to email for a price on the cell batteries, an I can't remember what I got for them tho.

Sirscrapalot - Yeaaaa babbbbby! - Austin Powers

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Originally Posted by Scrappah

Issue #4: Sorting of the processors. I can't remember if i raised that issue or not with them. I know i raised it here. It would be too easy to get bogged down in trying to figure out what the older oddball solder in main processors are and what they're worth. The total weight of all the processors came out right so they probably got lumped in with something else. Maybe the green fiber capless ?

It's a small thing. It's not worth fussing over.

Anyway .... this is the Ewasted customer review thread. This is the review of my experience so far:

There were a few problems related to sorting and human error. ( It's not a perfect world.)

Overall, i would recommend Ewasted as one of the best buyers out there to deal with.

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He has a pretty good listing of the chips so what I do is place each individual kind in envelopes and mark what they are ''x how many.'' Sometimes if I'm un sure I just mark it ''unknown'' and figure the sorters will figure it out.

One time i wasn't credited for hard drive boards but I never said anything so this time I made sure to separate every type of board into ziplock bags and marked them (bags) as well as the boards themselves. I also wrote down what I sent so I can compare the final tally to what I have on my list here at home. My mistake was probably thinking they knew what boards were what (HD vs, CD/DVD) but maybe they aren't that easily separated by eyeballing them.

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Originally Posted by newattitude

He has a pretty good listing of the chips so what I do is place each individual kind in envelopes and mark what they are ''x how many.'' Sometimes if I'm un sure I just mark it ''unknown'' and figure the sorters will figure it out.

One time i wasn't credited for hard drive boards but I never said anything so this time I made sure to separate every type of board into ziplock bags and marked them (bags) as well as the boards themselves. I also wrote down what I sent so I can compare the final tally to what I have on my list here at home. My mistake was probably thinking they knew what boards were what (HD vs, CD/DVD) but maybe they aren't that easily separated by eyeballing them.

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Hello
Thanks for the share!
Our guys should be catching this... it absolutely helps to separate it. Pulling small boards and components from the mix is time consuming and tough. It really makes the process overly challenging on the sorters and the rest of our team to respond to you in a accurate and timely manner.

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Originally Posted by newattitude

He has a pretty good listing of the chips so what I do is place each individual kind in envelopes and mark what they are ''x how many.'' Sometimes if I'm un sure I just mark it ''unknown'' and figure the sorters will figure it out.

One time i wasn't credited for hard drive boards but I never said anything so this time I made sure to separate every type of board into ziplock bags and marked them (bags) as well as the boards themselves. I also wrote down what I sent so I can compare the final tally to what I have on my list here at home. My mistake was probably thinking they knew what boards were what (HD vs, CD/DVD) but maybe they aren't that easily separated by eyeballing them.

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I try to put myself in the other person's shoes. I ask myself , " If this were my first day on the job as a sorter what would i want to see when i opened the box ? "

If it's neat and well organized with everything labeled that would surely be a help. :)

I know i mentioned it before, but i think that including a packing list in each box might make things easier on them as well. (It's standard operating procedure in shipping anyway.) It's just a list of things inside the box that the person on the receiving end can check off as they go.

It's just an opinion .... but my impression is that Mario set things up to make it as easy as possible for us.

With a little bit of practice maybe we can return the favor and set up our boxes up so that they are as easy as possible to process.

You know, I would love it if the CFCS website had a best practices or what you need to know to ship. Cover things like separating items, and using bags. Things like CD boards and large slot motherboards go together. Where do floppy drive, zip drive, tape drive boards go? Maybe pictures of what qualifies as what?

I've learned these things through asking questions and some frustration/making mistakes. Mario is great, and I will NOT be taking my scrap anywhere else. But it took some time and pain to learn how to work the best way. And I'm glad to hear I'm not alone. I believe most of the answers are in this thread. But surely, a new person isn't expected to read 60+ pages of reviews before the first shipment (90% are just great job with no new information).

There are plenty of threads and stickies in the electronics section here on SMF. There are some awesome breakdowns that people here put together with pictures to give new members as well old members a good starting point to get acquainted with ewaste.

Beyond these tools you are going to have to contact a buyer and maybe send a picture to see how they grade boards. Not every buyer will grade the same.

As far as sending material ask yourself how you would want to receive a box of ewaste from a customer.
Hundreds of different boards thrown into a box or a box with ten bags containing the different boards grouped together. The easier you make it for the buyer the faster and more accurately they can process and pay you.

Another great transaction with Ewasted! Sent a pallet down last week and after being received on Tuesday it's already turned around and processed. Excellent service and processing time!

what are these considered?

can I process them to make them more valuable?



http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/f...psa58cc500.jpg




do you buy lithium laptop batteries and cell phone batteries? And how much?

Full article at Scrap Metal Forum: http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/scrap...#ixzz358nSoeGo

They are regulators off of server boards. May go as finger cards may go as slot processors.

Should I remove the heat sinks?

Yes, remove the heat sinks.