CAVEAT EMPTOR – Let the buyer beware!

CAVEAT EMPTOR – Let the buyer beware!
(If it looks and sounds too good to be true… it probably is)
Although I do buy on ebay, it is mostly CDs and a past indulgence of tube rolling, nothing that has every caused me a problem. That was until a couple of months ago.

I have always bought my hi fi from a UK retailer and occasionally directly from the manufacturer. However whilst looking for some more CDs, I stumbled across a brand new 2008 never been used Bel Canto S300iu, with a very low 99p starting price. I tracked the amplifier and decided on my maximum bid of £1,120 which was a great deal considering list was £1,699.

I won the Bel Canto S300iu at £1,117 and that was where my problems started. The vendor did not want me to use Paypal to settle up. When I declined and paid using Paypal, the funds were transferred from my account but not collected due to problems at his end. I was given the option of cancelling the payment and should have done so at that point.

There was a delay of a week and a lot of chasing up until the amplifier finally arrived. Initially everything looked well, and the Bel Canto S300iu worked just fine.

I had another reason to call my Audio retailer Coherent Systems over a possible pre amp upgrade and I mentioned my “bargain†Bel Canto S300iu. What is the serial number, he asked as there are a few spurious imports around in at the moment. I gave him the serial numbers and he asked me the question again. He told me that what I had read out was not a proper Bel Canto serial number!

A few days later, I had a home visit from Coherent Systems, who are also well known Bel Canto retailers, to look at this particular amplifier.

The first thing noted was that the original makers marking labels had been removed from both the exterior case and internal packing cases.

The serial number was nothing other than a piece of Dymo label (although to the untrained eye a good label!) with some numbers on it. When the tape was lifted at one end, there was NO serial numbers on the back of the amp where it should have been screen printed by the factory in a box provided on the back of the amp.

Whilst the Bel Canto S300iu most certainly worked, I had something which was not the real product, and as such was worthless.

I confronted the vendor who was less than happy and disputed my findings, and after a week of heavy weight communications and questions, he still refused to say where he had bought the Bel Canto S300iu, but reluctantly agreed to take it back and refund me subject to certain conditions, and he would pass it back to his vendor.

The only speedy thing my vendor ever did during the six weeks plus, was to get the transaction cancelled on ebay so he did have to pay the fee.

Following almost another fortnight when the vendor was not available to receive the amplifier back, it was retuned to him. What then followed was a chain of communications giving reasons why he should not give me a full refund.

At this point I personally got in touch with Aanvil Audio, the official UK Bel Canto importers and together with Coherent Systems, sought help from both of them to counter all the ridiculous claims made by the vendor in order to avoid repaying me.

In the end I had to resort to some very long and explicit communications to get my vendor to realise that he was not in a position to negotiate, and that whilst he was holding both my money, and the Bel Canto S300iu which was a fake, the implications were obvious!

At the end of the day, the vendor actually got in touch with a senior Director at Bel Canto in the US who also confirmed to the vendor that the “serial†number was a fake, what we had been saying all along.

It was only at this point that the vendor informed me of his source, and at the time, I checked their web site. There were quite a few Bel Canto S300iu for sale plus a load of another well known US manufacturer's amplifiers on their web site.

What I find quite a choker is that all of this could have been avoided in the first place.

It has taken me nearly SEVEN weeks to get my money back.

My email communications amount to 82 items and that does not include all outward ones, as I have monitored the proceedings. Hardly quiet enjoyment of an Ebay purchase.

If I had bothered to ask Coherent Systems, he would have sold me an ex demonstrator Bel Canto S300iu for £1,200 delivered to my house WITH a full warranty and everything else one can expect from a UK retailer, including ongoing support and back up.

So I saved £1,200-£1,137 = £63, bought a fake, had seven weeks of total grief, and lost my own funds for that period of time.

If you don't ask you won't get. Yes not everything is sold at list these days, and most dealers have trade ins, ex demonstrators etc so you CAN buy from proper suppliers and avoid all the grief that I endured.

