Am I gettin' screwed?

[BLKMGK]

Okay, I'm working an Internet sale that's looking like it's about to go bad. Question is - is this an honest screw up that I'm stuck in or is this guy trying to screw me? What's the best way to solve this?

 

Here's the deal - need FUEL for the Supra. Walbro GS341 pumps can be gotten through a friend's shop for about $110 apiece but he doesn't stock them and his minimum order is 10. This guy posts that he's got 2 of them for $180. Terrific, I figure this is perfect for me and I agree to purchase them. I shoot him the money, box is shipped.

 

Box shows up in great shape. I open it and find tissue paper packing and the pumps wrapped in it like douches. I unroll the first one no problem. I note that he's shipped it with the long rubber hose pigtail attached to it, thinks that's stupid, but it got here fine. Unwrap second pump and the hose drops out in my hand - plastic nipple it attaches to snapped off!

 

Shoot him E-mail and wait a day for him to respond. He's upset at the Post Office and wants me to take pics of the pump and box - I do so that night. He talks to the Post Office - box is uninsured but they can still cover $100 per shipped box. They apparently look at the pics and deny the claim. Duh, thinks me since the box was fine.

 

He says he thinks Walbro can repair it and offers to have this taken care of if I'll ship him the pump. Cool, I ship it on my nickel in the SAME box and tissue paper. I wait days. I always wait at least a day when I send him E-mail. When I send him E-mails asking what's taking so long he tells me all about his long hours and that he's working on it. Finally he gets back and tells me that since the construction of this pump is a plastic end pressed onto the casing it cannot be repaired.

 

He tells me he's found a place that will sell a pump for $110 and that he'll split the cost with me. Umm, that's $180 for a single $110 pump + $55 - I could've done better going through my friend. I tell him this and suggest he simply send me the $90 for the broken pump.

 

His response to me today is that he paid $145 per pump. That's he's already lost a bunch of money on this and that it's all a PITA. He tells me that when he spoke to the Postal guys they asked him how well he knew the buyer - implying that I'M ripping HIM off - now I'm pissed! He calims he's not accusing me of anything (ya' right) but that he's been selling parts for 5 years and been burned a few times (he shipped without insurance?!). He says he doesn't want to be out $200 and understand that I don't wish to be out of pocket any further $ either.

 

At this point I'm pissed. I've fired him off a pretty nast e-mail letting him know I don't appreciate his implying that I'm ripping him off. I've asked him to consider how I as a buyer felt opening a package and having an item drop out of it broken. We'll see what his response is but I can already tell he's going to stiff me one way or another here. I'm WAY tempted to just take whatever he'll give me and warn others about how this has gone. I've bought THOUSANDS of dollars worth of stuff over the 'net and never been ripped off. I've had things show up late, ship slowly, and sometimes show up in slightly worse condition than I'd been told but never have I felt so powerless. Hell, I found and purchased my Supra through the 'net and found my RX7 that way too with no problems!

 

Am I overreacting here? Until he tried to imply that I was ripping him off I was willing to believe that he was on the up and up. But the box DID show up undamaged but the part was most certainly trashed. Had I been the Post Office I'd have laughed at him too What's the best way to solve this?

[jeromio]

It really shouldn't matter. His claim seems to come down to "customer broke pump". Either you broke the pump when you unwrapped it ( - right), or the dude owes you dollars (or a new pump). Since he seemed pretty quick to blame the post office, sounds like maybe he planned this.

 

I mean, it's a pretty hard thing to prove either way and unfortunately you're likely screwed. The best you can do is to let everyone on the various supra forums know about this guy.

 

Not that it helps, but I've certainly read about people getting screwed for way more than $90 (eg those 125 people who paid Dave Inall (Incon) $6500 for LS1 TT kits and got jacked).

 

If you used Paypal you can notify them too.

[BLKMGK]

Ya', I used PayPal and a CC too although after 30days you're supposedly SOL with PayPal.

 

I'm going to wait and see what he says next. I expect some payment back dammit but I will likely warn others about this. If I goto PayPal and bitch they will likely lock his account, they do this fairly often apparently. I don't wish to screw him out of a pile of money, especially if he uses PayPal often, but I am NOT happy right now.

 

And NO, I did NOT damage the pump unwrapping it. Kripes, I still cannot figure out why he shipped it with the hose attached! Talk about asking for damage All I did was unroll it from the tissue into my hand and watch as the hose dropped on the table. At first I thought the hose on the second one had been shipped loose. (sigh)

[Lockjaw]

He should not have shipped them uninsured, and if you use the post office for shipping anything. Getting your money out of them is a pointless effort.

 

I guess it is something we all are going to run across someone who screws people. You can contest the charge with your credit card company. That would take care of it.

