ebay buyer being an idiot - would appreciate any advice

strumjoughlamps · February 2016

don't phone the buyer, communicate via eBay messages then eBay and Paypal can see the communication..

was this a £30-£60 sale or £180-£250 one? and what sort of partial refund they asking?..

saying 'spares or repairs' does not always mean no returns.. I purchased a camera 'spares or repairs' and was given a list of faults when it arrived the memory card slot was borked and not listed in the faults..I messaged the seller stating I wish you would have mentioned the memory card fault as it rendered the camera useless from the start and seller said tuff listed as spares or repairs no returns, eBay said otherwise and sorted a return and refunded me..

dano · February 2016

Don't suppose you recorded the conversation ?

It could be worth asking him (via your official ebay communications) when he opened it he used correct ESD precautions, and if he hasn't he may have done damage too. Just helps to cast more doubt on him.

I used a similar rouse with a buyer who pulled a similar thing about 5yrs ago with me, he had pictures of his fingers all over the inside of the pcb and ebay went against him (how much help the ESD argument was I don't know).

benmurray85 · February 2016

Thanks guys. Although the item was listed as spares/repairs the listing clearly says it was broken/not working so hopefully that should clear that up. The listing also points out that I am not accepting returns so hopefully they should take that into consideration?

I did think after the chat that I should have recorded it as Im certain he wouldn't have asked for a partial refund through pm's. Either way eBay recommended that I speak to him directly by phone initially to try and iron it out so Im just trying to stick to exactly what they're asking me to do. The laptop sold for £110 and he asked for 30-40 quid partial refund to make it worthwhile selling on.

strumjoughlamps · February 2016

message him and tell him to go through the official returns procedure because lets face it you are not going to accept a 30% partial refund are you so take it back and re sell it.. if buyer has been inside and removed something or done anything dodgy then involve eBay fraud team.

Richardj · February 2016

Hmmm. I sold my Trace Acoustic amp to a newbie on here, he decided he didn't like it, opened it up to have a poke around, then whined to Paypal that it didn't work and opened a dispute for his money back. Despite him clearly saying he had been inside it Paypal sided with him and he returned it and was refunded.

I had it professionally checked and there was absolutely nothing wrong with it, just a simple case of buyers remorse. They still sided with the fecker though.

Why I'm sadly a bit more careful with who I deal with.

jpfamps · February 2016

benmurray85 said:

No not really. 1000+ with 97% positive.

97% positive isn't that stellar with 1000 + feedback.

ICBM · February 2016

The small amount of money you raise by selling on Ebay as a private seller: not worth the hassle when things like this happen.

The feeling of relief when you decide to never sell anything on Ebay ever again, and stick to it: priceless.

Danny1969 · February 2016

What exactly is the issue ? I mean if I brought a Macbook sold as faulty and someone had looked inside but left things alone then no problem .... but if I brought a Macbook sold as faulty as someone had tried to reball the GPU themselves and cooked the PCB beyond repair then I would be pissed off, as that should have been sold with the failed repair attempt in the description.

I would image he's pissed because there's not enough salvageable parts to make a profit on what he paid for the dead machine. But I couldn't tell you why without knowing what was wrong with the machine and what was attempted prior to it being sold

gubble · February 2016

The problem here is eBay and their own set of rules. I've only ever had one dealing with them and it ended with me loosing (very unfairly).

In this particular scenario if it was a commercial dispute (without ebay) I would stake my reputation that I would be able to win this if it ever came to court. Here's why:

You state the item as being broken and for spares and repairs. This implies the item does not work and will not arrive in a working condition.
Has someone been inside the item before? You've certainly not but cannot guarantee some has previously to you. If the word broken did appear in the description this would imply that the item is not in the same condition as it left the factory. I'd fully expect this to mean any special seals to be broken. It's right there in the description.
Can he prove someone was inside the item before he delved in? Did he full photograph or video the item being unpackaged and immediately showing the evidence to suggest the seals have been broken before? I highly doubt it.
The customer has opened the item up himself. As previously stated has he followed the correct manufacturers procedures for opening up an apple laptop? I doubt it. Therefore any further damage could in theory have been caused by him.

This in my head is a no brainer. I'd fight the cause. in a nutshell you sold a broken and non working item. If the seals have been broken so what? If something is being sold as spares/repairs most people would expect someone to have it checked over to see if it's economical for them to repair.

Stand your ground !

boogieman · February 2016

Is this "greasy substance" inside something that normally happens with a buggered Mac? (I know sweet FA about these things). Or is it something he's caused by trying to fix it? Or is he threatening to send it back with something nasty inside because he can't have a partial refund?

benmurray85 · February 2016

@gubble please have a wisdom. thank you very much, a very clear concise place for me to start my argument should it go his way.

