Defective item delivered - insufficient return offer | Members help members

jottemm51 · 2026-05-28T22:33:46.973000Z

Dear ebay “community”, Sometimes it takes the joy out of ebay when you run into guys who don’t want to admit mistakes on their part or don’t want to settle such mistakes fairly. To the specific “case”: A few weeks ago I won an auction for a 3-piece set of model cars, including a so-called “Charleston duck,” a Citroen 2 CV, scale 1:18 by Solido. The price was €23.50 plus €2.90 shipping. The other two models were fine and matched the details in the item description. By contrast, the duck was rather disappointing! When I opened the hood, the rod with the two lamps and the support fell out at me (and I always proceed with great caution!). But that wasn’t all: the headlights had partly lost their (chrome?) coating, so they have some kind of spots on them. For a serious collector, simply a no-go! In addition, the original packaging was very dirty! In my opinion, it can’t be that big a deal at least to wipe away the patina of years. I see that as showing disrespect toward the model and the buyer. That definitely doesn’t happen with my sales! So I offered the seller the chance to give his view of the matter. He replied: “Can I refund you the €7.19 shipping costs?” After a long search, I wouldn’t even have gotten an adequate replacement for the lamp assembly for the offered €7.19, and shipping would have been added on top of that (€5.70 here!), not to mention installation. On top of that, I could also have thrown away the packaging. After all, it’s part of the model and has a certain value too. Then came the message: “send the duck back, I won’t pay return shipping, then throw the thing in the trash can. Regards”. Aha, so I was supposed to send the model back (at my expense!) and then what? Then the pond was calm — dead calm, in fact! I then started a return. Again there was the offer to pay €7.19 and a return label! And now what? For me that means a loss of almost €20 (exactly €19.21) and no model anymore. Well what’s that all about??? Is it too much to ask for the whole messed-up process to be completely unwound (return shipping at the seller’s expense and full refund of the purchase price — for all I care, including waiving my shipping share) or for a reasonable refund at least of the replacement cost of the headlights plus shipping? But that’s not how it works, in any case! What options do I still have? A negative rating doesn’t really help either, since you can imagine that a corresponding rating would come back. I’m looking forward to your experiences and assessments. RegardsJürgen

Discussions

Defective item delivered - insufficient return offer | Members help members | eBay Germany