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' Evening All!

 

We recently bought a second hand laptop on eBay and paid for it through PayPal.

 

The machine was sold with the following description:-

 

Item specifics - PC LaptopsBrand: HPCondition: UsedProcessor Speed: 2.2 GHzProcessor Type: Intel Pentium 4-MHard Drive Capacity: 40 GBMemory (RAM): 256 MBScreen Size: 15 inchesPrimary Drive: DVD-ROM/CD-RW ComboFeatures: 10/100 LAN Card, Carrying Case, Modem, Operating System, USB

[Make and Model] Laptop with carry case and Windows XP Pro. Used machine but in good working order

It quickly became apparent that the battery was completely dead so we had to get a new one. We contacted the seller and asked him to refund the cost. He said no. We made a claim through PayPal and have heard today that if we send the machine back they'll refund us less post & packaging.

 

If we send it back we will be left with a £60+ battery that's of no use without the machine, countless hours of installing hardware and software, etc etc PLUS around £50.00 in postage (to us and to return to vendor).

 

We have politely asked the vendor to reimburse us for the battery. If he still refuses we'd prefer to pursue this through the small claims court than return the laptop (for the reasons above) BUT we don't have his full address. We've asked eBay for his contact information (at the beginning of this saga) but this only gave us part of his address (name & town) without the postcode and his landline. Any suggestions?

My posts are offered informally, without prejudice and without liability. You should seek the advice of a qualified insured professional.

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OK, bear with me as I'm useless at explaining these things and I'll bet there's a simpler way than I'm about to tell you but here goes.

 

You need to go to the 'MyWorld' screen for the seller. This is the one you get if you click to check their feedback. On the left hand side you will see

 

Items for sale

Add to favourite sellers

Contact member

 

If you click on the contact member link and fill in the online form ebay will email you their contact details because you have recently traded with them. They will also be sent an email with your contact details but it shouldn't be a problem as they have your address already.

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Thanks hightail but we've already asked eBay for his contact information. They give you the partial address - his name and the town he lives in - but not the full address. It also gives his phone number but when we called him before he just slammed down the receiver.

 

BTW - I tried your way just in case it gave more info but it's just the way to send an email directly to the seller.

My posts are offered informally, without prejudice and without liability. You should seek the advice of a qualified insured professional.

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Have you tried 192.com. If you have a name, phone number and a partial address you've got a good chance on any of those sort of sites.

 

Great idea, thanks.

 

Just tried it but drawn a blank.

My posts are offered informally, without prejudice and without liability. You should seek the advice of a qualified insured professional.

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I do have the email "You've won this item..." but it only has the same information as I got when I asked eBay for his contact details - i.e. his name, his town. No house name/number, no street, no postcode. :(

My posts are offered informally, without prejudice and without liability. You should seek the advice of a qualified insured professional.

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OMG I AM SUCH A FOOL....

 

I've just been looking at the email from PayPal, the one saying "send it back and we'll refund" because I was thinking maybe I should ring PayPal and explain that all we want is the refund for the battery (around £60) as that'll leave us less out of pocket than if we send the machine back (unusable battery, postage x 2, diagnostic at PC World total cost around £120) and there, at the bottom, is the seller's full address.

 

Doooooh!

 

Now we have a bit more negotiating power with this vendor than I thought.

 

If he comes back with another rude email we'll send him a polite message along the lines of

 

"look matey, either cough up for the battery or we'll take you to small claims for the battery, the PC World diagnostic PLUS the lack of DVD decoder which we only found out about yesterday when our daughter said she couldn't play a DVD on the machine... and that, plus court fees, will be a heck of a lot more expensive than accepting our kind offer of just paying for the battery."

My posts are offered informally, without prejudice and without liability. You should seek the advice of a qualified insured professional.

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Hi

Do you mind if i ask what the p.c. cost you on ebay.

 

I,m going to play devils advocate here:

 

1. Why did you not just demand your money back stating the item was not as described?

 

2. Why did you not inform the seller that you want a refund or a partial refund for the cost of a new battery BEFORE you bought the new battery.

 

I am not taking sides here but i do feel these questions should be asked before people give you advice.

