eBay deals

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If you use eBay long enough you'll end up with some trouble. I guess the same is true wherever you buy your stuff. Sometimes things go wrong either with shipping or you get a nice DOA. My case is no different, after several good deals I've got a badly broken bycicle headlight (pictured on the left).

As it was a cheap item money was not a big problem, but still you feel you should get a fix, either in the form of a refund or a new item. The problem this time was the seller was not answering my messages. At this point I decided not to let him go without a fight. After 48 hours without an answer and checking in that seller feedback that not answering complains was his standard behaviour I filed a complain with eBay. However, eBay forwarded me to PayPal as the item had been paid using PayPal.

I thought that although I might not get the money back I would be educating the seller as I was guessing PayPal (through which he gets most of the payments) would force him to at least provide an answer to my complaint. After two more days I escalated my complaint to dispute, asking PayPal to mediate to get it fixed.

I was amazed when only two days later I've got a message from PayPal telling me a full refund was on its way. I was even more surprised because I've offered an slightly lower amount of money for happily settling my claim (as I thought getting a partial refund was better than nothing). After checking on my PayPal account I learned that it was the seller who actually refunded my money.

So then I was faced with the moral dilemma of what to do about the item feedback. I was tempted to leave negative feedback as I was not happy with the seller behaviour, but although it took me more than one hour to go through all the steps, the seller utimately did the right thing, so I am leaving positive feedback after all (and I hope he'll do the same for me, but I won't hold my breath).

And now, I think I'll stop by the bycicle shop to get a new byclicle headlight.

Comments

Anonymous said…
You're lucky, you got a good seller who was honest enough to give you a refund. I think by and large most sellers are honest, but the bad apples really spoil it for the rest of us, don't they? Like you, most of my experiences on ebay have been good, but the bad ones can be quite frustrating. I think you did the right thing by leaving positive feedback.

Jeff
http://www.lastminuteauctionbargains.com
6:31 pm
misan said…
Hi Jeff,

Actually I was not getting any feedback from that seller. And I only got refunded because I filed a PayPal complaint (as any other contact attempt got unanswered).
1:32 pm
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