So I purchased a laptop off eBay. I have a decent desktop and just wanted something small and portable. Did not want to spend a lot of money. Looked around for a while at various outlets including refurbished units sold directly from manufacturers. After some time, I decided that the cheapest place to get what I wanted was eBay. I searched every day for two weeks and then found a unit that I liked - a Dell Latitude D410 - with good specs and from a reputable seller. All he does is sell laptops and he has 100 percent feedback. So I felt pretty good about the transaction. The total cost was around $600. The unit has no warranty but is said to be fully tested and in perfect working condition.
The laptop arrives. It is well packaged. No damage to the box. Open it up. Turn it on. Problems. The Wifi doesn't work. Bigger problem though. The keyboard and touch pad do not work right. They both disable - stop working - after you type a few keys. This is not good. Never buy used again, I tell myself. Ever.
Contact the seller. Tell him the problem. Ask to send laptop back to be repaired, or to send me a new one, or a refund. Response is: "sorry. no warranty. no refunds. not my problem." Okay. Pretty angry. File a dispute with paypal. Go to a Best Buy Service Center to have computer looked at and repaired. Wifi should be relatively easy to fix, assuming the software/hardware is okay. No idea why keyboard and touch pad disable. Could be a "serious" problem. Anything else wrong? Don't know, I say. Maybe. Pay $65 for them to perform a full diagnostic. Will know sometime next week what is wrong with it and what the repairs will cost. Could be expensive.
Tell seller about my visit and ask him to pay for repairs. Because of Paypal dispute is now more agreeable. Not sure why though. Does anyone know how a dispute affects a seller's account? He says he will pay for repairs if I dismiss claim. Says please dismiss claim then send me receipt when repairs are finished and I will pay. Sorry not comfortable with that. If I dismiss my claim, I suspect I will never hear from him again. He wants the claim dismissed and says he is willing to pay for repairs. But I don't know what the repairs are. Tell him to refund me $300 (half the purchase price) and then if the repairs are less, I will send him the difference and if more, I will take the loss. Sounds like a good compromise. Says okay. Wait for money. Doesn't show. Get a message. He says can't refund money from that transaction because of the dispute (Is this true? I somehow doubt it). Please dismiss claim and I will refund $300 right away. This again. And I thought he was starting to come around. I Say I won't do it. Tell him to send me $300 payment, instead of issuing a partial refund from that transaction.
Still waiting to hear from him. I hope this story has a happy ending, but I don't know.
EDIT: The seller gave me as requested a partial refund of $300 to cover any repairs. I guess the Paypal dispute must somehow affect his business or his ability to use Paypal for eBay transactions. I'm not sure, but it was not until I filed the dispute that the seller became willing to try to settle the matter. Before that, his tone was "not my problem." So hopefully there is nothing majorly wrong with the laptop and the $300 will be sufficient to get it back to working order.
The laptop arrives. It is well packaged. No damage to the box. Open it up. Turn it on. Problems. The Wifi doesn't work. Bigger problem though. The keyboard and touch pad do not work right. They both disable - stop working - after you type a few keys. This is not good. Never buy used again, I tell myself. Ever.
Contact the seller. Tell him the problem. Ask to send laptop back to be repaired, or to send me a new one, or a refund. Response is: "sorry. no warranty. no refunds. not my problem." Okay. Pretty angry. File a dispute with paypal. Go to a Best Buy Service Center to have computer looked at and repaired. Wifi should be relatively easy to fix, assuming the software/hardware is okay. No idea why keyboard and touch pad disable. Could be a "serious" problem. Anything else wrong? Don't know, I say. Maybe. Pay $65 for them to perform a full diagnostic. Will know sometime next week what is wrong with it and what the repairs will cost. Could be expensive.
Tell seller about my visit and ask him to pay for repairs. Because of Paypal dispute is now more agreeable. Not sure why though. Does anyone know how a dispute affects a seller's account? He says he will pay for repairs if I dismiss claim. Says please dismiss claim then send me receipt when repairs are finished and I will pay. Sorry not comfortable with that. If I dismiss my claim, I suspect I will never hear from him again. He wants the claim dismissed and says he is willing to pay for repairs. But I don't know what the repairs are. Tell him to refund me $300 (half the purchase price) and then if the repairs are less, I will send him the difference and if more, I will take the loss. Sounds like a good compromise. Says okay. Wait for money. Doesn't show. Get a message. He says can't refund money from that transaction because of the dispute (Is this true? I somehow doubt it). Please dismiss claim and I will refund $300 right away. This again. And I thought he was starting to come around. I Say I won't do it. Tell him to send me $300 payment, instead of issuing a partial refund from that transaction.
Still waiting to hear from him. I hope this story has a happy ending, but I don't know.
EDIT: The seller gave me as requested a partial refund of $300 to cover any repairs. I guess the Paypal dispute must somehow affect his business or his ability to use Paypal for eBay transactions. I'm not sure, but it was not until I filed the dispute that the seller became willing to try to settle the matter. Before that, his tone was "not my problem." So hopefully there is nothing majorly wrong with the laptop and the $300 will be sufficient to get it back to working order.
