eBay issue - not as described

[WoahBodyforrrm]

Recently I won a beautiful pavilion tent which I intended to give to my twins as their joint main birthday gift. These pavilions cost approx £250 new.

I paid £137 + £8 p&p for it (yes it's expensive but this brand makes incredible quality play houses and they will last forever). The seller described it as being in immaculate condition, however she did state that there was some wear to the poles.

Anyway, the day she despatched it, she emailed me to say she had just noticed a small mark while she was packaging it up, which she hadn't seen before and said she would offer a small refund if I couldn't get it out. 'No problem' I said, my mum is great at getting stains out.

So the pavilion arrived and I decided to give it a go before the big day. When I unwrapped it, I was mortified at the state of it.

The immaculate fabric has multiple large stains, a tear, the poles are rusted beyond what is reasonable not to mention and the white coating on them is flaking off, the wooden part for the top was slightly broken and the top part to hold the entire thing was also broken.

I contacted the seller who 'never noticed' ANY of these issues 🙄, it was a very polite and amicable conversation and she seemed reasonable despite her dishonest description (at this point I hadn't seen the damage to the fabric). I explained I could ask one of the guys who works for my DH to try and fix the top, which she agreed to and I went ahead and did. We had to pay for a replacement part and obviously gave him 'a drink' by way of thanks. Admittedly this didn't cost much but given what I paid for an 'immaculate' item, I shouldn't have had to hand over a penny.

Then when I saw the state of the fabric and contacted her again, she offered a £70 refund. This sounds like a generous offer, but the reality is I would still be paying over £75 for something that I wouldn't have touched had I have known the real condition it was in.

This brings us to now. I am going to send it back to her, from looking at eBays policy, it seems she will have to cover the return p&p and she has stated she will not refund me until she has inspected it and will not be reimbursing me for the small amount I paid to get the top part fixed. She says she never gave me permission to do that but I did email her to say I would try and get it fixed and she told me to go ahead and do so. Did she expect someone to do that for free 🤷🏼‍♀️

Does anyone know where I stand with this?

These are some of the stains and the tear

Send it back for a full refund. Cut your losses on the repair, you won't get any money for that.

Another stain, the broken wooden part and the poles.

I haven't taken a pic of the other end of the poles where the rust is really extreme.

All this was described as in immaculate condition.

open a dispute with eBay. They should call in your favour no problem. She will need to send you a returns label that she has paid for so that you can return it. Read up on ebay policy, but you should definitely get your refund. Probably not for the repair though.

Thanks all!

I've been fortunate to never have come across a scenario like this in all the years I've used eBay.

I guess I've just been lucky.

She's a cheeky fucker.

Open a return 'not as described' she will then have to send you a returns label. Do not engage with her further. Do not send back using an other method than an official eBay return. This return will be tracked.
You are then free to leave the appropriate feedback! She's an idiot sending out something large with obvious defects and listing as immaculate. She deserves the expense!

Send it back and get all your money refunded.