@justcruising48 wrote:
I just got the reply sorry I threw it away, so presume they meant the lot as they initially said it was unrepairable when they said it arrived damaged. I initially thought to refund then was a bit concerned when they said it was just thrown away. I did think it normal if something arrived damaged to keep the lot and send a photo to the seller. I did say to them I cannot claim without the packaging and what would they like done but as yet no reply. It is a bit unfair as maybe a truck did run over it and the box was squashed -who knows.
Even if they had thrown it away, it's difficult to believe it's irretreivable, JMHO. It may not be the most pleasant thing in the world to fish something out of the bin, but they'll never do it again, lol (throw something away and then contact the seller with claims of damage. I mean).
It's just something I have a hard time accepting, because here's the thing - never once have I ever read a story or post from a buyer saying they automatically threw something away because it was damaged and unusable, but now the seller is asking for photos, what can they do? It may have happened, and I might have been blinking that day (or days) and missed those posts, but I'm guessing most of the buyers who found themselves in that situation simply got the item and sent a quick snap, or - perhaps more rarely - if they can't get it back, accepted the consequences of that impulse decision.
But I have have read literally countless stories written by sellers about evasive buyers who conveniently threw away the item and in the space of doing that, contacting the seller and getting a reply, their rubbish was collected or some other reason is provided for not being able to back up the claim. Or they do provide a photo and it's obviously doctored, or it's tiny and blurry so nothing is visible, some even go so far as to deliberately damage the item but in a way (or place) that doesn't affect it much, if at all.
I've had messages as well, people ranting and raving about how rubbish my item is and they immediately threw it away or somesuch (my items are a bit difficult to damage in the post, so they usually have to come up with some other reason for warranting the disposal), admittedly that does put me in a bit of a better position to respond with a message along the lines of "I dunno why you did that when you could have returned it for a refund if you didn't like it?" etc, many times these people rely on the seller automatically refunding as a knee-jerk reaction (which happens a lot), before they start to question the vailidity of the claim and it's too late to be convincing in any real way.
Again, I don't know one way or the other if your buyer is on the level, but from an objective viewpoint, I would say at the very least a couple of questions need to be asked. If no photos are forthcoming, it's a good strategy to ask a series of open questions, and see if any inconsistencies appear in their story, if you get a gut feeling one way or another, I would trust it.
It sucks that there are a couple of situations for buyers and sellers where they really need to reply on the other party to be willing to assist with the problem. For sellers, it's items damaged in the post, because only the buyer can take the package in for assessment, and there's no consequence for them really if they don't want to. For buyers it's items not received but the package is marked as delivered - a seller can easily refuse to offer any assistance on those, too.
