Seller sold me very bad condition vinyl records

[amigaparadigm]

I have recently purchased about 11 second-hand vinyl records from a seller all advertised as VG to VG+ condtion. Postage was within Australia but he decided to charge me an extra $20 for 'handling' because he had to purchase tape, bubblewrap and drive down to the post office. Ridiculous as his handling fee was was, I decided to go ahead with the purchase anyway against my intuition.

The records arrived in a box with barely any tape and bubblewrap in it and only 4 of them were in the conditon he described on the sale page, the others are in poor to unlistenable states (excessive distortion and severe frequent clicking consistent with surface damage). Some of the records came absolutely caked in dust (I took pictures) while others had some fluid spilt on them along with the dust. Even the records I have cleaned using the Spin Clean device remain permanently damanged. I have purchased records on Ebay in the past from many sellers and these have to be the worst I've ever gotten. I brought this up with the seller politely (not the part about his stuff being the worst) asking him to please either do a refund on the records which do not match his description on the sale pages or simply do a full return.

He replied back to me that he had his girlfriend do a thorough clean of each record using some "proper fluid" as he put it. I'm somewhat dubious as to how someone can clean something and it remains dirty, covered in dust, but OK. He then objected to him having to pay for return postage. Instead he refunded me only half the purchase price of the bad conditon records (which was what I paid for in 'handling') and said that's being charitable.

He mentioned he doesn't want me to leave him negative feedback claiming he'll make a complaint to Ebay about getting any negative feedback I leave removed. He said that any negative feedback I leave him must be unfair due to him trying his hardest to resolve the issue.

I'm not assuming I'm in the right here so I would like to get some opinions on how I should proceed and whether or not I should leave him negative feedback for the records he refuses to refund.

[k1ooo-slr-sales]

what was the total price of the 11 or so records?   How much was his partial refund?  The reason I ask is that how much you paid and how much has been offered as refund will determine what advice you receive here.

You see, you tried to clean some of the records with the spin clean device.  Regardless of whether this is the same as using general household cleaning fluid or the best vinyl record cleaning fluid in the world, you are now unable to return the records in the condition they were in when sold and shipped.  This may make getting a full refund difficult.

You wrote "Instead he refunded me only half the purchase price of the bad conditon records (which was what I paid for in 'handling') and said that's being charitable".  Has he offered to refund or has he already refunded?

As far as feedback goes, he is bluffing.  If you won each record as an individual eBay auction/BIN then you can call his bluff by leaving just one negative and seeing if it gets removed.  So long as you follow feedback rules it should remain.  Do not mention refunds, eBay or PayPal disputes, do not use foul language, just remain calm and keep it factual.  Something like "record not as described, even cleaning did not help, not happy".  You can then have various wording for others that include comment about excessive handling, poor packaging etc.  Doesn't matter how hard he tries to resolve this with you, you are still allowed to leave negative if you feel it is warranted and it meets feedback guidelines.

[springyzone]

It's not clear to me what you mean by the seller charging you an extra $20 for handling.

Do you mean this was an extra $20 on top of purchase price & quoted postage charge, or was $20 the total postage cost?

If you won an auction where a set postage price was mentioned for Australia-wide postage, then the seller should not quote an extra handling charge afterwards.

But if $20 was the total charge for postage that could be reasonable, given the postage cost/cost of box/bubble wrap etc

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I'm assuming the seller refunded you $20.

If I am reading it right, the records must have cost you $40 as you said earlier the handling was $20.

 Instead he refunded me only half the purchase price of the bad conditon records (which was what I paid for in 'handling') and said that's being charitable

So.. you paid $60 in total & got $20 back?

Because you have been working on the records, you may have trouble fighting for a  postage paid return, even if you go through ebay.

It's not ideal, but $20 refund is at least something & you CAN leave any feedback you wish to.

[amigaparadigm]

Thanks for the replies. The total purchase price was $110 AUD including the extra $20 which was added after the fact for a 'handling' charge. Each record was an individual sale amounting to 11 in total. No where in the ads does it mention he will charge an extra $20 for 'handling' because he needs to purchase tape and drive down to the post office (that was his explanation). The actual postage for the records was only $20 and the records themselves cost $70.

He has only refunded me $20 which was for half of the records I said were not in the condition he described. Essentially he has only refunded me the 'handling' fee which was rather odd to begin with.

Unfortunately I think you may be right about the records I attempted to recover by cleaning, only 4 records he sent I left in their original condition. I was so dissapointed when I received them I wanted to do whatever I could to fix them.

At this point, do you think my only recourse is to simply leave negative feedback, suck it up, and move on?

[phorum_junkie*]

The seller is perfectly entitled to add a handling charge which would be less than two bucks per item but only if that is included in the postage cost at the time of listing. You should have refused to pay it if you were going to complain later.  If they created a combined invoice for all 11 items with the handling charge added you could have unlinked the items and paid for each one separately resulting in the seller having to post them individually and paying the flat rate Paypal fee 11 times rather than once. Had you done that I think the seller would have bent over backwards to refund the payments and send you a combined invoice with a reduction rather than an increase.

As for the condition you will be on a sticky wicket as you are unable to return them in the same condition thy arrived in and have no way of proving that your cleaning method was not responsible.

[amigaparadigm]

You're absolutely right he is most certainly entitled to charge me a handling fee. I didn't actually complain about that to him - I told him that even after cleaning a few of the ones in terrible condition they were still exceptionally bad and not consistent with his description. I posted a topic on here to just get opinions on how to proceed.

That's a fair point about proving the condition of the records from either side as well. I suppose I dug myself a hole trying to recover them. I guess I'll have to live with it - oh well, that's life I suppose. Live and learn.

[thecatspjs]

If it was me, I would open an eBay money back guarantee case requesting a full refund on return of goods.

Re cleaning them - I would state in the case notes that as the records were sent dirty and dusty and you were unable to "test" their described quality on your turntable without damaging your own stylus, so you sought to remove the filfth and clean them in a manner that has caused no harm or detriment to the few records you tried it on.

You may need to return the lot by tracked post, but this will be far cheaper than the amount you originally had to pay for post by the sounds of it.

If you do not win the case, you will no worse off than you are now.

[springyzone]

PJ is right and the seller had absolutely no right to charge extra as a handling fee over and above what was listed in the ad.

You should have refused.

I did not realise you made 11 separate purchases.

Any seller is entitled to bump their price up a bit to cover their out of pocket expenses. They would be mad not to. But they can't add them AFTER the sale, that definitely is not on. Don't ever let anyone do it to you again.

It is a pity you have tried to clean the records or put it this way, have admitted that to him in messages.

Otherwise I think you could have had a really good case-items not as described.

You could still go that path & see how you go. Just say several were dirty, damaged, unplayable. That is true.

Say the seller charged an extra $20 in handling fees on top of the listed postage costs. That is true too.

The worst that can happen is  ebay will knock you back but you have nothing to lose by trying.

Definitely neg feedback.