Hello fellow Clutchfans, I recently purchased a service to repair a broken digitizer for my dad's cell phone off of ebay (obviously, my first mistake). I contacted the seller before buying and asked him if he could replace the housing while he was at it since he was taking apart the entire phone anyway. The BRAND NEW housing cost me $31. I also offered to pay for shipping both ways, providing him a prepaid UPS label as long as he refunded the $6 shipping charge that was listed. The seller was agreeable to these terms. I went ahead and made the transaction. I shipped the phone (in working condition, only with a broken digitizer), new housing, and prepaid UPS label to him. A couple of days after he received it, I got an email from him saying that there was an issue with the repair and that he damaged my motherboard (broke one of the ribbons). He said he would replace the board with a brand new one. I was a bit upset by this because my phone was rooted, but luckily I had a nandroid backup of it. He offered to root the new one and to flash a ROM of my choice. I told him that's fine, please proceed with the repairs. So I finally receive the phone back a few days afterwards, and when I open it I am immediately ticked off by what I saw. Not only was it completely scratched around the bezel, but there were scuffs all around what was supposed to be my new housing. I also noticed lint, debris and fingerprints UNDERNEATH the digitizer glass! When I went to power it on, it was not rooted and it did not have the ROM I requested be put on it (CM 7.2). After I calmed down, I sent him a polite, 4-page email documenting everything that went wrong in the repair, including pictures. I told him that I wanted to work things out because as a seller with a 100% rating, I was sure that it was just an honest mistake. His response on 1/11/13 "Sorry about all this. Explain what you want done and lets fix this. All free of charge. Sorry about the lack of quailty." I responded back on 1/14 saying I want to send back the phone but I wanted him to order a new housing to replace the one that he damaged, and to take his time with this repair. Again, I offered to pay for shipping both ways so that he would not have to cover the costs. He replies back days later on 1/18 "Thats fine" I email him on 1/21 telling him to let me know once he receives the new housing so that I may send him the phone for re-repair. No resposne. I email him again on 1/30 to follow up on ordering the parts. Still no response. I email him a final time on 2/5. No response. Time to open a dispute with PayPal. My resolution that I wanted to come to was a refund of the price of the housing as well as the $6 shipping that he never refunded to me. I no longer trusted this seller and would not be shipping the phone back for re-repair in fear of retaliation. Only after I opened the dispute on 2/14 does he decide to respond no more than a couple hours later. And his response? "You open up a case on something that is not right. You can have refund i will send you new casing. But i will need my parts that i gave you already back. Which includes fully working motherboard and touch screen. I didn't have to give you the motherboard but i did for free so i will need the parts i spent money on back" WTF???? I can understand him wanting the screen back, that's no problem. But the motherboard that he "didn't have to give" me? I'm sorry, but he DAMAGED my original motherboard in his crappy repair job, why should I give him a working one back? I work in IT and I know that if I were to damage a customer's part while doing a repair, I will pay for a replacement and eat the cost. It's all part of customer service. Sometimes, you just have to take a loss to make sure they're satisfied. I would rather lose a minimal amount on costs than to completely lose the patronage of a customer. So if I'm reading this correctly, he will send me a "new casing" (which given his shady reputation already could be a used one) + refund the money charged for the repair. If that's the case, then yes, it would be fair that I send back his new digitizer. However, if I send back the motherboard I am now left with a phone that is in LESS working condition than when I sent it out. Does that make any sense to anyone? He kept my original housing (which was still in decent condition) and my original broken digitizer (which was broken but still functional). I bet he's already discarded those parts. I had to ask him to send me back my original board so that I could destroy it and ensure no sensitive data was left on there. It should be noted that he responded via eBay's messaging system, not through PayPal's resolution center. It seems like he does not want any communications that involve this dispute to be documented in their system. I started to angrily respond back to him, but discarded my draft because I know I must be careful with my next move. The options I know I have at this moment: A) Accept refund offer + new casing, return digitizer but keep motherboard B) If he insists on getting the motherboard back, refuse offer and escalate dispute with PayPal where they will make a decision. Paypal usually favors the seller if provided enough evidence (I kept all communications with him on record). However, you never know when a 3rd party has to settle the dispute, so I'd rather not depend on PP. I'm not sure this item is even eligible for PP Buyer Protection, which worries me the most. C) Dispute this charge through my credit card company via a chargeback claim. I've been a loyal customer with my CC for 5+ years now and pay my card on time, in full every month. I don't if that means anything to them, but I'd hope they'd be able to help me out considering its only about $35. I'm hoping I haven't left out any important details. Has anyone every experienced anything like this? Do you guys have any advice on how to proceed?
