Hi, I was wondering if someone could help me with a little eBay issue. I saw a pushchair on eBay that looked like the one we wanted for our toddler. The listing didn't actually state the model, however, so I emailed the seller, explaining we needed to ensure it was the right weight capacity for our child. She replied with the model and as this was exactly the one we wanted, I bought it and paid via PayPal.
When we went to collect it, all looked fine. It was in good working condition and clean so we took it away. It was only when we got home and put our toddler in it, that we discovered it was too small for him. His head nearly touches the sun shade. This was odd as it should have been exactly right for him. It was only after about an hour of searching on the internet did I notice there were tiny differences in the models' appearances - they do look very similar - and that this was a completely different and old model designed for a smaller child. Our toddler is already at the maximum weight for this one so it's useless to us.
I contacted the seller who didn't respond for 2 days and then replied saying she thought she'd told me the right model because she'd looked it up in the internet and matched it, (guess she'd bought it 2nd hand too and didn't know herself), and that she didn't accept returns unless the item was damaged which it wasn't. When I said it wasn't as described, she agreed we could return it but only once she got back from holiday. We patiently waiting till that day, a week and a half later and she has now said she'll be busy working and we won't be able to return it for another 3 days, which will coincidentally be outside of my time frame for opening a dispute. If I do open a dispute, I read somewhere that you are not protected with collect in person purchases as you had the opportunity to inspect the item upon collection. I totally agree with this except that in this case, there would have been no way of telling what the weight capacity was just by looking at it, and they all look so similar, it would have been very hard for me to identify the model without having the internet available to me at the time. Any advice on my next step?