Hi All ~
A customer of mine bought an Edison cylinder player and horn from this
seller. It was packed extraordinarily poorly with minimal and
haphazard filler -- may have been crumpled newspaper. The machine
arrived with a broken cabinet top, and the horn had some end-to-end
compression damage. He asked me what he should do and I told him to
bring everything over so I could see it, with the boxes and packing
just as he received them. I wanted to get a sense of the extent of
the damage, the relative task of repairs, general reduced value so he
could try to get some compensation, or if he should just send
everything back and be done with it.
I couldn't believe how the horn was packed -- one large box that could
only contain about 2/3 of the horn, with a small box taped on top to
cover the narrow end. No inner box, just these two taped together
like a two-layer cake. Just imagine how an arrangement like this must
get toppled and battered during the typical UPS transfer station and
stacking situations. In emails that my friend bcc'd to me, the seller
claimed that he has shipped horns for years packed like this and has
never had one damaged. Yeah, right!
I advised that the machine and horn should be sent back, which my
friend reluctantly did.
The seller made promise after broken promise to compensate, benignly
at first and persistently evasive as to how much or when, but never
came through. And time was passing. I pointed out to my friend that
he was entitled to buyer protection, but was in his last couple of
days before the deadline to file a complaint. My friend is a nice guy
-- not good with confrontation, was allowing this seller to take
advantage of him, and was giving the seller every possible benefit of
the doubt, much to my frustration. The seller had managed to string
him along, I'm sure while counting down the days until his own
liability disappeared. It was maddening to helplessly watch from the
sidelines, and so clear what the outcome was shaping up to be.
Finally on the last day he could do it, my friend filed a complaint
with Ebay. At this point the seller turned vicious and accusatory in
private emails to my friend, blaming him for damaging a perfectly good
machine and horn, while at the same time claiming to eBay that the
horn was packed properly, etc. The eBay mediator my friend talked to
apparently told him that the seller even tried to claim that the buyer
had kept the perfect phonograph and sent back a damaged one. It was
just bizarre. The guy would say anything.
To make a long story short(er), eBay paid my friend in full, shipping
and all. I must assume that this is far from an isolated story with
regard to this seller, and it chagrins me that he's still able to
sell. I believe that when eBay pays a buyer protection claim it
precludes a negative feedback being left for the buyer (correct me if
I'm wrong on this, if anyone knows better). Something wrong with the
system?
A final note is that I too was wondering what the guy's full name was,
and recall looking at the "from" name and address written on the box
flaps. He was using someone else's name, a woman's name if I recall,
and using a different shipped-from address. I think he might have
signed one of his emails "John". Who knows if even this is his name?
Andy
On Dec 4, 2010, at 1:17 PM, clockworkh...@aol.com wrote:
Greetings Dave:
I actually don't know the Pittsburgh Phonograph Pirate's name.
Whenever I have tried gently to enlighten him he responds with nasty
responses telling me I don't know what I am talking about. Luckily
he has never had anything I need for my collection.
When I started collecting in the early 1960's there were more crooks
around. Today we are far more educated thanks to MAPS, CAPS, Phono-
L, etc., and that makes it much more difficult to con us.
Regards to all,
Al
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