Topic: Well, I May Be Having My 1st Go Round With An Ebay Seller! "MY FAULT!" Not His

[bill440cars]

      I had ordered a kit for my Akai 1800 Tape Recorder/Player, from ebay. This is what the description said:

              "AKAI X 1800, X-1810, 1800SS, GX 1820

     New motor and  new meter belts sealed in plastic bags."

     Well, today, I got an envelope in the mail, that contained a plastic bag with the belts in it and NO explanation about the motor and meters. I sent the seller a nice message stating that I got a package today and the belts were good looking and all, but wondered about the motor and meters that were supposed to be part of the package. I also quoted the description, as I did here.  

[Jerry Rxman Griffin aka MuthaF'er]

Bill,

I just went through returning a "NOS blemish free tank" used warranty take off tank. It was pretty obvious. I offered pictures to the seller and EBay. EBay Buyer Protection took very good care of me. Got my $710 + $20 shipping and a return label for free. No real hassles, just had to follow the program. Do all communications through EBay! They check them out. Be patient, precise, polite. Quote the listing wording. Attempt to communicate with the seller multiple times. THEN file an official complaint. Be patient and wait. EBay may tell you 3 days that turns into more. After 5 days send EBay another message asking when those 3 days are up, etc. Keep it to a necessary minimum, no overboard. Don't bull#$%* them. EBay hopes seller and buyer can make it work first.

Back to the ski slopes/bar. Good luck.

Jerry

[bill440cars]

Bill,

I just went through returning a "NOS blemish free tank" used warranty take off tank. It was pretty obvious. I offered pictures to the seller and EBay. EBay Buyer Protection took very good care of me. Got my $710 + $20 shipping and a return label for free. No real hassles, just had to follow the program. Do all communications through EBay! They check them out. Be patient, precise, polite. Quote the listing wording. Attempt to communicate with the seller multiple times. THEN file an official complaint. Be patient and wait. EBay may tell you 3 days that turns into more. After 5 days send EBay another message asking when those 3 days are up, etc. Keep it to a necessary minimum, no overboard. Don't bull#$%* them. EBay hopes seller and buyer can make it work first.

Back to the ski slopes/bar. Good luck.

Jerry

           Yeah Jerry, I know that "Diplomacy" IS the best policy and I have sent a pretty nice message with a quote of what I was supposed to be getting. I didn't put the quote in there, like I was throwing it up in his face either. My Usual approach to about anything, is to try to work it out nicely. Of course that doesn't ALWAYS work though. The other party has to be receptive. And, as you know, there are SOME folks who just aren't going to listen and DO what is right! I appreciate your input here. I put a lot of stock in what you said about this, as I know that you have done quite a bit of business on ebay (as other have and I value their input as well). I don't know the work situation of this seller and may be Tues. before he gets back to me. Hopefully, there will be another package coming. When I first got the medium size envelope and saw what was inside, I thought that maybe he boxed up the motor AND the meters and forgot to include the belts, and packaged them separately. But the only thing in the envelope was the bag of belts. No explanation, no transaction copy, NOTHING! We'll just have to see how it goes. Take it easy on the Slopes and at that bar, Bill  

[MickeyX]

See, I read that as motor and meter belts. Meaning belts for the motor and belts for the meter. It could just be a east coast/west coast/midwest translation error. 

[Duke McDukiedook]

Yeah, you might want to link us to the listing.

You made it sound like it was for the belts only by your description.

[Gordon]

See, I read that as motor and meter belts. Meaning belts for the motor and belts for the meter. It could just be a east coast/west coast/midwest translation error. 

That's how I read it, too, but the seller should have been more specific said "new motor belts and new meter belts", or "new belts for motor and meter".  Writing it the other way is asking for problems because it can easily be interpreted either way.   

[bill440cars]

      It COULD be something like that. The belts are for the motor and run the pullys (or whatever you would call the parts that the reels are put onto. But the meters (I assumed he meant Vu Meters are in no way connected to the belts).

