[Malakei]

Hi there guys. I often buy online and when getting into portable rigs this place seemed to be the best and had a good rep. However, out of the 4 purchases ive made on the for sale forums, ive now been mislead in 2 purchases. Wether the items were misdiscribed or purposfully trying to scam me im not sure but a 50% problem out of 4 purchases is leading me away from the site. Im curious what i should do in the two situations, ill breifly describe the two.

DAP: Bought a x5 off here which was described to be in near mint with only minor cosmetic harline scratches and fully functional. I received the player and there is a medium sized nick near the headphone jack which looks like someone dropped it with headphones in it, the plastic casing has seperated slightly from that area. Honestly, no biggie to me so long as it functions fine. 2nd, the proprietary jack on the botton where the line out, usb and dc charger attaches, dock is loose and hardly even carries its own weight before pulling out. Frustrating that it was not mentioned but hey, ill give him the benefit of the doubt and buy a Qables Line out instead at about 50bux which i would have to buy had the dock stayed snug. SO, then after maybe 3 hours of use careful use i might add, indoors with little or no movement, the HPO jack starts to become fidgity as i test it with different cans, slight wiggles with the mini plug cause cutting out. Not acceptable, so, before I email him, i take the case off to see if something is loose, only to find even more damage on the inner edges of the case and that the HPO board is actually off a bit. Im not sure what this could be from or if it can be fixed but after this find i emailed him with my concerns suggesting he foot the bill for a repair or jusr refund my money and resell it with a proper description. Was this the right thing to do? What should i be expecting? Am i screwed out of my 150$$?
Oh and two more things regarding the DAP, battery life is pretty much toast which was not described, hasnt lasted thru more then a couple dozen songs from full charge. and the shipping which was supposed to be 3-5 days [what i paid for] turned out to be 3 weeks.

So, as you can imagine this has drained my enthusiasum for portable buys off this site as has my other purchase i was mislead on. Qables cable i bought for the option of line out thru a tight fitting LOD.

So, i recieved this cable last night and was greeted by a 10 dollar cost of taxes/fees on this 30 dollar cable. thats nice, so then i take it home and take it out of the packaging, looks nice, then at a closer look see that it has in fact been broken, awesome!!! no pieces of it were in the packaging so clearly it was done prepostage and probably knowingly as well. So, at the risk of being completely disappointed i took some pics right away along with a pic of the date and time it was picked up which would seperate the pics by about 10 minutes [time it takes me to get home from the post office] Then, i tried the cable, tight fit alright, it almost doesnt fit at all, however with some careful wiggle it finally slides in. I think its improper fit is mostly because the part he broke on it holds the metal tabs in place and in order to get the cable in they needed to be pushed in. Anyways, to my dismay after hooking it up with my LDM+ and a pair of AKG 240s it sounds like crap anyways, so now the cable and the LDM+ are of no use to me anyways. I havent emailed this guy yet but im unsure how to go about it.

Anyways, hopefully someone will read this and having gone thru a similar issue, be able to help me in my recourse. hopefully this is just bad luck and ill be able to continue purchasing from fellow head-fiers i nthe future.

Cheers

 

[jpelg]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malakei /img/forum/go_quote.gif a x5...the proprietary jack on the botton where the line out, usb and dc charger attaches, dock is loose and hardly even carries its own weight before pulling out. Frustrating that it was not mentioned

This is well documented both here on Head-Fi, as well as other boards for this particular DAP.

As far as the other issues, if you just received the items then I suggest trying to contact the sellers to resolve them. After that, you can post in their respective feedback threads accordingly.

 

[Malakei]

i have responded regarding the x5 seeing as how it was an expensive purchase and i didnt save much on retail seeing as how i can buy them for 188+tax online new. which obviously i should have done. however im wondering what i should expect, i will most definately try and resolve this quickly and easily.

 

[Quaddy]

i am really sorry to hear about those experiences, its not what you would expect on a dedicated audio forum, i would expect it off of ebay. shame on those sellers, the green orb will seek you out!!

as other posters have said, the logical thing is to communicate with the seller, if you dont get anywhere, post the applicable feedback so other traders here can see.

also tell the seller you are going to leave feedback for all to see as some kind of leverage, if that doesnt work then i would guess that the sellers/s in question couldnt care less about their reputation here and possibly knew they were phasing out there activity here anyway.

it does sound like you have been purposely been mislead, listening to your account.

i have had numerous similar situations occur, and when the initial outlay has been enough to warrant it, i have pursued with every mechanism available and have ultimately had to go to small claims court twice now, and have sucessfully recouped item cost and associated fees.

trouble is, it is a lot of hard work, and effort and form filling, and to and froing, so i would hazard a guess for something <$200 its not gonna be prudent, annoyingly.

i have had to simply write lowish items off as experience and wise up for in the future.

i remember purchasing a sony NW-HD3 which was sold overtly as being pristine, mint, immaculate, all words used in the ebay advert. i even asked a question specifically on this, and was told yes, yes, all fine. feedback was good from the seller.

arrived and it had an impact dent bottom corner, numerous scratches, and looked shabby. clearly not as described.

i have to say ebay were useless in their investigation, even with them knowing how it was described and me providing photos of the units condition, they blagged it by saying it wasnt sufficiently damaged enough for it to fall under the misprepresention of sales directive they have.

so i simply listed it on ebay with its faults, being honest about it, and was fortunate to get the same price back for it.

fingers crossed, the 3 transactions i have had on head-fi have been pretty good. but its a good wake up call to hear what you have experienced.

hope you get some form of recourse on way or the other!

 

[Malakei]

That sucks to hear about blatent scamming as such. People call it misleading, i call it blatent scamming when you purposely send something that isnt functioning flawlessly without telling them the issues.

As mentioned before the dock problem is generic to x5s from what i hear now. However, this seller is claiming the HPO jack problem is also a flaw known to x5 owners and it is my fault for not knowing this. Hes saying he sent it exactly as described. Honestly ALL i want is a bloody functioning x5. I wanted it for the SQ because im picky as hell, and the seller knew damn well thats why i was buying it. So why would he think i would deal with a HPO jack that cuts in an out all the time. Personally its bs and he knows it. Small claims may be the only way to go, luckily i know a good lawyer who is a family friend otherwise i may not have had any recourse. Since paypal recourse is pretty much useless.

 

[roastpuff]

Sorry to hear about this, Malakei. Was the member an established member of the forum (200+ posts)? I've not had a bad deal yet, in my 2 years on here, so it might just be the luck of the draw, but buying from the "more experienced members" might be a safety net that you want to use...

 

[Malakei]

Well not brand new and not around forever. Hes been a member since nov 06 has about 80 posts. Keep in mind, i havent even been here a year yet and already have over 100 posts an i bet it will be 200 by years end. Im just worried im going to get totally screwed, and being the type that i am, i cant in the right mind sell the x5 off to someone else for anywhere near what i paid. I suppose i could see if someone wanted to tinker with the HPO board as its probably a simly reconnect the hpo jack with a fresh solder joint. I just dont know enough about this DAP to go poking around like that or id probably do it myself. I wonder if I could get someone to MOD my x5 and turn that HPO into a dedicated line out and maybe replace cheap parts while hes in there. Might be a costly proceedure tho. blah. i hate this. Shoulda just bought a new unit.

 

[kramer5150]

Contact the sellers asap... before posting negative feedback.

Give them the chance to make it right.

Thats step 1, and then go from there.