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Who pays for busted stuff?

I bought a Nak tape deck from a gent here; I made an offer, he counteroffered with a slighly higher price, including shipping. We agreed, and it was left up to him to select the shipper. You guessed it, UPS ground. So the deck finally gets to me, the box looks like it hasn't sustained any real damage. I unpack it and it looks terrific. I plug it in, and the "load" and "autoreverse" features will not work at all. I get a brief grinding sound and then nothing. At first I though I really ought to have made sure the transport screw was removed. It wasn't there, so a non-issue. I wrote the seller "the boyz in brown showed up tonight at 8:00 with the deck, overtime I suppose. The Nak is in as new cosmetic
condition, really nice. Now for the "but". The "load" and "reverse" features do not work, makes an odd brief grinding
sound and will not eject nor reverse the cassette. Am I doing something wrong?" The seller wrote me back (promptly) "Read the manual carefully. Everything always worked fine for me. Keep trying, maybe something went to sleep". Now to the question...the seller packed the item in it's original box (and did not secure the transit screw), selected the carrier, and now the deck needs repair. I can't see how I could make a claim with UPS since the deck looks prisitine and the box has normal wear. The gent insists that when he shipped it to me it was working perfectly. Assuming the deck does not "wake up" I'll need to get this serviced locally (if any of you have an idea what may be wrong I'd appreciate hearing from you), who pays for the repair?
jeffloistarca
blbloom
286 posts
 
In my opinion, if the unit does not come as advertised, the seller is obligated to make good.
kthomas
911 posts
 
Without question (to me, anyway), the seller needs to make good, but it always helps if the buyer is understanding and flexible. I have only received one piece of non-working gear, and the seller wasn't particularly helpful, though I didn't push it much with him. I thought I was told sometime during figuring out how to deal with it that if a claim against the shipper is to be made, it has to be made by the person shipping the unit, not the reciever. Don't know if that's true or not. In my case, it was a Krell CD player which, although it seemed to go through all the proper motions, wouldn't read / play the CD. I contacted Krell who told me the unit was under warranty, and I shipped them the unit. Two weeks later, it was returned, not only completely functional, but totally cleaned up - it was beautiful. So, in my case, for $50 extra everything worked out great. My understanding is that Krell no longer honors transferred warranties, so it would have probably been $150 (or more) if it happened today.

In any case, if you really want the piece, I'd investigate the cost to get it fixed and work with the seller on making that palatable to everyone and pursue the claim against UPS as a second resort. -Kirk

nbt
28 posts
 
I sent a McIntosh CD player to a person in Florida and it arrived damaged, broken glass faceplate and broken knobs.
It was shipped in the original FACTORY double boxes.
UPS decided to turn the claim down since there was no damage to the box. Well, I obviously did not ship it this way, as it left HOUSE of MUSIC (McIntosh dealer) in the plastic wrap from a clean and align.

I had the player returned, I found ANOTHER CD player that was in fine cosmetic shape but functionally not, took BOTH into the dealer and had them fix the broken one.

I sold the CD player for $900 originally, (about $500 more than it should have) spent $200 on the broken one, $85 to mend the two, and sent the player back!

Bottom line, he got what he expected, granted, it took about 2 months....

Dan (AudioGon and EBAY member)
dekay's avatar
dekay
5,541 posts
 
My wife sold my old KLH Model Twenty-One Radio on Ebay for a whopping sum of $265. The unit was in perfect shape except for a slight fading on the top of the cabinet. It was shipped exceedingly well packed with 6" of foam surrounding the unit which was double boxed. It arrived though with damage to the circuit board that received the volume and tone control pots. The unit was 35-40 years old and just could not handle the trip, I guess. To make a long story short, I reimbursed the buyer for the repair and also through in additional money to cover having the cabinet pro refinished, to make up for the inconvenience (think that it was $95 total). The radio still lives and the buyer was completely satisfied, though somewhat shocked that an Ebay seller would go to this length to make it right. I was willing to go as high as $265 (the amount of the sale) to have the unit repaired.
jeffloistarca OP
1,004 posts
 
Sending the deck back isn't an option I want to pursue for a few reasons. The deck is in perfect condition, I had to pay $60 to Canadian customs when it got here, and it would cost me a fair bit to ship it back I took the deck apart, hoping to find out what the problem is. Figuring since it plays tapes, rewind, forward etc. fine then the eject/reverse section must have it's own motor. Found the problem, a rubber belt (looks like an "O" ring) had come off between a sprocket and an idler wheel. Unfortunately I could not get it back on, more than likely easily repaired by someone experienced in such things. I'll have a tech but the belt on properly and hopefully that's the only thing wrong with the deck. Did the belt come off in shipment? I'd have to say it did. Would the transport screw have stopped the belt from coming off? I don't know.
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