This is a long story so bare with me here, but I could really use some advice or insight.
About a month ago I bought a guitar on ebay. The pictures were blurry, from far away, and unrepresentative. The description described it as having "minimal damage", claiming the worst to be a cosmetic paint chip on the side of the neck that he photographed. In the Q&A he refused to send somebody more pictures and claimed the frets were fine and that the only chip through the paint was the one on the neck that he photographed. He also listed the specifications for the wrong guitar, but I am well aware of what a Peavey Destiny Custom and knew he was just not very knowledgable. Here is the auction so you can see for yourself.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...7&ssPageName=ADME:X:RTQ:US:1123#ht_500wt_1413
It was a really rare guitar and I figured if all that was wrong was that one paint chip, I could touch it up and the guitar would be in pretty good shape, so I bought it. This is what I received:
http://s1022.photobucket.com/albums/af350/Morgray/Destiny Custom Damage/
I found this to be absolutely unacceptable and far beyond "minimal damage". The neck had warped and the frets were ripping the clearcoat off of the neck, IN MORE THAN 30 DIFFERENT PLACES. Somebody had attempted to sand the back of the neck, which was actually the cause of the "paint chip" on the side. There was a massive chip in the body of the guitar. The hardware was bubbling, and there were deep scratches in the paint. Since I already own another one of this exact same guitar I know that none of this damage is "minimal" or even typical. The seller denied that any of this was misrepresented and expressed that I should have expected these things, even though I am not psychic. He outright refused to give me a refund and take the guitar back. After several messages back and forth, I got this message from him
At this point I escalated the dispute to eBay Customer Service, and they refunded me my $450 within 2 hours. I should mention that I've been an eBay member since the year 2000 and have a 100% positive feedback score of over 1300. He has been a member since 2007 with less than 200 feedback. So I shipped the guitar back the same day. I felt a load off of my shoulders and never thought about it again, and stopped going on eBay because I was turned off by this transaction. BUT TODAY, I logged back into eBay and saw I had a message from him that he sent two weeks ago, here it is.
He claims a chunk is broken off of the headstock and the piece is NOT IN THE BAG, and I KNOW that this is not true. he is ruling out the possibility of damage in shipping, and is basically accusing me of breaking the headstock of the guitar BEFORE packaging it, and sending it back to him broken, purposely. Needless to say I did not do that, and the guitar was in the exact same shape as I received it in when I packaged it. The headstock was definitely in tact. So realistically, he is making this all up and threatening to smash the guitar against a brick wall to try to fuck me over for it. As I said, I got this message 2 weeks ago and just read it today. I have no other messages from him, eBay, paypal, or anybody, so he has not actually done anything (yet). I'm guessing that he chickened out and gave up because I ignored his message and nobody took him seriously. I'm worried that if I respond or appear to take him seriously, he might go ahead and smash the guitar to show me pictures of the damage he claims I caused. I'm also worried that if I DON'T respond, and he files an eBay dispute, they might see that I ignored his message and rule in his favor.
It looks like I have no good options here, what should I do? Has anybody else had any experience with something like this, where somebody is maliciously trying to scam another ebayer? I am worried because I don't know how thorough eBay support is and I know they must get thousands of cases like this a day and can not ALWAYS make the right decision.
About a month ago I bought a guitar on ebay. The pictures were blurry, from far away, and unrepresentative. The description described it as having "minimal damage", claiming the worst to be a cosmetic paint chip on the side of the neck that he photographed. In the Q&A he refused to send somebody more pictures and claimed the frets were fine and that the only chip through the paint was the one on the neck that he photographed. He also listed the specifications for the wrong guitar, but I am well aware of what a Peavey Destiny Custom and knew he was just not very knowledgable. Here is the auction so you can see for yourself.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...7&ssPageName=ADME:X:RTQ:US:1123#ht_500wt_1413
It was a really rare guitar and I figured if all that was wrong was that one paint chip, I could touch it up and the guitar would be in pretty good shape, so I bought it. This is what I received:
http://s1022.photobucket.com/albums/af350/Morgray/Destiny Custom Damage/
I found this to be absolutely unacceptable and far beyond "minimal damage". The neck had warped and the frets were ripping the clearcoat off of the neck, IN MORE THAN 30 DIFFERENT PLACES. Somebody had attempted to sand the back of the neck, which was actually the cause of the "paint chip" on the side. There was a massive chip in the body of the guitar. The hardware was bubbling, and there were deep scratches in the paint. Since I already own another one of this exact same guitar I know that none of this damage is "minimal" or even typical. The seller denied that any of this was misrepresented and expressed that I should have expected these things, even though I am not psychic. He outright refused to give me a refund and take the guitar back. After several messages back and forth, I got this message from him
At this point I escalated the dispute to eBay Customer Service, and they refunded me my $450 within 2 hours. I should mention that I've been an eBay member since the year 2000 and have a 100% positive feedback score of over 1300. He has been a member since 2007 with less than 200 feedback. So I shipped the guitar back the same day. I felt a load off of my shoulders and never thought about it again, and stopped going on eBay because I was turned off by this transaction. BUT TODAY, I logged back into eBay and saw I had a message from him that he sent two weeks ago, here it is.
He claims a chunk is broken off of the headstock and the piece is NOT IN THE BAG, and I KNOW that this is not true. he is ruling out the possibility of damage in shipping, and is basically accusing me of breaking the headstock of the guitar BEFORE packaging it, and sending it back to him broken, purposely. Needless to say I did not do that, and the guitar was in the exact same shape as I received it in when I packaged it. The headstock was definitely in tact. So realistically, he is making this all up and threatening to smash the guitar against a brick wall to try to fuck me over for it. As I said, I got this message 2 weeks ago and just read it today. I have no other messages from him, eBay, paypal, or anybody, so he has not actually done anything (yet). I'm guessing that he chickened out and gave up because I ignored his message and nobody took him seriously. I'm worried that if I respond or appear to take him seriously, he might go ahead and smash the guitar to show me pictures of the damage he claims I caused. I'm also worried that if I DON'T respond, and he files an eBay dispute, they might see that I ignored his message and rule in his favor.
It looks like I have no good options here, what should I do? Has anybody else had any experience with something like this, where somebody is maliciously trying to scam another ebayer? I am worried because I don't know how thorough eBay support is and I know they must get thousands of cases like this a day and can not ALWAYS make the right decision.