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I have to agree to where'smyhairgone. ok the seller sold you a duff laptop, but he didn't make you go out and buy another battery. You should've gone through paypal to get a refund before you did this. He is under no obligation to re-imburse you for the battery, but you have every right to get your money back for the laptop because his advert said good working order, when it blatantly isn't

 

Sorry to sound negative about it, but hope you can sort something out.

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In answer to wheresmyhairgone

 

Total cost approx £190 inc £25 p&p.

1. Because we'd loaded up programmes etc by the time we realised it was faulty.

2. We did ask the vendor to pay for the new battery before we bought it. He said "take a hike, I'm not paying".

 

We bought it for our 12 year old. She opened the package. We loaded up our brand new Windows Office onto it / got her online / installed antivirus etc etc etc - and that entails several hours work.

 

We then realised the battery wasn't charging so we wrote to the vendor and asked him to pay for the battery (we did this this straightaway. The problem with eBay is, if there's a problem with something you've bought and you have to return it you have to pay the P&P both ways - so we would have been £50 out of pocket with nothing to show for it). The vendor said "take a hike you bought a used machine I'm not paying nuffink". So we asked PayPal to intervene as we thought we should be refunded the cost of the battery.

 

We also had it's memory increased as it was too small and got it checked over by PC World.

 

Meanwhile our daughter has installed more programmes etc / got the machine as she wants it.

 

PayPal have now said return the machine.

 

If we do:-

We will have paid the postage to us and will not be reimbursed.

We will lose the battery cost - because it's specific to the machine.

We will have to remove the additional memory.

We will have to uninstall Windows Office.

We will have to pay the return postage.

etc etc

 

We, probably wrongly, thought that if part of the machine was broken and it could be fixed then the vendor should cough up for getting the machine up and running - a bit like buying a car and finding the battery didn't work on that. That's what we would have done as vendors and how vendors used to behave on eBay...

Edited by bottomburp
additional info

My posts are offered informally, without prejudice and without liability. You should seek the advice of a qualified insured professional.

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We have received two emails from the vendor today. The first says that he is going to report us to the police for theft - I'd love to be a fly on the wall when he does that! How can someone be accused of stealing when they have paid the full price?

 

He then emailed saying he had spoken to his solicitor who said that we had to return the laptop as PauPal have offered a resolution (ie said return it and we will refund you) but as stated earlier this will result is a huge loss to us.

 

I have now spoken to Consumer Direct who have confirmed that the vendor is in breach of The Sale of Goods Act. We have sent him yet another email informing him that we shall be seeking the refund of consequential losses incurred because of faulty goods and suggesting that it will be in his best interests to settle, not least because of his refusal to negotiate (which will not look good in court) and also because he will be left with several hundred pounds of debt.

My posts are offered informally, without prejudice and without liability. You should seek the advice of a qualified insured professional.

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Just my 2p worth, but as ebay seem intent on filling their site with nothing but traders rather than private sellers these days, then if he is a trader you may have more come back. As usual, it looks as if ebay has washed their hands of the whole thing, using the fact that traders are covered by laws that mean they don't have to get involved. HOWEVER, if the seller was a private seller, then you will probably find it is a case of Caveat Emptor (Let the buyer beware) and you will have very few rights.

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In response to noomill060 I think he's a private seller, he's listed under his name not "trading as" or "Ltd" or "partner" or "& Co" or similar.

 

In response to Mrs E Blackadder it's not eBay who have intervened, it's PayPal (though I know they are the same group). I telephoned PayPal yesterday and said we just want a refund for the battery because if we have to send the laptop back we will be substantially out of pocket financially and timewise. PayPal said if the vendor refuses to a partial refund then we can't make him! But he's refused any sort of refund, it's PayPal who have decided on a full refund...so why can't they decide to give a partial refund? Apparently PayPal have frozen the vendor's account which won't improve his frame of mind. I have asked to speak to a PayPal manager and am waiting for their call to see if we can get a partial refund sorted.

 

Consumer Direct said "he has to comply with two things:-

1. The goods have to be his to sell and

2. The goods have to be as described

And as the laptop was described as "used machine but in good working order" he is in breach of point 2."

They went on to say

 

"Write to him telling him you have suffered consequential losses because the goods were faulty."

So it seems I do have a leg (or two) to stand on.

