DMC12

Hi, I was wondering if anyone could give me some help / advice.

We have a number of old PCs at work that I'd like to get rid of. My original plan was to give them away to users free of charge on the condition that they made a donation to charity.

Now someone has now suggested that we keep the money for the company so in effect are selling the PCs to staff members. I want to get rid of the machine with no software, no warrenty, and no support.

Does anyone know if the sale of goods act would apply here? Can we ask the users to sign a disclaimer saying that they accept no warrenty / support / software etc? i.e. can I do a sold-as-seen as I would if it was a private purchase?

The machines are only PII 266MHZs and we only want £30 each. The alternative seams to pay someone to take them away for us.

Many thanks.

Steve.

ajm

Been through this before whilst working for a large Aerospace company. Basically it was decided by general concensus of the legal dept. that the amount raised wouldn't offset the risk of selling something that could be unfit for purpose or even unsafe. The decision was therefore made to scrap them. Sad as it may seem, in todays litigous society I think this is what most large companies do.

jjones

put them on ebay, some prat somewhere will pay 100 notes for them.

bloke at work was going to lob some cheap old knackered fishing rods and reels out but lobbed them on ebay just as an experiment - he netted (pardon the pun) 72 quid for what was complete garbage.

imlach

Our company (large US electronics company) had a few issues with this.

One is that a disclaimer is signed absolving us of any damage/injury resulting from their use....look into that with your company lawyer...otherwise the recipient could sue you.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

"scrap them" and dispose in your garage...then e-bay

imlach

I may add, I don't know if our company gave them away in the end....as other person said, think they may have been put in the skip.

Sad but true.

Brendan Hughes

Don't scrap them, go back to your original donation idea.

(Ta for replies, this explains why we have 40 similar PCs piled up in a store cupboard and it's taken TWO YEARS AND COUNTING for our management to work out what to do with them.)

imlach

Even donating them for free does not absolve the legal issues.......

AllanB

And you cannot skip them them must be disposed of in an environmentally safe way. Some of our big newspaper customers are doing this at the mo so mail me offline if you need help



AllanB

ozzy

We sold two dozen old PII 400 PC's to our staff for £20. Had good 17" monitors too.

We just sent an e-mail round saying they would be sold as seen. Depends if your employees are the type to get nasty over something so stupid. Needless to say all of ours were snapped up within minutes of the e-mail doing the rounds.

Sorry state of affairs nowadays if you have to worry about legal implications of giving someone a good deal

Fuzz

when did that law come into force allan.

I was working at "a well known insurance company" last year and almost "borrowed" one of the LARGE skip fulls of old pc's in there.
thought my Job was worth more than a dusty old pc.


Andy

BuRR

I'c make a point of wiping hard disks.

We've recently had jobs in where people have found child **** on their second-hand computers, that were remnants from the previous owner.

Not nice.

248SPG

Where I work they sell old used computers to a company that ships them to places like India and South africa as they fech a premium over there apparently.

There are contracts in place to say all HDD's will be wiped etc and there is no come back on us.

Makes quite good money for us actually. We are shipping 900 2nd user PIII's next week on about a 50% margin!!!

If anyone needs contacts for this mail me offline and I will see what I can do for ya!!

Steve

ozzy

We used some 3rd party software to wipe the disks clean before they were given to staff.

chiark

I wanted to give old PCs to charity, or schools, but my employer would not play ball for the reasons above: they will be legally liable for the items.

The world is nuts.

Nick.

what would scooby do

The EU law on disposal does not become UK law until August 2004 - so skip them, we need global warming anyways to make our summers last longer..

what would scooby do

Oh and the classic EU legislation :-

Cue thousands of resellers going broke

blair

Just give the PC's to a charity who will recycle what they can from them and then take on responsibility for them bein fit for purpose

There are a few mentioned here. Probably best to give them to charity as it looks as though the cash received from them isn't enough to offset the risk that some pikey employee sues you if the PC goes **** up

speedking

So if someone sells me a hard disk, and someone else a tape drive, etc. then when I scrap the pc each company must send someone to collect all the components, and keep records that this has been done correctly Component prices will go through the roof.

Will this apply to mobile phones and PS2s as well?

Crapaud62

Next time someone get sone of those Nigerian scam emails why not offer them a new PC on which to send them.

We had this disposal problem at work and they decided to just scrap them. Previously they gave them to staff but then the IT dept were always being bothered by staff asking for free advice on how to set them up etc. IT Dept got very p1ssed off with all the calls (you know how stroppy IT bods can be when asked to help!).

However, I did volunteer to assist with the scrapping process and accidentally forgot to dump two of them that then found there way into my kids hands.

Hobo_Jojo

i'l take one off ya hands?

what would scooby do

Yes - it applies to all electronic equipment, corporate or private buyers - the whole lot...

unclebuck

Where I work they sell old used computers to a company that ships them to places like India and South africa as they fech a premium over there apparently.

Where they are then used to set up call centres no doubt.

UB

ajm

We scrapped ours good and proper.... ran over them with a 15 ton forklift to stop people pilfering them from the skip

Then a third party company came and took the skip away for "environmental disposal" whatever that means.....

lmsbman

Just leave em in a skip outside your office. The Pikey's will soon clear them away for you!

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Must admit, it's these "scrapped" computers that end up filtering their way to me...

currently on a PIII 1GHz 512meg and a 19" monitor for £250 (last year). I'm due to get a P4 and a flat screen monitor soon.

I know it's no help, but thought I'd mention that are companies already out there specialising in disposing of ex-lease or unwanted computers. I don't have any contact details at hand though...sorry

juan

If anyone wants rid of a few old PCs / monitors etc. I'd be up for collecting them and signing an 'as seen' paper drop me a line.

My own stuff is ancient but haven't got the spare cash for upgrading. Weddings are expensive!!

ChrisB

If you have enough, I have the details somewhere for a specialist company that will strip and melt down PCs for the gold etc in them. They pay by the ton.

unclebuck

Used to know someone who bought a big rundown country house from a guy who did this (somehow) in the back garden, in a big tank. He made a fortune apparantly. The whole place was littered with smashed up PCBs

I guess it must be done by some form of electrolysis

UB