? about a buyer who receives a "Damaged" DVD on Half.com and the seller's rights?
 

Hey,

I never look in the store forum but I had my first bad incident as a seller on half.com and I'm lookin' for advice.

I have a positive 66 out of 66 rating while the person who bought this item has a positive 9 out of 9 rating (one of the positives was left by me when I found out that he received the item via delivery confirmation).

I sold a brand new & factory sealed Disney/Pixar 3-Pack (Toy Story / A Bug's Life / Toy Story 2) which is now out-of-print. I had purchased this from Best Buy back in 7/2002 and it was sittin' sealed on my DVD shelf ever since. I recently upgraded to the Ultimate Toy Box & Bug's Life CE so I decided to sell it on Half.com

I sent the package to the buyer media mail with delivery confirmation on 11/21/03 and he received it on 11/28/03. He sent me an e-mail on 12/12/03 sayin' that the item wasn't in fact brand new cuz 2 of the 3 discs were scratched, one very badly.

Now, we all know that DVDs can come loose durin' shippin' and get scratched even if the item is factory sealed which is what most likely happened here.

I know that this is probably one of the things of sellin' on half/ebay that you as a seller have to deal with and I'll most likely end up issuing a refund but is there anything else that I can do?

As a seller and buyer on ebay (buyer only on half.com) I'm not sure if there is anything else you CAN do, but what I think you SHOULD do is refund the money.

They have no reason to lie. They did business with you and received damaged product. If it happened to you I'm sure you would expect a refund, as would I.

Just my 2 cents though.

I agree with Dave C (and I'm primarily a seller on eBay with over 1000 transactions) - the buyer should return the item ad receive a refund.

The only other scenario (if you'd care to offer this option) is to ask the buyer if he would like to accept a partial refund and keep the set.

Also...adding the extra insurance to a shipment is always helpful too...

I feel your pain though!

Here's the resolution that we came up with.

At first the buyer accused me of tryin' to knowlingly ship him a damaged product cuz he said that the DVDs weren't loose from the DVD Cases.

Since the item was factory sealed, I told him that this wasn't possible and eventually after givin' him tons of evidence he accepted. I have a positive 69 rating out of 69.

My resolution was a full refund if the item was shipped back to me or a 10% refund. I offered the 10% refund cuz the item was out-of-print and to buy another one on half.com would cost him $90 when I sold it to him for $74.99.

He then wanted a 50% refund, I told him no can do since I would be takin' a loss of over $30. I gave him a cost breakdown in the process. He then asked me to give him a refund for my profit of $17. I told him no & that I stood by my initial offer of shippin' it back for a full refund or a 10% refund. He then finally accepted the 10% refund and left positive feedback.

It's quite possible that this guy was tryin' to screw me (he had a positive 6 out of 6 rating), cuz if he was really disappointed with the product, he would've shipped it back to me for a full refund instead of askin' for less and less money each time I rejected his offer. Neways, it's settled now. It was definitely a learning experience.

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions.

Just out of curiosity, what exactly did you learn from this experience? What would you do differently next time to avoid a repeat of this experience?

Don't sweat a negative, some people are just totally unreasonable. People realize this. I have 2 out of 100+ sales (but only 55 rating of course).

The two negatives I got, one was because I gave a seller a negative and the other because the guy couldn't get software working on his PC, although it worked on another.:rolleyes:

that it's easy to get screwed by sellin' on half.

stand your ground.

don't even offer the partial refund. just have the buyer send the item back and issue a refund then.

finally, don't leave positive feedback until the buyer leaves it first unless they have a crazy high rating.

I look at when the seller leaves feedback compared to the buyer. I think the seller's feedback should be based on receiving the money not what the buyer writes about the seller. I have never made a purchase on EBAY or Halfcom from a seller that waits for feedback before leaving their own.