Receiving a refund after 30 days?

[oun.2015]

To be fair I feel as though I was just too trusting in the process but I ended up being out of pocket for waiting.

I have purchased a camera lens from a seller who at the time did not ship it out in time which lead to me opening up a case. Skip forward the lens was sent on and delivered to me on the 5th of December. The listing essentially said that it was working perfectly aside from a minor scratch on the front of the lens which I did not mind.

Once I received the lens and used it I noticed there were terrible focus issues, contacting the brand regarding a potential repair and ended up discussing with their 3rd party repair service about the issues and sending the lens in. This was done around the 12th and when I sent the lens to them they explained that to cover it under warranty I would require an invoice/proof of purchase which I then contacted the seller via eBay to which they failed to respond. The lens was purchased in March of 2023, still within the warranty period.

The lens was quoted and I received the email yesterday morning (12th Jan) that showed that there was a major fault in the motor unit and the repair would cost roughly AUD 1000, which was essentially the same price as the lens.

I contacted support regarding it and of course, since it was already a week since the 30-day window they were unable to issue a refund but said they would contact the seller to provide the information. However, I feel like this won't go anywhere as when I rechecked the seller's profile someone else also left a negative review for a camera they bought also saying it was faulty. Just wanted to know what courses of action I could take as I gave the benefit of the doubt here and didn't expect such a major fault with the lens but I wasn't sure our consumer commission here could do anything regarding it either.

[repentatleisure1952]

Try your bank/credit provider.

However don't get your hopes up.

[*sons_n_daughters*]

If you paid with PayPal, you have 180 days to open a dispute through them. If you paid with a credit/debit card, initiate a chargeback via your bank. You won't get anywhere with ebay if it's more than 30 days since the last ETA date.

[springyzone · Accepted solution]

What the other two said.

But just to add, yes, you tackled this entirely the wrong way.

1. If you buy something on ebay and you notice it is faulty, you need to open a claim with ebay straight away. No messing around. You only have 30 days after receipt and you were well within this when you noticed the problem. Yes, buyers are often out of pocket because they wait too long or because they let a seller string them along till the 30 day window has closed.

2. You can't afford to tinker with the item or have someone else step in and attempt repairs etc as that voids your ebay money back guarantee. The item is supposed to be returned in the same condition in which you received it.

I do understand that you wanted to keep the lens but after a chat on the phone to the repair centre, you should probably have contacted the seller to send you a copy of the sales invoice so you could claim on warranty. You say the seller failed to respond. At that point, you needed to go straight into an ebay claim for a faulty product, rather than send it away for repairs.

At this stage, if paypal or a bank charge back doesn't work, all you could try is a message to the seller again, carefully explaining that you are only after a copy of the invoice so you can get it repaired under guarantee. It is possible though that the seller does not have any invoice.

[oun.2015]

Yeah completely understandable, I guess I'm a bit too trusting of the process 😅

Thankfully, support has stepped in once again yesterday and reopened the case. Stating that they had contacted the seller and provided 3 business days for them to respond to the situation, suggesting that receiving a refund is a possible solution. So hopefully things work for the best.

[springyzone]

That is great news and very lucky news too.

Please let us know how you get on!