 

I've sent him another email suggesting he pays for the battery now or we'll commence proceedings. I've given him an idea of the costs that'll be run up if we have to go that route - legal fees, expenses, the cost of the additional repairs that we'd be prepared to "forget" if he pays for the battery without the need for legal action etc. It seems to me that he's biting off his nose to spite his face.

My posts are offered informally, without prejudice and without liability. You should seek the advice of a qualified insured professional.

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If Paypal have found in your favour and said to return the laptop for a refund; you will be refunded the whole of your original payment (item cost + p&p).

 

IF you decide to return the laptop make sure that you send it by an online trackable method. You'll only get the cost of this back if the seller decides to refund this to you voluntarily (which would obviously be very unlikely).

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Mariefab - thank you for this.

 

If we send it back we'll end up having to pay the return delivery cost (approx £25), the battery which is of no use unless you have the laptop (around £60), we will have to uninstall (if we can even do it ourselves) all the programmes we have spent hours and hours installing and this includes a brand new version of Office XP, we'll have to remove the additional RAM we've had installed etc etc.

 

Once we've sent it back we will have no machine and no refund until the vendor agrees it was sent back in the original condition - and having seen the way he behaves he's extremely likely to say it is not in the "original condition" ie has changed since he sent it to us / got broken in the post / refuses to sign for it so it gets returned to us and we have to send it again (that happened on something else and we had to pay for recorded delivery twice!)

 

So sending it back is not an viable option for us as it will leave us substantially out of pocket.

My posts are offered informally, without prejudice and without liability. You should seek the advice of a qualified insured professional.

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Mariefab - thank you for this.

 

If we send it back we'll end up having to pay the return delivery cost (approx £25), the battery which is of no use unless you have the laptop (around £60), we will have to uninstall (if we can even do it ourselves) all the programmes we have spent hours and hours installing and this includes a brand new version of Office XP, we'll have to remove the additional RAM we've had installed etc etc.

 

Once we've sent it back we will have no machine and no refund until the vendor agrees it was sent back in the original condition - and having seen the way he behaves he's extremely likely to say it is not in the "original condition" ie has changed since he sent it to us / got broken in the post / refuses to sign for it so it gets returned to us and we have to send it again (that happened on something else and we had to pay for recorded delivery twice!)

 

So sending it back is not an viable option for us as it will leave us substantially out of pocket.

 

Although I sympathise with you, you do seem to be making a mountain out of a molehill, £25 postage is a lot of money, you can send stuff securely for a lot lot less, for example I sent a whole desktop PC for just over £10 recently by courier, you could just go out and buy a new battery for it, shouldnt be that expensive, also the bit about loading software is a bit much, putting on office and anti-virus etc would only take 40 mins or so max not a huge loss.

 

It certainly isnt the sellers fault that youve bought various new software and hardware, paypal have reached a resolution in this case but you dont appear to want to comply with that either.

 

As the seller pointed out it was a second hand laptop and the batteries on these do naturally get worse and worse untill eventually they do die, this of course doesnt excuse the fact that the seller knew full wel;l it wasnt working and implied it was perfect in the listing.

 

Buying and selling on ebay isnt perfect, I've made loses and been scammed over the years but sometimes you have to grin and bear it, quite clearly you are always taking a risk when buying second hand goods.

 

Andy

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Hi bottomburp or anyone.

Total cost approx £190 inc £25 p&p.

 

Been cheaper to buy a new one with a G/tee. lol

 

be carefull buying electrical goods of any sort from ebay, always ask your seller about what is right and wrong with the item as it may not be in the desription, listing but it sould be (always do this though ask seller a Q) this way ebay have a copy of what you have asked atleast if it not right you claim you money back before spending out on it.

i know it's not right but theres always [problematic] no matter what it is.

Edited by Like-Im-Being-Ripped-Off

My advice is based on my opinion and my experience. It is not to be taken as legal advice as I am not legally qualified

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Although I sympathise with you, you do seem to be making a mountain out of a molehill, £25 postage is a lot of money, you can send stuff securely for a lot lot less, for example I sent a whole desktop PC for just over £10 recently by courier, you could just go out and buy a new battery for it, shouldnt be that expensive, also the bit about loading software is a bit much, putting on office and anti-virus etc would only take 40 mins or so max not a huge loss.

 

It certainly isnt the sellers fault that youve bought various new software and hardware, paypal have reached a resolution in this case but you dont appear to want to comply with that either.

