Buyer purchased a new pair of boots but now claims defective after wearing them. Photos show worn ou

[hollialp_0]

Buyer purchased a new pair of work boots and now claims after wearing once the soles have come unstuck. The buyers photos show excessive wear to laces and boots, more than worn once. Please advice.

[papso22]

How long has the buyer had the boots and have they opened a case?

[hollialp_0]

The buyer has had the boots a week and says they started wearing new boots yesterday and today they have come apart and asked for any thoughts ? Ive tried uploading a sale PIC and their PIC but file not supposed Thankyou

[*guinevere*]

Are you sure they are the same boots?

[hollialp_0]

ebay sales pic and a pic the buyer has sent me thank you

[*guinevere*]

Those boots are either a different pair or they've had an unbelivably hard innings!

[douglaspuglas]

Shoes can get hydrolosis but I don't think it looks like that.

It's more of a PU chemical breakdown where the sole crumbles away. 

It happened to some shoes I bought from eBay.

Took me a while to realise where the trail black bits was coming from.

[dch2112011]

They look like the same boots,  no wear showing, reason for saying that is the lace ends are not freyed and the tongue is still immaculate, wet and dirty but you would expect that on a safety work boot worn outside, building sites are wet and muddy - due to the constant rain.

Not your fault or the customer - claim from your supplier who are at fault.

Your customer needs a full refund or replacement pronto  -  i wouldn't even bother asking for a return - the fault is obvious and they cannot be repaired or resold.

 Question the obvious with your customer and expect a forced return and refund at your cost along with inevitable poor feedback.

Act quickly apologise and refund or replace and expect good feedback 

[technthread]

They do look rough but it doesn't take long working on site. To me, the Bobcat logo and the tongue looks very clean so those may very well be the boots you sold. 

If the buyers feedback doesn't raise any red flags I don't think you have anywhere to go with this other than the usual return / refund process. If their feedback or way of communicating was raising too many red flags and then when the boots arrived back they seemed very worn on the inside which is unlikely, then maybe I'd try to appeal to eBay for help but it would be an extremely long shot that they would step in and protect you from refunding out of your own pocket. 

[*knight-rider* · Accepted solution]

I bought a brand new pair of boots a few months ago, as i find them really comfortable. Couple of weeks after, i went into town, came back and when i took them off, i said to myself 'why the hell are my feet wet?'

Picked up the boots and BOTH boots had literally split in half on the sole, just in front of the heal, both boots, in exactly the same place, i could fold the boots in half!

So it does happen and whilst they could have done, it doesn't make sense for the buyer to do it on purpose, especially given he clearly wears them, so i doubt it's buyers remorse.

Either way, if they open a claim for not as described, they are likely to win. It's a tough one really, because technically, it could be argued, that they arrived as described and given your a private seller, there's no warrenty issue. Not sure how Ebay would look at it, personally, i'd expect them to last longer than a week, but you could argue what if it happened the day before the 30 days were up, thats alot of wear and tear in a month, are they any entitled then to a refund than they are now 😉

Tough one, but i suspect you'll end up refunding and i can't see any reason for wasteing more money by getting them returned.