Ebay Sellers and their Warranty... Advice please!

[WillNeverGetALicence]

Hello everyone,

I bought a coat rack on ebay back in April from a business seller rather than an individual iyswim [not in the UK]. Didn't get around to assembling it until June, then discovered it was missing a vital part.

Messaged the seller who arranged to send me the replacement part. So far so good. However once the replacement arrived I discovered that the whole rack was faulty. One of the joints was misaligned and too weak to support the structure.

So again I message the seller. The seller responds asking if I was happy to accept a refund. I replied saying that would be great and thanks for the fab customer service. However that was over a week ago now and no refund and no communication from the seller

This item though was sold under the assurance that the company provides a year's warranty. I realise I am well past the 45 days in which to open a not as described case with ebay but how do I go about claiming under warranty? And if, worst case scenario, the seller drops all communication?

Does anyone know if ebay can help or is this a case perhaps for Trading Standards?

Thanks!

if seller not in UK unlikely to be covered by UK leglisation

all business sellers need to have contact details on listings so you could try direct messaging

Thanks sarah.

Well yep, seller has now dropped all communication

Ebay has been less than helpful. Customer support just keeps cutting and pasting advice from the website [if they tell me one more time to open a not as described case i will scream! I can't, it has been over 45 days, which they would know if they had read my emails properly!]

finally they advised i could claim with my credit card company. Well I can't, as the payment went through Paypal.

It is just as difficult to get any help or sense out of paypal.

So the jist of it is that ebay is happy to have a seller which sells a piece of unusable crap and then will not honour the warranty that they advertised. Seller drops all communication. I cannot even leave negative feedback as it is past 45 days!

Anyway, I will leave negative feedback here. Do not buy anything from ebay company called 'beautyforce'. They are based in Hong Kong. They sell rubbish with missing parts and don't honour their warranties.

I am quite pissed off. Luckily I only paid £20 odd pounds for coat rack so I guess you get what you pay for. Never again.

And this experience has made me think twice about using ebay and paypal. They are easy and convenient when the transaction goes well and the seller is honest. But when there is some issue they are next to useless.

was your card verified by visa? If so try your bank - they may get your money back that way.

Hi fergoose!

i tried that, ebay actually suggested it [once they finally understood the situation!]

But the bank said they couldn't help as although the payment was made on their card it went through paypal and so paypal have to refund it.

I then spent an irritating hour or so trying to deal with paypal. Emailed them, got a stock answer back to call them, called them and kept getting an automated response telling me how to open a dispute [which I already knew from reading info on their website but my case doesn't apply to this grrr!]

I was thinking of contacting trading standards but as the seller is based in Hong Kong I think UK law doesn't apply to them [even though they are selling through the uk ebay?]

This has been quite a frustrating experience and has really made me think twice about making purchases through ebay except for small amounts and from reputable uk based sellers.

Seller had good feedback but what really made me buy was the warranty they promised. However it would seem that there is nothing I can do to insist the seller honours this.