Ot: Ebay issue. what would you do, if you were me?

[JimAnsell]

OK,,I'll be the ass here , If I am reading this correctly, you had a 2" crack that was not photo'd or discussed until he received the guitar and can't believe there is a problem?? And everyone here is backing you?
He deserves his money back. Please correct me if I am wrong in this finding.

here is the best pic i have of the spot, and this is from the listing, and it doesn't even show up because its so small and dark.
its on the body, not the neck. look at some of those other blems, that he is ok with!

to me it looked like checking, it was far too small (1" is more accurate), thin, and clean to be a neck reset job or anything like that.

if the worst case situation is i get the les paul back and have to refund him his purchase price, thats gunna suck financially, but its a great guitar, and he even agreed that it was a great guitar.
the gouges and scratches, and checking that was more clearly pictured were way worse looking, but those are fine to him i guess.
i really think he is just trying to get a few hundo knocked off the original price tag.
thats why i'd rather take it back completely if i have to. i didn't WANT to sell that guitar, i had to.

 

[LP Freak]

Can you post the ebay pictures so we can see them or even the link to the auction.

 

[zewango]

I had one ebay problem since 1998 and it was a dickhead from Germany. Wanted to buy a guitar I was selling, I told him no. Wouldnt ship to Germany. So he used an account with a NJ address and won the ebay auction. Tells me HE would have Fed EX pick up the guitar and take care of shipping. I remind him paypal coverage only works to a confirmed address and that his was in Germany. I wasnt dealing with that, ad clearly was USA only. I tell him to fuck off, he leaves negative feedback. Ebay says nothing they can do about it. Then he threatens to sue me!!!

 

[Chris6870]

I block all buyers that have no PayPal account & that have had any disputes/issues.

How do you do this?

 

[syncrodude007]

I would not pay him anything.

I would offer refund after I rcvd the guitar back in the same condition as it was sent.

x2

 

[steve_k]

The address he gave me was not on his paypal account. The one on his account is in germany.
However, all the messages between us including the one with the address to send it to are logged on ebay.

Once they see you did not ship to the verified address, neither PayPal or eBay will do anything. You are out there on your own now.

 

[BYTOR]

I block all buyers that have no PayPal account & that have had any disputes/issues.

How do you do this?

It's in the options when you are setting up your listing. You can check a box that says they must have a PayPal account & there's another section where you can choose to block buyers for a handful of different reasons.

There around the section where you enter the shipping amount & choose which states & countries of the world to block out.

 

[leib10]

Something similar happened to me. Shipped a Peavey Valveking out and the buyer claimed that the FX loop wasn't working when it arrived. Tried to get me to send extra money for the repairs, but when asked for documentation from an amp tech they disappeared. eBay can be screwy sometimes.

 

[jcm800x4]

I've had a two issues. One FedEx dropped a les paul in shipping...(aparently from the top of a sky scraper.) and damaged the back of the body. not a huge ding but a ding none the less. Dude sent the guitar back. I issued refund and went after FedEx. Got no where...they screwed me. Now I ship UPS only. The other was a golf club of all things. the buyer claimed the face was scratched and I should issue partial refund. I told him to kiss my ass. He went away.

 

[JimAnsell]

he wants $200 to go away basicly.
told me that he "is very experienced with guitars, and its a reglue job that takes the resale value down 20-40%"
he is willing to settle for less than 10%.
of course, ignored my offer to give him a full refund if he sends it back.

 

[LP Freak]

of course, ignored my offer to give him a full refund if he sends it back.

Hint, hint...

The ball in now in your court.

 

[jcm800x4]

of course, ignored my offer to give him a full refund if he sends it back.

Hint, hint...

The ball in now in your court.

Nows the time to tell him good bye!

 

[Norton666]

Full refund and return or go away. There isn't any grey area in there in my opinion.

 

[Anonymous]

not sure if anyone mentioned, but, if i were you, i'd move the money to another paypal account before they freeze it.
and i would unlink your paypal from your cards and bank account.
if need be, you can just start a new paypal account.

otherwise, if he files a paypal complaint, they will freeze your account and if they money isn't in there, they will take it from your bank account.

get your money out first before fucking around with any of this other shit. cover your ass financially.

 

[NOE_1942]

Fuck him. He's trying to scam you.

You disclosed all of the issues the guitar had ahead of time. The two of you agreed to have the guitar shipped to a third party. What happened after that third party received the guitar is his problem. Not yours. When it comes to Selling items on EBAY and maintaining a good "seller feedback rating" you have to realize one thing.... you are basically held to the same standard as a business owner (whether you are or not... that's how people view your feed back rating). In business you can never make %100 of your customers happy.... any "customers" worth doing business with will see that the vast majority of your ratings are positive and will not be deterred by a tiny percentage of negative review(s).