[DAW]

Sounds like it was damaged during the packing, prior to the shipping. It may well be an honest mistake, maybe he has someone helping with the packing. Regardless, it's the seller's responsibility to make it good...I'd take the $90 and be done with it; just write it off as a bad experience, otherwise it will eat you up and consume way too much time & energy. DAW

[BLKMGK]

He's not offering $90 - he's offering to pay half of what a $105 new one would cost

 

Talking this over with the woman I showed her the "good" pump. I thought that nipple on there was a little fragile - nope it's not. I'm thinking it HAD to have been broken while it was packed dammit. Maybe it was cracked and he didn't notice but regardless I sure as hell didn't try to rip him off and yes I'm pretty angry about this I'm as honest as they come and pretty trusting, it really makes me angry when I get screwed and this sure feels like it...

[Guest Anonymous]

Try with polite firm persuasion to get the refund and maybe a one to one telephone conversation that will outline your alternatives like tying up his account.Email is rife with miscommunication and confusion. IF NOT Take the $52.50 and cut your losses soon. No need to get burned out with anger.I was the winner of a new Energy suspension GM poyurethane trans mount. The fellow never acknowledged my high bid or emails and of course I never sent the money and I wanted that $50.00 bargain. I believe about 99% of the folks out there are honest with a lot of miscommunication and distrust running interference.

[Guest Anonymous]

I've done tons of business over the net and find myself also very trusting, in fact I've been so close to almost screwed where I felt like such a sheep. Once I was bidding on a pearl drum set and I didn't make the reserve, the seller offered to just sell it to me for what my highest bid was (MUCH less than reserve), I was ecstatic, blindly ecstatic. Well I paid him through paypal and there was a period of 3 weeks where he didn't respond to my emails. I was about to write him an email pleading to have some sympathy at least return some of my money as he could have really ripped me off. But then I got an email with an apology and he said he'd ship it free

(now for a drum set this is a big deal)

It was the biggest feeling of despair and anger when I felt as though I had lost almost $300, especially since I was like 15 and that's about 4 months savings.

I agree that there are people out there who will screw you, bad seeds I tell ya. I trust everyone on this board which may or may not be a mistake (there's probably about 2000 "members" I can't account for).. as far as zcar.com I've bought a lot of stuff on there including my 240z, I usually ask to see pics. I kinda went out on a whim buying it without any real insurance, but he was a married man, I had his address, pictures, etc, so he couldn't exactly up and leave the country or anything. It turned out to be a fine experience, and we're pretty good friends now and we talk regularly. I didn't know this at the time but he's also on the board occasionally (shane morton). On a solid auction you there's no doubt in my mind, ebay has a very solidly and legally bound agreement.

I think the best thing you can do is write him a firm but heartfelt email or speak with him on the phone as THZ suggested, because then if he is scamming you at least you're personifying the victim(you)- it's easy to lie in emails, harder to a voice. Good luck to ya..

-980mak

[Mikelly]

Jim, I know you, and have known you for many years... You are honest, and this is a bad situation. I ship A LOT of stuff, so much so that my mail and UPS folks know me by name... If the box was undamaged, the only other explanations are that he packaged them with the damage already done to the pump, or one pump hit the other insde the package and broke it within the package... If it was a fairly light weight package, then it would have been thrown around A LOT.

 

Don't beat yourself up, take the offer he made, and be done with it. You make a decent living and you can eat this. Should you? HELL NO! But we are all bound to get burned once in a while.

 

I just got burned on motorcycle parts that were supposed to be for my model that turned out to be for a different model all together... $200 down the tubes... Guy won't return my e-mail or phone call...

Mike

[Sumo]

I guess it all boils to what price are you willing to pay for your sanity. You know the old saying " What goes around comes around." He'll probably get his 100x worse than he did you.

[DAW]

You didn't mention if this was an e-bay transaction. If it was, then you can offer him a deal: either you get a refund for the bad pump or he gets the worst Negative Feedback Comment he's ever had (then get a few friends to purchase pumps, send Negative comments even if their purchase is OK, and shut his e-bay business down). Pay-Pal has some means available to deal with bad transactions also, but as mentioned above there are time limits. If you can even the score easily, fine; otherwise get back what you can and walk away. DAW

[BLKMGK]

Believe it or not this is actually turning out well. I had sent a firm note to the guy last time aorund letting him know that $50 sucked in that I'd have ended up paying more for 2 pumps through him than having bought them through my friend.

 

His response was that he's been selling in the Supra community for years and that he'd like to believe everyone there is honest, he's refunding me my money for the single pump. It gets better, turns out that he runs an online shop for Supra parts and that it's one that sells some unique items that I've been meaning to purchase! So, instead of accepting the money I'm going to have him ship me the items I want and I'm paying him the difference.

 

He seems like a pretty honest guy. I'm still really puzzled over the fuel pump. Tweaking on the hose attached to the one I've got that's good it's SOLID. The box it arrived in is undamaged comepletely and it was packed well. It's a mystery as to what occured but I think that we've come to an agreement that's okay for the both of us.

 

Yeah, I'm a really trusting guy. I've bought a ton of stuff over the 'net - including a Supra intake today! Bought an HKS BOV the other day too when an E-Bay auction fell through, saved quite a bit on that one actually.