So if you see a 99p bargain on Ebay and it looks too good to be true, remember my experience, unless you do some serious detective work yourself, you could be buying a worthless fake with no resale value.

Pick up the phone and ask your own hi fi retailer for a deal, I am sure that you will get a pleasant surprise!

 

great post flyfisher!

 

I have a rule for ebay:

Never bid on anything that costs more than I can afford to lose!

So far i've never been ripped off (have just cursed myself).

 

the only thing out of many on ebay is paypal, it is very unfair for genuine sellers as they are not protected, only the buyer, and they also charge a fee to the seller and can take up to 14 days for the seller to get hhis or her money, it became compolsury for ebay to force sellers to take payment by paypal,
horror story that happenedd to a friend i know was that he had a brand new and expensive amp for sale "his own stock" now discontinued . place it on ebay for sale and got the end bid he was looking for, recieved payment via eby by paypal, buyer complained to paypal saying goods were old , damaged and were not in working conditionn, paypal's rules took the amount stright away from sellers a/c refunded the buyer, and demanded that goods be sent back to seller , he did the box was original the goods inside not only wasen'the same make but cheap 10 year old crap, seller never got his money back,
a tale of two citys's
nando

 

Well at least you got your money back in the end, which is great.

To be honest, any private 2nd hand transaction has the same risk, in fact probably more so outside ebay. I've never paid more than half current retail value for a 2nd hand item, usually a LOT less.

I've now bought 250 odd items on ebay (and sold maybe 200) and I'd say 99.5% transactions have been trouble free. The worst I've had is a copied CD and a vintage Goodmans driver that was dead. Maybe I've just been lucky.

 

if i cant afford to lose it, then its COD for me and paypal.

 

Was it a fake or just stolen with the original identity removed? It seems strange that if they went to the trouble and expense of making a fake they would not put a valid serial number on it.

 

Very interesting ....could it be ...that what you bought was infact a bel canto ...built by bel canto's supplier but out the back door so to speak ?

I've heard of this before a manufactor goes to that place in the far east ..says make me 10,000 units ...they actually build twice that using the patterns and genuine parts...so that the only thing is they do not carry the proper serial number.

So why would some one do this ?

you guessed it money ......the original pucker item has a value thats far higher than the parts and build costs often x100 or more

[there is some kit on the market whose parts value is less than a good fish supper]

this allows the oem builder to sell off the "fakes" at what appears to be a bargin price ...but may make him a very large quick profit.

As people have already said .....if you can't afford to loss the money ...don't buy on ebay ....

If it looks too good to be true ...then it is !

I'm very pleased you got your money back .....

Does anyone know if you pay via your credit card on paypal if the credit card company is liable ......if theres a problem. I the same way if you used it in a shop ?

 

the moral of the story is ''check the serial number'' I think, rather than ''don't buy second hand''..

 

Does anyone know if you pay via your credit card on paypal if the credit card company is liable ......if theres a problem. I the same way if you used it in a shop

I do and the answer is no.
As far as the credit card companies are concerned you use paypal to provide a money handling service, it has nothing to do with purchasing goods. Therefore as long as the money moves from one account to the other they don't care.

 

Bob thats not strictly true, I have boughtseveral items using paypal, and funded the purchase with my credit card, when paypal have been unable to deal with the matter to my satisfaction I have lodged a complaint with the credit card company so far a 100% success rate, paypal hate 'chargebacks' and would much prefer you to use your current account to fund ant purchase.

 

yes thats what I thought ....and have had similar experience in the distant past ..hence the question

 

I raised a dispute a few weeks ago regarding a variac transformer that arrived broken and unusable but the seller refused to take back. I claimed that the item was 'Significantly Not As Described' even though, physically it looked fine. I did not expect to win but tried it as a long shot.

In his listing's 'terms and conditions', the seller said sold 'as is' and no returns. However, the listing implied that the variac was fully functioning.

