What is fair in this situation? Buyer says item is broken

[stathunwagun]

Hey guys, I recently sold my Mamiya RZ67 medium format camera on ebay. I sold it as a kit, including the body of the camera, the finder, the back (which holds the film) and a lens. I used this camera up until the day I sold it and it always worked perfectly.

The day after the buyer received it he sent me a message saying he could not get it to work. I called him and spent about 20-30 minutes trying to help him use the camera but we couldn't fully figure it out. I was never totally familiar with the camera so telling him what he was doing wrong was difficult.

We finally hung up and decided he would try to find some film to load into the camera and see if it was just not working because he had no film in it. I think about two weeks or more went by and I hear nothing, so I just assumed he figured it out.

Last night I got a message saying he tried everything including changing lenses and the camera doesn't work. He bought two cameras with the intention of using the best equipment from both sets and selling the other stuff.

Anyway, we cannot file a claim with the post office because he did not keep the packaging. So what this comes down to is: I sent him a working camera but it's now not working and I have no recourse with the post office, it's been almost a month and I don't have the money to refund him the whole price.

The body alone is worth maybe $175 on ebay. I told him I would refund $75 and hopefully that would cover a big chunk of the repair price, but the way I see it, we sort of share responsibility here because he did not save the packing materials so I have no way to make a claim with the PO. He'd be able to sell the camera as-is on ebay and maybe get $75 or more, I don't know.

Does this sound fair/reasonable?
Thanks!

[CrashBash]

what is this guy's first name and which state does he live in. I know it is a long shot, but i had a guy do something similar to me with camera equipment. I sold an $600 DSLR fo $75 for parts because it had gotten wet and no longer worked. The guy buys it and says he needs it quick, which is always a bad sign. Then when he gets it he says it was packed poorly and more damage was done. It was double packed and in original box, if any damaged was done he would have seen it on outside. Same deal, he threw away box. No insurance claim.Then files item not described and wins.
My guess is he thought it would be easy fix, but couldn't do it. Now he has refund and item. So i used his address and to open stealth account and then changed it to his phone number before it got suspended for non-payment of fees. So at least I hope he is getting some calls from ebay collections.

[oompaloompa]

not about fair or reasonable, it is if he puts a paypal claim in....

if you genuinely believe he broke it or is a scammer and dont want to deal with a return and refund, you could stall him until 45 days and he will get timed-out..

he has 45 days to do this or 180 days if it is a credit card chargeback

[stathunwagun]

Well either he broke it or it broke in transit. I sent him a camera that was working the day I sent it, and I even used it on a class assignment that week.

However, I did mention that he could send it back to me for me to look at it and make sure that he wasn't missing something, so maybe I'll have him do that. He didn't seem to object to the idea. But he also mentioned that he has two sets so I'd be sort of hoping he's sending me back the one I sent him and not mixed and matched parts.