I just sold a Quad II monoblock on ebay for £260.00 (no valves involved). I sent it via courier (fully insured) the other day but it arrived with a sizable dent on the lip of the power transformer. His pics sent to me below. Naturally he's contacted me and asked "...how can we resolve this". I haven't replied yet, but I assume by the fact he hasn't asked me outright for a return/refund that the amp probably still works fine and he's keen to keep it. What would you do in this situation?
Naturally I'm happy to offer a full refund on return, or he can keep the amp and I'll recompense him the money I claim from the courier company. Just wondering how you guys, with more experience of this than me, would play this out? Any tips/warnings? Especially when dealing with the courier company.
It depends on the company. Parcelforce and Royal Mail are crooks, they use anything they can to get out of paying out on insurance, they have never paid out in three attemps with them. Interparcel have always paid out on claim though it takes one month from them agreeing to pay you before the cheque arrives. Also Interparcel will arrange for the item to be picked up and returned to you at no cost. That is why I always use them, I have had about 20 claims up to now, and one about to go through.
So I would get the item back, refund the customer, get your insurance payout, use some or all of the money to repair or improve on the Quad and then sell it again.
The first thing you need to do is ask yourself if the damage is actually plausible considering the way you packed it. It's not unknown for people to damage things themselves to get a discount, I've had a run in with one of them myself. Secondly (and obviously too late now) take photos yourself before sending anything like this, and make sure you include one showing the serial number. You can then ask the recipient to show photographs of the damage that also show the serial number if possible. Obviously that's not going to work every time and a sensible con merchant will damage the item well away from any distinguishing features, but it costs you nothing other than a few seconds with your camera/phone/tablet/whatever.
Another good indicator is asking if he'd like to return it for a full refund (as long as you're prepared to do this of course) and if he keeps saying no, it's fine, he'll keep it and just wants a discount, then that would also set my alarm bells ringing.
Not everyone's a scammer of course and 99.9% of my eBay transactions have been absolutely fine, but it can pay you not to give in straight away and err on the side of caution.
See, if I'd got a duff old monoblock, or just the case even, and I wanted a nice shiny new(ish) one, what could be easier than buying yours and sending you back a photo of my old piece of crap.
The guy's probably genuine, but I'm a nasty suspicious bugger these days.
Amps - NVA P50, AP30, A40, Stanislav Palo Tube Headphone Amp BB 85 Speakers - Monitor Audio Silver RX2 Cables - NVA LS1+LS3, SSC, Gotham S/PDIF, IBRA Optical Digital - NAD C516BEE, SONY ST-SDB900 DAB TUNER, TEAC UD-H01 DAC Analogue - Pro-Ject Debut Carbon Esprit SB, Graham Slee Gram Amp 2 Phono Cans - Grado SR80, ATH-M50X
Dr Bunsen Honeydew wrote:It depends on the company. Parcelforce and Royal Mail are crooks, they use anything they can to get out of paying out on insurance, they have never paid out in three attemps with them. Interparcel have always paid out on claim though it takes one month from them agreeing to pay you before the cheque arrives. Also Interparcel will arrange for the item to be picked up and returned to you at no cost. That is why I always use them, I have had about 20 claims up to now, and one about to go through.
So I would get the item back, refund the customer, get your insurance payout, use some or all of the money to repair or improve on the Quad and then sell it again.
Here speaks the voice of experience and fairness to customers. I'd apologise and ask for the item to be returned and offer a full refund. Hopefully, you've used interparcel and then there's no further cost to anyone.
BTW did you get any pictures of the item as it arrived packaged?
Like slinger I tend to be cynical in nature. I'm not overly impressed with the dingy, low rez images he's sent me but if you see the image I used below for the listing there's a notable blemish on the transformer that may correlate to his photos. He didn't send me any pics of the damaged box.
I thought I'd packed it reasonably well, I'm not usually slack about that kind of thing. Christ, you'd have to go some to put a dent in a Quad II but at the same time it's very heavy I guess.
At first I wasn't adverse to asking him if he wanted to keep it and what kind of discount he wanted. But I'd be reliant on him providing decent photos/info for the courier claim, etc, and I don't see that playing out well. It seems the consensus here is I should get it returned and refunded. What kind of compensation should I be trying for? I guess there's probably no fix involved other than changing the transformer and you wouldn't really do that if it's working ok. And I guess I'll have to pay for the return postage
Btw, I know how crap RM/Parcelforce can be, they've tried to avoid pay outs for lost vinyl in the past. I used Parcel2go - a company called 'DX'
"I use parcel to go", well best of luck then. I have had bad reports of them, so I wouldn't use them. Go for the full amount you put on the insurance when you booked the carriage.
Parcel2go are nowhere near as good as interparcel. You should still be able to claim successfully, but you really have to hound them to actually pay you.
I don't use them now, precisely because of the hassles I've had getting payouts from them, even though the actual courier has settled the claim with them. They also try to wriggle out of processing claims not submitted immediately and IME they make life difficult asking for more evidence than is reasonable.
Interparcel are in a different league and they offer the same range of services at comparable prices. To me it's a no-brainer.
PS. "No-brainer" reminded me of another gripe with P2G. It happens to be a perfect description of their live chat operators!