You offered him a full refund.... You did the right thing, you practiced sound ethics, acted in good faith and this guy is still unhappy. Too bad. I wouldn't lose sleep over it. Cover your ass and pull the money out of your PAYPAL account ASAP.

As far as what to say to the guy.... you need to make it clear to him that when you packaged and shipped the guitar, it was in same condition as the the description and photographs you provided. Whatever happened to it after the fact is out of your control and you are not liable for.

 

[JimAnsell]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRTngtsOY8Q

 

[Racerxrated]

I sold a Vintage Modern a few years ago..guy had + feedback. 3 weeks AFTER he gets it he says it's making a "noise". He wants xtra cash to "take care of the problem with his tech". I tell him to get a receipt and get it to me via fax/Pic on his phone and I'll help him out. He says "just send 80 bucks and I'll call it even". I said no, I need proof. He gets mad and files a dispute. I look his past history up on ebay and under his current listings THERE'S MY EXACT AMP for sale!!!! Whole time he says its "unusable". But he still can't produce a receipt saying it's been fixed. I initially lost the dispute and told him to send the amp back..funny thing though..he sold it to someone else and couldn't send it lol..I had the decision reversed in my favor but he was still able to flag me..which is bullshit. Just an asshole trying to blackmail for more cash...

 

[Anonymous]

I sold my beloved 1974 gibson les paul deluxe on ebay about a month ago. The guitar itself was highly modded, had alot of scratches, including a few finish cracks, but no headstock breaks. There was small hairline crack about 1.75" long on the side of the body, near the neck joint. It was literally a hairline sized line that when you ran your thumb nail over it, didn't even catch. it just looked like a finish check. unfortunatly i don't have any photos of it to post.

I listed it to be shipped in the lower 48 as i always do. The guy who hit buy it now (who did not email me first to ask if it was ok) lives in germany. He assured me i would be shipping it to his nephew in atlanta, so i agreed.
I ship the guitar, he emailed me to confirm his nephew got it and was shipping it to him.
So today i get an email from him and he, in broken english, is basicly saying that its a neckjoint crack that has been reglued and its going to effect the resale value. He loved the guitar otherwise, wants to keep it, but "he pay alot", so he thinks i should give him a partial refund for that, but didn't give me any amount or anything.

Now this guitar, like i said, has plenty of scratches, finsh cracks that were clearly pictured (not this one apparantly), and tons of mods, the most notable being the $500 micheal tuttle bestfrets.com ss refret. The only thing stock on this guitar is literally the wood and the tone pots, and hes worried about RESALE VALUE??

so i told him, honestly i didn't and still don't think it was a neck reset job because the crack is so small and clean, so reminencent of your typical finish checking. I also said that the only reason i didn't cancel the transaction and relist is because i was shipping it to a guy in atlanta. I feel like it was his nephew in atlantas job to look over the guitar, communicate with the buyer and make sure they were happy with it before shipping it off to germany. I offered a full refund minus shipping if he sends it back, but i'm not giving you some made up amount for a partial refund because hes worried about reselling it.
Plus since a third party was involved and handled the guitar first, you'd think ebay would be on my side on this one, but i know i can't trust that.

apart from telling them both to fuck off what would you guys do?
i really really really can't afford to refund him anything, and if he calls my bluff on sending the guitar back, i'm gunna have to refund him from a credit card somehow, and its gunna fuck me big time until i can resell it, but to me that makes more sense than giving this guy x amount of money to keep my guitar and go away.

I pride myself on being a good seller, (1441 100% feedback rating) but i feel like hes trying to fuck me here.

The one obvious piece of advice is not to spend the money until the buyer is satisfied with the transaction. Since you violated this bit of common sense, you've done the only thing you can do - tell him you won't provide any partial refund, but that if he isn't satisfied he is welcome to return the guitar and you'll refund 100% (except shipping). You've called his bluff and know you have to see what happens. Never spend the money until the buyer is satisfied, man...

Steve

 

[fluff191]

So how long would that be? Is he supposed to wait a few months to spend the money in case the dude has a problem?

 

[dooredge]

^ I'd say 45 days since the deal was done via PayPal. After that the buyer is d.o.a. if any "issues" should pop up.

It's not realistic to wait 45 days (g.a.s., bills, etc.), but if you want to be 100% sure that'd be the thing to do.