@boogieman I get the feeling that the "greasy substance" is a threat to "prove" that I have been dabbling. We shall see

boogieman · February 2016

Hmmm. I know eBay is a law unto itself on who it sides with in a dispute, which is one of the reasons I've never used it, but I can't see how any reasonable person wouldn't take your side. He bought it knowing it was faulty/broken. Now he's complaining it's not faulty/ broken in the right sort of way. He's in business, he obviously thought it was an easy fix and could turn it round quickly. Not sure how you can tell theses things without actually looking at it first, but that's HIS problem not yours. The guy is a gold plated dick.

Danny1969 · February 2016

The only thing he can be referring to in terms of greasy substance is either thermal paste applied too liberally under the heatsink or at some point a chip has been reballed and the flux not cleaned off after ....... meaning the boards been repaired before and unlikely to survive another repair. I don't know what Macbook you had but many had issues with the GPU BGA chips

The trouble is on Ebay these days you have people seeking out faulty laptops and phones to act as a donor for spare parts that you simply cannot buy ...... and you have people building what is known in the trade as basket case machines and selling them on Ebay as faulty. These machine's are made up of all faulty parts, you buy the machine, fix the board and find the screen has no backlight. You fix that, go to load it and find the optical drive doesn't work. You then realize someone in the trade has kept all the faulty parts from other jobs and built a complete machine out of them. I've had machines where even the ram and wifi card were faulty as well as the mainboard, screen and drives.

Sadly Ebay just side with the buyer these days no matter what

axisus · February 2016

I don't sell on eBay, but could this issue be avoided if you refused to use PayPal, so that they couldn't 'reclaim' the money? Or are you somehow tied into offering Paypal?

randomhandclaps · February 2016

benmurray85 said:

The laptop sold for £110 and he asked for 30-40 quid partial refund to make it worthwhile selling on.

Did he do this verbally or in writing? How does this make any sense from his point of view. If his issue is that it has supposedly been opened and as such just unusable and unsalvageable junk then how does he intend to sell it on? Even if he sold it on for the rock bottom £70, that's still a lot of money for a doorstop.

Sorry for your hassle. The guy is clearly full of shit and people like this screw up the system for everyone.

Slightly different but a few years back we were struggling a bit financial but really needed a new printer for work. I bought a supposedly 'refurbished' printer off of a business seller on eBay. When it arrived it had no inner workings. When I contacted the guy he just basically laughed and said that there was nothing I could do and looking into it he had done it to a good few people. I initially tried to return it under DSR but he refused the delivery leaving me even more out of pocket. I went through eBay and unbelievably they sided with him so I was screwed. As I had his address I went to confront him but he either was not in or pretended not to be. Fortunately, although I was out of pocket I may have successfully managed to return the printer to him through his front window.

Chalky · February 2016

Offer him £30 and save yourself the hassle and further grief. Then treat the £30 as training fee for why not to use Ebay for this stuff. Otherwise you could get a doorstop in return that win't be worth the extra £70-80 you are refunding him. Don't think about him winning, think about minimising your potential loss.

Fatfingers · February 2016

It's certainly true that Ebay tend to side with the buyer, but not always. I sold an iPhone, described as good condition, no scratches or chips. The woman who won the auction complained that in her opinion it wasn't in good condition as it wasn't like a new one. I told her I wasn't prepared to argue about it, asked her to send it back and offered her a full refund. She said she'd think about it as it was for her son and he was away for a week.

I pointed out that I wasn't John Lewis, just a bloke selling an old phone and that I needed it back so I could offer it to the next highest bidder. She refused to send it back and told me never to contact her again. So I opened a case, because I knew what would happen.

Sure enough, she kept the phone and left me stinking feedback. I appealed to eBay, they looked through all the correspondence, in which I'd been nothing but reasonable, and wiped her feedback.

Bogwhoppit · February 2016

I don't see the issue. Take your buyer through the small claims court. I won a case against an ebayer in the small claims court, and so have several friends.

Once your buyer receives notification from money claims online, they will know you're serious. Then take it all the way and hit them for reasonable expense's. Your buyer will have to travel and attend at 'your' local court - another extra expense for them.

CabbageCat · February 2016

When people have a broken machine surely it's fairly normal to have a poke about to try to mend it? Unless the listing specifically said you haven't been inside it (which I would, as a buyer, take to mean no-one has been inside it) then I'm not sure what grounds he has for a refund.

crunchman · February 2016

This story shows why Ebay should never had got rid of negative feedback for buyers. People who pull these kinds of stunts would have got lots of negative feedback in the early days of Ebay and no-one would have let them bid on anything.

axisus said:

I don't sell on eBay, but could this issue be avoided if you refused to use PayPal, so that they couldn't 'reclaim' the money? Or are you somehow tied into offering Paypal?

You are forced (on UK Ebay) to offer Paypal. You cannot post an auction without offering Paypal as an option. Again not always the case but has been the case for several years now.

On the continent (in the Eurozone area) there is a system where you can transfer money for free between banks accounts so Paypal never took off on Ebay there. AFAIK they have not been able to enforce it's use. I contacted a seller over there about buying something once, but he wouldn't accept Paypal. Unfortunately my bank would have charged around £20 to transfer money to him so I didn't bother.

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ebay buyer being an idiot - would appreciate any advice

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