      Here is the link to the listing ( I pulled and quoted from it in the beginning)

      http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=360216455424&viewitem=&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWNX%3AIT

      If I misunderstood his listing, he needs some training in doing a listing. At least that's MY way of thinking about it. I'm interested in seeing what you all think about it.

[bill440cars]

            Maybe, instead of "New motor and  new meter belts sealed in plastic bags", he MEANT New Motor and New Motor Belts! In which case, I would still be missing the motor! Ah, who knows! I may just have (in the future) ask just what is listed, on things that might be misunderstood.

[Hasenkopf]

want me to drive down there and break some legs ??    (lol)

[bill440cars]

want me to drive down there and break some legs ??    (lol)

   Ah, let's save that as a last resort, okay?

[mark]

It sounds like he's selling a new motor and new meter belts in bags.

He probably meant new motor and meter belts in bags.

A picture of what he's selling would be helpful.

VU meters don't need a belt but a tape counter might.

An email to the seller to confirm the contents of the auction lot could have prevented a vague description from becoming 'a misunderstanding'. $21 shipped for a motor and belts sounds a little too cheap, imo.

[UK Pete]

I put that at 50% your fault and 50% his fault, you can read his description to mean just the belts, or motor and belts, also not having a picture leaves it very vague, from your point you should of thought the price was too cheap and asked for a picture and confirmation on what he was selling, and his point he should describe better as he must be able to see how this looks to some people, to be honest i think the price for the belts was fair and so you have not lost out you just dont have that ebay bargin you thought.
Pete

[6pkrunner]

Its cleverly gotten round by the title. Nowhere does it explain concisely what you are bidding on. Its a neat This was worded intentionally misleading to allow you to read into it what you want. And the way of them getting out is "You should have asked."

Like advertising

 "CB750K, CB750F

 New engine and final drive chain"



Do you get a new engine and chain or just the chain.

I think it was intentionally worded ambiguously to catch people. But I think you will lose.

[Markcb750]

"Let's eat Grandpa!" or "Let's eat, Grandpa!"

See? Punctuation. It saves lives.

[bill440cars]

      Yeah, I'm knowing NOW, that I shouldn't have taken for granted about what I was getting. For sure, the price was low for what I thought
the listing was for. The whole thing was, I thought I was getting more and have never run into anything like this before. Definitely will be more inquisitive from now on. Having the belts themselves was the main objective. I just got caught up in the thing of getting some spares for my Recorder. After all, it is a 1968 model Akai 1800 Reel to Reel Tape Recorder w/8Track feature. I appreciate all of the input here. Ha! Looks like I have gone for ALL this time buying off of ebay and STILL not had a conflict, after all. I'm usually pretty thorough in my searches on there. Guess I got carried away because of finding stuff for my old Stereo System. I DID get another AM/FM Stereo Tuner/Amplifier exactly like the one I have. Now, I bought this one for parts actually. By that I mean, it takes a special connector to hook up the speakers and I don't know where I have put mine. I put this stuff away years ago and when I got the thing out, back when bucky kat started this up about the old stereo stuff. So, I saw this Pioneer SX440 on ebay and it had the connectors, while not priced badly either. The listing said it worked great and I bought it. After I got it home, I hooked it up to my speakers and it DOES work great! Then, I hooked my original tuner up and all I got was hummm on FM, while the AM side works great. I have no idea what is wrong with my 1st one, but I NOW have the SOUND that I bought the system for, back in 1968. Now, I need to locate my DIN cord, so I can hook up the AKAI Recorder/Player to the setup. It's not an elaborate setup, but works for me.

                                Thanks ALL, Bill      

[bill440cars]

  Well, I get to eat crow!  Clearly MY fault. I got a response from him today and I clearly misread the thing! No Problem, As said, I got what I was after, posted his Positive feedback as well as responding back to him in a nice way (that he deserved). It never crossed my mind that he meant the belts were also to drive the "counter" (as mark pointed out it might be). So, after the confusion I created, I am STILL without a major incident with ebay, and THAT'S COOL TOO!

                  Thanks to ALL, for the input on this, Bill