E-bay anger update

[Chippygeoff]

Last week I wrote a post on how I was deceived by an e-bay seller. I wanted to buy an Apple magic mouse for my new computer. You can pay over £60 for one. I found a few sellers on e-bay selling them for around the £39-£40 mark. The seller I selected stated there were 3 in stock and I could have it 3 days later. It finally arrived yesterday. Last night I opened it up but could not get it to work. Rang my son, he asked if I had switched bluetooth on and I said I had but still not working. He said he would come over.

As soon as he saw the mouse he told me it was a fake and not worth even £1, it was not caple of operating with bluetooth so it was no wonder I could not get it working. I am a little in the dark when it comes to sorting out this sort of problem with e-bay but thankfully my son knew what to do. He has contacted the seller and laid down the facts etc. he said the seller should give me an immediate refund but if he doesn't then e-bay will sort it out, I think he said in ten days time, giving the seller ample time to respond.

Had it not been for my son I would not have known I had bought a fake and I wonder how many more people have been ripped off like me. I know there are a lot of fake items on e-bay and it must cause a lot of heart ache for many people.

 

[marcros]

dont worry- you are protected by Paypal and eBay. the problem you may have is having to prove that it is fake, even though you know yourself that it is.

 

[blackrodd]

In a similar situation a while ago, I just said truthfully the item was damaged, broken and not fit for purpose and definitely, therefor, not merchantable quality.
Some of this surely applies to you're case, but be very politely persistent as i had to appeal but won in the end
HTH Regards Rodders

PS I rarely buy from sellers who state no returns, and never from trade sellers who won't stand by there items and
give a 30, 60, or 90 day warranty as in a gearbox where after you have forked out for fitting and then realise it is
just as bad as the original, a very costly situation.

 

[Sporky McGuffin]

I've had pretty good luck on eBay in general; only a couple of bad sellers and they were sorted out by eBay. I generally assume that if the price is too low then it's a fake, unless the seller has a lot of them and they're lightly used - I got a few bits for setting up my home office from office furniture clearance people and all were as described or better for very decent savings.

Some electronic stuff I'd rather just pay the best "full" price I can find, or if it's a significant investment I'll buy from somewhere I trust even if it's not the lowest price I can find.

The other useful thing is to pay with a credit card via Paypal. The credit card company is then also liable for the supply of the goods, and my experience is that they are brutally efficient (or should that be efficiently brutal?) at sorting out dodgy sellers.

 

[RogerP]

Just report it to PayPal or eBay as "significantly not as described" and request your money back.

You'll get it.

 

[scotty38]

No disrespect intended but you don't get 'owt for nowt and these folk prey on people wanting bargains. On such desirable products like Apple stuff I can't help but think things like this are inevitable.
We just bought our youngest one of the new iPads for his 16th and we'd seen them advertised for about £40 less than the Apple shop on Amazon. I paid the £40 extra just to have peace of mind we got a legitimate piece of hardware.

Just to add I'm not saying that any of the cheaper items you've seen are not legitimate just that I always have my suspicions that's all....

 

[Mike.S]

The other useful thing is to pay with a credit card via Paypal. The credit card company is then also liable for the supply of the goods, and my experience is that they are brutally efficient (or should that be efficiently brutal?) at sorting out dodgy sellers.

I believe the first part of that comment isn't correct. To claim (under s.75 Consumer Credit Act) against a seller you need to have paid the seller by credit card directly, not via an online payments service such as Paypal. There's various limitations (e.g. min. £100 cost of goods being purchased) and an essential requirement is that there's an unbroken link between debtor (consumer), creditor (credit card company) and supplier (ebay seller).

When you use your credit card to fund Paypal your contract is with Paypal, so as long as Paypal credit your Paypal account its duty has been fulfilled. The fact that that money is then passed onto a seller is another matter, but breaks the debtor-creditor-supplier link, hence no s.75 CCA claim.

 

[Chippygeoff]

Thought I would let you all know I have had a refund from pay pay and have now ordered the real apple mouse from a well known dealer, paid a few quid more for peace of mind. I will know in future when I need something else. Thanks guys for your comments.

 

[Sporky McGuffin]

The other useful thing is to pay with a credit card via Paypal. The credit card company is then also liable for the supply of the goods, and my experience is that they are brutally efficient (or should that be efficiently brutal?) at sorting out dodgy sellers.

I believe the first part of that comment isn't correct. To claim (under s.75 Consumer Credit Act) against a seller you need to have paid the seller by credit card directly, not via an online payments service such as Paypal. There's various limitations (e.g. min. £100 cost of goods being purchased) and an essential requirement is that there's an unbroken link between debtor (consumer), creditor (credit card company) and supplier (ebay seller).

When you use your credit card to fund Paypal your contract is with Paypal, so as long as Paypal credit your Paypal account its duty has been fulfilled. The fact that that money is then passed onto a seller is another matter, but breaks the debtor-creditor-supplier link, hence no s.75 CCA claim.

Hmm - I'd not thought about that. Certainly when I had a dispute that Paypal wouldn't solve, Amex got straight onto it, but that may be more to do with Amex than the consumer credit act.