Intersect Posted November 20, 2014 Share Posted November 20, 2014 Ok 1st thing you should try and do is assist your buyer in getting the disk partitioned so it can be detected and used by his OS after that has taken place and you are still unable to get the drive up and running then im afrade you might have to refund him and have the drive shipped back to you.The padded envelope that was used to send it in did not provide enough protection for the drive. You have provided proof that the drive was in good order at the time the auction was posted, but did you state that the drive would need to be partioned in the listing details? this alone would be enough for ebay to side with the seller along with poor shipping that was provided. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeChipshop Member Posted November 20, 2014 Member Share Posted November 20, 2014 I'd accept the return. eBay will side with the buyer and you get end up with a dodgy rep and possibly no returned item (yep, that's happened). Chalk it up as a ###### buyer. Astra.Xtreme 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
COKid Posted November 20, 2014 Share Posted November 20, 2014 As a longtime eBay seller, accept the return and refund the money. It will simply not be worth the hassle fighting it. This is, after all, the risk you take in selling used electronics, especially with things as delicate as hard drives. Wash your hands of the situation and move on. If the drive comes back not working, you're probably SOL. Did you add insurance when you mailed it? I always add on plenty of insurance with fragile stuff, eating the cost myself. Not to protect the buyer, as they'll get their money back regardless, but to protect myself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sava700 Posted November 20, 2014 Share Posted November 20, 2014 As a longtime eBay seller, accept the return and refund the money. It will simply not be worth the hassle fighting it. This is, after all, the risk you take in selling used electronics, especially with things as delicate as hard drives. Wash your hands of the situation and move on. Yep take the return but make them pay the return shipping and ONLY refund the amount they paid not the shipping fee you dished out. Make sure you let them know this up front to as this is what is going to happen. I sell and buy all the time and I'm dealing with an idiot out of country that purchased something from me but I made it perfectly clear I only ship in side the CONT usa. I refunded all his money and I've been trying to get the moron to close the deal so I can get full value back but for some reason again he's a moron and hasn't done nothing. I always take pictures of a bunch of things when packing the item or details. Ebay will sometimes side with the seller so don't believe others here that they only side with the buyer it really depends but you should maybe try to contact Ebay over the phone and explain what is going on so that a real human will listen and deal with it if you have enough for a case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tidosho Posted November 20, 2014 Share Posted November 20, 2014 I would always ship a hard drive in a small box with lots of bubble wrap around it. I wouldn't trust Royal Mail not to drop it and a padded envelope just wont cut it. I used to work at a computer company that lived inside a post office. I saw the van driver chucking stuff about quite frequently, I verbally warned him in a friendly way, he kept doing it so I videoed him, and reported it to his head office, never saw him again. NEVER trust Royal Fail. They don't care, neither do Hermes or Yodel, they're all crap. I TRIPLE pack any fragile stuff I send. Look on YouTube for videos of people who've secretly videoed couriers throwing stuff over people's fences. NEVER assume it's your customer, that's just damn bad business practise, he pays your wages by buying your stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Warwagon MVC Posted November 20, 2014 MVC Share Posted November 20, 2014 Before you go blah blah blah for nothing, read this: http://www.ebay.com/gds/How-to-properly-package-a-Hard-Drive-and-save-money-/10000000019218725/g.html Still can't believe they recommend that for a hard drive. NEVER trust Royal Fail. They don't care, neither do Hermes or Yodel, they're all crap. I TRIPLE pack any fragile stuff I send. Look on YouTube for videos of people who've secretly videoed couriers throwing stuff over people's fences. NEVER assume it's your customer, that's just damn bad business practise, he pays your wages by buying your stuff. and That's packaged IN A BOX! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Intersect Posted November 20, 2014 Share Posted November 20, 2014 Still can't believe they recommend that for a hard drive. and That's packaged IN A BOX! did he just get out of a moving van and through a package like it was an american football? who does that guy think he is, usane bolt and tom brady rolled into one? Report his stupid ass to UPS The Evil Overlord 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Evil Overlord Posted November 20, 2014 Share Posted November 20, 2014 I'm guessing you're not a business seller, if you are, get him/her an RMA slip, and test it for yourself, if it passes the tests, you can open a dispute with ebay, they'll probably side with the buyer, but it'll give you some leverage if there's unfair negative feedback involved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShadeOfBlue Posted November 21, 2014 Share Posted November 21, 2014 Some/many bad drives will pass a surface scan. You should always have a look at the reallocated sectors, pending sectors, uncorrectable sectors, and write errors in the SMART info. Even then, I've had properly-packed drives fail after shipping. Sometimes it's just the last straw for a drive that's on the edge. That's also far from the most reliable model in the world to begin with. In any case, your only chance is to talk to the buyer and see if it's just a misunderstanding. Let's assume for a moment that the buyer isn't trying to scam you. That would mean either the item is bad, the buyer is doing something wrong, or the buyer's expectations are wrong. Just talk them through the process and make sure they are doing/expecting the right things. If so, there's really nothing else to do but accept the return. As others have said, eBay/Paypal always side with the buyer if they say an item is defective. You can't win. Nothing you say in the listing matters one bit. Refunds are only ever handled according to eBay/Paypal policies, and those policies boil down to the buyer always being right. You could ask them to pay return shipping, but depending on which route they go through the menus, they can get a prepaid label to send it back which is deducted from your account. I have gotten a refund for the shipping before, but that was when the buyer sent back some random junk in the box instead of the item. I still had spend time proving it to Paypal though. There's no guarantee of success. On a related note, any risk of shipping the item is all on you. If you don't trust a shipment method, then you shouldn't offer it. If there's no tracking info, then all that does is make it really difficult to prove you actually shipped the item. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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