tldr version -Bought cracked screen repair service. Sent phone + new casing to seller. -Seller broke original motherboard in repair process, replaced with "new" one. -Seller sent phone back repaired with damaged housing and debris under new screen. -Contacted seller, wanted him to purchase new housing and re-do repairs. He agreed, but never replied afterwards. -2 follow up emails sent, still no reply. Opened dispute with PayPal. -Seller finally responds, agrees to send me new casing and to give refund charged for the repair but only if I return the new screen and new motherboard back to him. This leaves me with a phone in worse condition than it was originally (broken motherboard + no touchscreen) Sorry for being so thorough in the original post, but with things like this I like to be as detailed as possible. This post here was as compressed as I could get it :grin:
You most likely won't win. These "services" offered through eBay have loopholes. As long as eBay sees that the seller has tracking to prove you received your item, he's in the clear. But if it's not as described, you have to send it back to him with tracking in order for you to get a refund. Your situation is different because youre the buyer yet you have to send it to him first then he sends it back to you. So since you opened up a case, once you send it back to him, with tracking, you'll have your refund but he'll have your phone and the case will be closed and you will be out of luck.
Unfortunately that sounds pretty accurate, I've used Ebay for a variety of reasons but I've always heard purchasing services like this can result in situations like this. Go through the process and send it back to him if you think that's the best course of action, otherwise you might just need to take the hit and move on.
Was the auction only for screen repair? If not the new casing, cyanogenmod, motherboard, etc. would be considered as outside transactions by ebay/paypal and outside the scope of buyer protection. Option C (cc chargeback) is probably your only option for recovering your $$$, but it's bad karma move.
This is very true. He would use your emails against you as proof that what was damaged was done because of your request for a service that was not paid for through Ebay. Take the loss and and go with option A.
Most likely he'll lose as well. The dispute will be handled through eBay and once eBay sees that the seller has tracking that shows something was delivered to the buyer, the case will be closed in favor of the seller. I'm sell a lot on eBay and I've had a couple people try to scam me that way with the CC chargeback but I had tracking showing that I did indeed send them the item and they lost.
I think you should be a man, make a decision, follow through with action. Boom **** just got resolved
Do both B and C. Ebay favors the buyer in most cases. Focus on the original repair. If it wasn't done correctly, that's all you need to mention in the case. All the extra stuff was between you and the seller. You don't have to return anything. If the original repair was not made correctly. you will win.
Phone broken Sent in for repair Repairman broke it further Fixed his own faults LOOPHOLE, phone comeback ok minus the original reason why it was sent in for repairs being fixed
Yeah. Everyone has to get screwed over once or twice before you really understand how to use ebay. Luckly, the only time I was kinda screwed over didn't involved a lot of money. Wife bought a designer purse off ebay, after I told her not to bc it was going to be fake. She paid like $200 for a slightly used $700 purse. She got it checked out and yeah, fake. Opened a dispute because the seller said it was real and would refund if not. Long story short, got money from ebay/paypal AND her bank, so she made $200 by some mistake between her bank and paypal. Not bad, she learned her lesson and made some money out of it. Sorry for the thread derail.
