eBay refunds and 'as is' items. What would you do?

What would you do?

  • Refund.

    Votes: 14 60.9%

  • Hardball.

    Votes: 7 30.4%

  • Something else (please specify!)

    Votes: 2 8.7%
  • Total voters
    23
S

Skittled

New member
Oct 16, 2007
84
0
0
I sold some camera gear on eBay recently and the buyer is claiming it's not working properly (Specifically, it's an old Canon FD prime lens that apparently doesn't focus properly). He hasn't asked for a refund yet, but I can see it coming.

I know how I'd like to be treated if I were the buyer in this case, so I'm torn between wanting to be a good 'citizen' and refunding (he pays postage of course), and saying "screw you, it was marked 'as is': this is what you get for buying on eBay".

As said, I listed it 'as is' and made no claims about the functioning of the item -- only described its outward/obvious appearance. I didn't have an old camera body to test it with so didn't say anything in the description about whether it was actually functional or not (Stupidly, I didn't say it was 'not tested' -- I usually do this but forgot this time. Advice for anyone selling old shit on eBay: make sure you cover your ass and specify what you do and what you don't know).

What would you do? Refund or play hardball? Something else?
 


I sold my old HTC Diamond on ebay recently since I bought an iPhone... it was in perfect working condition for 11 months. Buyer got it for $356, the day he receives it he emails me saying it is rebooting every 30 seconds and running the first time use thing windows mobile does when you first turn it on. He wants a refund of course because he has 'lost all confidence in it', and I'm going to have to give it to him because I didn't put a return policy or anything like that.

I'll just flash a new rom on it because that is most likely the problem and sell it again, no biggie. I don't want people kicking my door down over an ebay dispute, you never know who the buyer might be.
 
guerilla said:
How much money we talking about? Ballpark...
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A little over AUD$100. Pretty reasonable (From a sellers' perspective) price for this lens, but about what I was expecting when I picked it up.

johnmatrix said:
I don't want people kicking my door down over an ebay dispute, you never know who the buyer might be.
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Yep, that's another consideration. Lesson number 2 from this: never put return addresses on packages.
 
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Skittled said:
A little over AUD$100. Pretty reasonable (From a sellers' perspective) price for this lens, but about what I was expecting when I picked it up.
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For that much money, I might eat it. The time spent pissing around about avoiding a refund is going to cost you time, and time is money.
 
Skittled said:
Yep, that's another consideration. Lesson number 2 from this: never put return addresses on packages.
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It's not just on the package, they can get it from eBay or Paypal too... so that's not really the solution. Only way is to have a PO Box, dunno what you call it in america but its a mailbox located at the post office that is basically anonymous.

It's funny because I own an online store which I sell jewellery items on, I've sold about 600 things, never had an angry customer and in a years time I have only issued about 10 refunds. I sell one thing on eBay and I get fucked over.
 
This is a gray area, because the customer bought it "as is" and you only described a cosmetic problem, and not with the actual usability of the item. They can pursue a refund via Paypal, so this could evolve into a real headache.

I'd offer some kind of compensation, a percentage of the sale back to the customer to settle the problem. You have to do something if they start making noise, in spite of the "as is" agreement, because buyers have a lot of power now to smack sellers around.

I was around for the ebay good old days, which are long gone. Now it's a big headache and I sell there only as a last resort.
 
Skittled said:
As said, I listed it 'as is' and made no claims about the functioning of the item -- only described its outward/obvious appearance. I didn't have an old camera body to test it with so didn't say anything in the description about whether it was actually functional or not (Stupidly, I didn't say it was 'not tested' -- I usually do this but forgot this time.
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If I was buying a lens and the seller didn't specifically state that it hadn't been tested I'd be asking questions personally. However, if I were the buyer in this case I would expect it to be working. I'd refund him and take it back, see if you can find out and fix what the problem is and relist it. If you can't fix it, eat the loss. Selling broken camera gear on ebay is weak.

Not putting a return address on the package is bullshit for a number of reasons.
 
FD lenses are manual focus anyway, so what's he trying to do with it?

I had to refund 2 items - one was an Aliens DVD box set because the 3rd disc had DVD rot. The other was a Nokia camera. This was when they were just putting cameras with phones and you couldn't yet buy a camera built into a phone, you used to get an external camera that attached via a cable. The res was shit (640x480) and some dude bought it for top dollar (well, 65 pounds), and then I'm sure got buyers remorse because he said it didnt work and he wanted a refund. I refunded the money, got it back and it worked perfectly. Bastard.
 
Well your not letting him keep the item are you? Ask him to send it back, once you get it back refund his money. Then just relist the item on ebay with your "as is" "not tested" description and sell it to someone else.
 
I'll say it again, selling broken camera gear on ebay is lame. You got $100 for it because it was assumed that it was working. I bet you don't get $10 if you clearly list it as "not functioning properly" or "needs repairs" (which you now know, so saying anything else would be a lie).
 
Yeah don't be a douche, give him his money back. Make him ship it back to you of course, at his expense.

Did you know it was broken? Could have been damaged in transit....
 
Give him a refund. If you didn't know for sure that it was working you should have said that on the page.
 
It's reassuring that more people said 'refund' than I expected. I (mostly) agree with everything everyone's said, but Fatbat hit the nail on the head: there's a massive price difference between 'working' and 'broken'/'unknown' camera gear, which is the main driver for a refund, and my willingness to refund.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts and advice. I was oscillating between the two --in BlueYonder's words, it's a grey area-- but you've tipped me over to the refund direction. Now I wonder if that's what the buyer wants... :)
 
johnmatrix said:
It's not just on the package, they can get it from eBay or Paypal too... so that's not really the solution. Only way is to have a PO Box, dunno what you call it in america but its a mailbox located at the post office that is basically anonymous.
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It's also called a PO Box over here in the States.
 
I shipped a power amp to Australia once, which the buyer paid a little over 2 grand for. The post office wouldn't let me insure for that much, stating that I needed to show documentation proving the value of the unit. Since I was too lazy to go home and print an invoice, I just got the maximum $300 insurance.

Sure enough, the buyer contacted me and said that a piece of the mounting bracket thing on the back had broken off during transit and he was having trouble getting it to work. I explained to him that I was too lazy to fully insure it but he could claim the $300 if he wanted.

Luckily I never heard from him again.
 
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