 

As the seller pointed out it was a second hand laptop and the batteries on these do naturally get worse and worse untill eventually they do die, this of course doesnt excuse the fact that the seller knew full wel;l it wasnt working and implied it was perfect in the listing.

 

Buying and selling on ebay isnt perfect, I've made loses and been scammed over the years but sometimes you have to grin and bear it, quite clearly you are always taking a risk when buying second hand goods.

 

Andy

 

I have explained the situation, I thought quite clearly. May I suggest you read the whole thread, particularly my posts, before making comments?

 

We have bought the battery. It cost around £60. If we send back the laptop we will be left with a battery that is of no use to us this means we will be out of pocket for the cost of the battery. Have I made that clear to you now?

 

I totally agree it isn't the seller's fault that we've loaded the software. Unfortunately we'd loaded the software BEFORE we realised the machine was faulty. It's quite hard for a non-tekkie to check a computer to see if it runs OK when it's only got the basic operating system installed. It is, however, his fault that the machine he sold was faulty.

 

You may take 40 minutes to load the software, perhaps you're more of a tekkie than I am - but it took us considerably longer to load the programmes. Office / Anti-virus (dowload from web) / internet access etc.

My posts are offered informally, without prejudice and without liability. You should seek the advice of a qualified insured professional.

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You are, indeed, in an unenviable position.

 

Unfortunately for you, the eBay/Paypal buyer protection for an item not as described works best when the problem is immediately apparent on receipt.

 

I think that it's very unlikely that you'll be able to persuade Paypal to give you a partial refund.

 

However, last year I bought something on eBay (£15ish) that turned out to be a piece of absloute tat. The seller refused to refund. I could have used a Paypal dispute but it would have cost me about £7 to return it.

So, I just left negative feedback and 4 x 1*DSRs.

 

A few days later eBay emailed me asking me to phone them and when I did they said that they were very sorry that I was disappointed and would I please accept a £20 voucher.:D

If, like me, you buy loads of stuff on eBay you might get the same sort of result.

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We have bought the battery. It cost around £60. If we send back the laptop we will be left with a battery that is of no use to us this means we will be out of pocket for the cost of the battery.

 

Unfortunately you shouldn't have done so. You bought a laptop that Paypal have agreed was 'significantly not as described'. The only remedy Paypal offer for this is to return the goods and get a refund. You chose to go ahead and attempt a repair and make modifications before completing a dispute through the established channels. You are required to send the goods back to the seller in the same condition they were sent to you so you will have to replace the original battery and remove any software you loaded. I'm afraid those are the rules you sign up to with ebay and Paypal.

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Unfortunately you shouldn't have done so. You bought a laptop that Paypal have agreed was 'significantly not as described'. The only remedy Paypal offer for this is to return the goods and get a refund. You chose to go ahead and attempt a repair and make modifications before completing a dispute through the established channels. You are required to send the goods back to the seller in the same condition they were sent to you so you will have to replace the original battery and remove any software you loaded. I'm afraid those are the rules you sign up to with ebay and Paypal.

 

That's why we have asked the vendor, again, to refund the cost of the battery and if he doesn't we'll pursue him for the battery through the small claims court and include the lack of DVD decoder, the cost of the summons and our legal fees. All in all it'll probably cost him well over £500. So he's a fool not to settle as offered, especially as we've said we'll "overlook" the other problems if he does.

My posts are offered informally, without prejudice and without liability. You should seek the advice of a qualified insured professional.

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If you take him to court then he will offer a pound a month.

as pointed out just send the item back and cut your losses and sell the battery and memory on ebay, atleast you get some money back and then go and buy a new laptop with G'tee and thats that....:cool:

My advice is based on my opinion and my experience. It is not to be taken as legal advice as I am not legally qualified

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Like Im-Being-Ripped-Off

 

And if I send it back he may well do what another person did when we had to return something and refuse to accept delivery "I must have been out and they didn't leave a note to say they'd tried to deliver". So we ended up having to pay twice to return the darned thing.

 

Thanks for your input but I won't be returning the laptop as I'll my loses will be considerably bigger if I do than if I pursue him through the courts. I'll go for an attachment to earnings if necessary.

My posts are offered informally, without prejudice and without liability. You should seek the advice of a qualified insured professional.

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