Problem as a buyer!

[joeyr69]

I have had my fair share of nuisance buyers and I have always thought ebays protection for sellers is none existent! As a seller myself, buyers do my nut in!

However I am having trouble with a big seller on ebay, here is the low down:

I bought an item (An under bed due to having guests over)
Paid £35 immediately
Item arrived following day, Great...

...Until I opened the box and found two bits of wood totally broken, i also noticed a massive foot print on the box, my guess is that this happened in their warehouse or while with courier.

Had to go to bed warehouse and get another straight away as we were having guests staying.

Contacted seller, i thought this would be a straight forward process so took pictures to show them of the damage and the foot print. They asked me to return the item or give them part numbers to send replacements. (I didn't really want the replacement parts as I had to get a totally new underbed anyway) but i thought I could resell if worse comes to worse so I go inspect the wood... No part number.
I box all the item back up and go onto the internet to see how i can send this back to them, I know this cost has to be covered by me.. The cheapest traceable quote I got was £45, this is £10 more than I actually paid for the whole thing!

Contacted seller again, explained situation, no part number, expensive quote so asked if they could arrange a collection and I pay them the original amount i paid for the postage.
No they cant do this.

The seller is being increasingly difficult and i have done my best to try and sort this out without using ebay but they were not co-operating! I have received a damaged item, surely they are covered with courier?

Anyway they have now sent me their 'terms and conditions' obviously i didnt read this before buying a £35 item.
Basically stating that anything received damaged must be marked as damaged on the courier form for them to claim. So i guess I was supposed to rip open the box while the courier was there and inspect for damage.
It also says all returns costs must be paid by buyer (I knew this anyway)

So where I stand is £35 down
Broken Item
Broken Item taking up lots of space in my house
Company that will not help me come to a resolution

Is there any point in me opening a case with ebay or am i totally screwed because i cant return it to them?

Any advice would be appreciated

[GreenBean]

Rats.

Have you contacted them by phone rather than impersonal emails ?

[oompaloompa]

I think it is nonsense to expect you to open box in front of courier, particularly how they are taped up and you need a knife to cut it open.

It is easy to be drawn in to buying large size goods from ebay because their prices are better, but regular non-ebay companies usually have better return policies and freepost returns.....

you could claim direct with courier, or open a dispute, only thing is that you may need to return the item at your expense, which is costly, but I would tell them you will dent their feedback unless they are more customer friendly.....

[joeyr69]

Ok So I opened the dispute and cant believe this company, their customer service is actually awful.... How are these allowed to trade on eb?

I actually cant escalate the claim as they keep responding with 'return the goods for a full refund' automatic message.

I have explained that I cannot return it due to the expense, and the item is damaged.

Eb have shown me a whole new level of how poop their system is, when you open up an ebay case, and the seller responds, as long as they respond within 24 hours each time you cannot escalate the claim for eb/pp to decide!

So now I am stuck with this stupid broken trundle thats 37kg and £35 down, talk about fuming that there is nothing i can do about it!

Now i do sound like one of those 'buyers from hell' lol!

Any advice on what i could do next?

[oompaloompa]

have you not had the option of partial refund when you initially started the dispute?

[joeyr69]

No, I only had the option of a full refund upon the safe return of the damaged item and a place to add my tracking number or send a messsage

[joeyr69]

On another note, had a read through sellers fb and seems as though so many people get damaged items off them and they refuse to refund anybody!