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Tutor

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4 Messages

Wednesday, April 2nd, 2014 2:48 PM

Sold my AT&T Samsung smartphone. Buyer is pulling a fast one on me through eBay

Hi everyone. I recently sold a smartphone here on eBay. The buyer paid promptly, I received $400 after all the fees were paid. I shipped the pricey AT&T Samsung smartphone to the buyer. Here is the timeline:

3/22 Saturday: Smartphon is delivered to buyer.
3/26 Wednesday: Buyer sends me a message indicating that he can not use the smartphone because someone reported it "lost" and is now "blacklisted" wtih AT&T. So the phone is now dead. 

I apologize to the buyer and told him there must be some sort of mistake. I purchased the AT&T smartphone myself diretly from AT&Tand have the receipt to prove it. I told him to send it back and would gladly provide a refund for this discrepancy.  The phone was purchased outright too.  It was still new in the box and was never activated on my account.  

4/1: Tuesday: I received the AT&T smartphone from buyer.
Opened the box and it reeks of cigarette or a strong tobacco odor. Everything, the usb cable, battery, user manual just stinks of cigarette smoke. I immediately take the smartphone to my local AT&T corporate store( extrremely embarrased because the phone smells horrendous) I walk up to the manager and tell him you guys sold me "blacklisted" phone. The manager takes the phone and gives me this look of disgust, like dude how many packs of cigarettes to do you smoke a day. I apologize to him for the horrible odor, and he commences to punch in the IMEI serial number into his computer to investigate what occurred. He sees something strange and then calls Asurion (the insurance company) to verify additional details. After about 25 minutes he tells me that someone did file a insurance claim on the phone, but I was not the that person. The insurance claim for a lost/stolen phone was filed on 3/ 25 Tuesday in another state. 

So the buyer used the phone for a day or two and then filed and insurance claim and reported the phone stolen. He paid his deductible and then gets a replacement phone from Asurion. Sends back the "lost" phone to me asking for a full refund plus the return shipping cost. My goodness, doesnt anyone have any morals now days??? How do you recommend I handle this issue. He has filed a not as described case withe eBay and is asking for his money back. I apprecaite all your comments or advise. Sorry for the long post.

Professor

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13 Messages

10 years ago

this sounds like  you have an issue with ebay and the "buyer" . Sounds as if they have done this before. Though, why would asurion "cover" a different device that what was set up with?

Teacher

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17 Messages

10 years ago

I have grown to hate ebay too, but what everyone seems to forget is that ebay is not twisting your arms forcing you guys to sell stuff on here. When you sell an item and agree to that policy you have to follow through on your promise, if you guys don't like the policy then don't agree to it. If you keep on selling stuff you are obviously making money or just plain stupid for continuing to sell items under this policy. Take your business else where and maybe the folks behind this policy will wake up and smell the *** is covered with. Also with the insurance issue I have come to notice many jacked up shipping costs when I know it does not cost that much, stop trying to make money on shipping as well as the item you sell, take the time to price out the correct shipping cost with insurance and advertise it. Shopping on ebay should be safe and all you guys may be honest people but there are a lot of sellers that scam people. The moral of the story is stop being lazy and doing as little as possible to make the most money, spend a few extra cents to put up detailed pics of the item so buyers have no excuse to return item, and make insurance mandatory and let people know it is included with overall shipping cost.

 

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