In stating my case, I pointed out that normally (ie outside ebay) goods must be 'fit for their intended purpose'. I also highlighted the sellers lousy feedback record, which I'd previously overlooked. The seller gave some unconvincing replies and paypal found in my favour, making the seller refund me, or else lose his ebay rights.

Ebay pointed to 13.12 of their user agreement, 'Significantly Not As Described'. It says:

c. The item is unusable and was not disclosed as such. For example, if there are missing major parts or components, will not function or turn on or is spoiled or past a relevant date. This applies to the item in its received state, no matter what the condition when it was posted.

Although I won, I don't know how much that was due to making a good case for myself.

I would echo what coops said about making sure you pay by credit card because, if the dispute fails, you'll have added protection from the CC company. Make sure that your paypal balance is zero before making a payment and when you pay also stipulate that you are paying by credit card (I think the latter you need to do but cannot remember for sure).

Also exercise caution if the seller has feedback of less than 99. Using http://www.toolhaus.org/ highlights all the negative and NEUTRAL feedback together and can make for interesting reading, not normally immediately obvious. It can easily be swallowed up in a big feedback score.

Of relevance to the original poster, 13.12 Significantly Not As Described also says:

d. The item was advertised as authentic but is not authentic. For example, a fake or knock-off item that was advertised as authentic or a completely different or inferior brand of a similar product.

 

Those who think credit cards are protected when using pay pal look here

http://www.paypalsucks.com/

or this, from Barclaycard's terms and conditions

3. Third party payment
It's common to use third party payment methods such as Paypal or Mypaysystems when buying online. You should be aware that this may affect your legal rights to claim for non receipt of goods, faulty goods or missing refunds, because these third parties are not the supplier of the goods

 

sorry"not really" for what i am reding, protect the sellers i say, every body wants a bargain, we know that, it's not rocket science, example well known in the trade past,
go and make an appointment with a dealer listen to what you think you are after , eat the bollocks of the poor sales assistant till he needs a heart by-pass, then go and phone others for the cheapest price you can find, forget aftersales service, it does not compute in the tiny little brains, save, save, that is all what they think about, so what happens next! dealers can not afford staff anymore, "not that there is many left that really do care anymore, who can blame them, so the issue that i am trying to make here is three of them,
1st: penny wise pound foolish,
2nd:if you buy from ebay always check sellers feedback and try to contact them at their home number and make sure they leave there,"time consuming i know"
3rd: you want it cheap fair enough, but don't expect after sale service, or advise free of charge , i do not want to go as to say that all sellers on ebay are dodgy, there are mny genuine ones who are going to suffer by ebay demanding that they use crappal,
nando

 

It's not called "Fleabay" for nothing: always ask questions, look through the feedback to see if the seller is reselling something they have just bought, and try to not get carried away with the bidding!

 

I just bought a couple of items on ebay.

When you pay by paypal on ebay, it automatically transfers you to a paypal transaction summary page. At the bottom third of that page, it always shows the 'primary funding source' as either your paypal account or (if the balance is zero, your chosen bank account). Immediately underneath this in tiny writing, it says 'alternate funding method'. Select this and change the 'primary payment source' to your chosen 'credit card', (which will be an option if you've already set up a credit card on paypal). It will ask if you are 'sure' you want to pay by credit card Say yes.

You have to do this each and every payment because it always defaults to direct payment from paypal or a bank account. Crafty buggers

 

I repeat
from Barclaycard's terms and conditions

3. Third party payment
It's common to use third party payment methods such as Paypal or Mypaysystems when buying online. You should be aware that this may affect your legal rights to claim for non receipt of goods, faulty goods or missing refunds, because these third parties are not the supplier of the goods

Once it becomes compulsory to offer Paypal on ePay from June 3rd I will cease using it.

 

Fair enough, but that isn't necessarily saying that they 'won't' do a chargeback. And maybe Mastercard are more helpful?

 

Acording to Google Mastercard stopped accepting Paypal use in 2002!