Warning About Warantees

[scotavia]

Bought a pc from a Seller on here in February 2020.  Seller had great feedback and adversitised that he sells his "bullet-proof" computers with a years waranty, so it seemed very safe to buy from him.

I had doubts when he asked me to lie about the date received so his feedback was not affected by something he saw as outwith is control

When I measured the perfomance of the pc, it was far from the superior gaming machine advertised, scoring only 14%.

However as I used it mainly for other things, and planned to upgrade the graphics card int eh future, I did not complain about this.

However a few months later in June, the SSD drive on the computer failed.  

I contacted the seller - and to cut a 6 week long story short - he "Played me" by ignoring my emails, taking ages to get back to me, suggesting unreasonable checks or options that were no use etc- and he managed to get me over the ebay and paypal time limit at the end of July 2020 when he no longer had to repair.refund. have ebay or paypal intervene.

When I then removed the drive myself and had it checked it was "dead" and had been "mounted" inside the computer with hot glue (a chepa and nasty method with is not reccommended) which possibly went onto the connections or got inside and may have caused the drive to fail.

He refused to refund, or replace and obviously his word and his one year warranty are worthless.

He seems to think he is very "intelli" gent and he was crafty and clever enough to get me beyond the "scope" of the time I could enforce liability to replair or replace the failed drive.he was liaable. So Mr "intelliscope" ain't no gent and his computers are not that great.

ADDED DECEMBER 2020

The Seller refused to honour the warantee and implied I was lying to him.

I got no help from him or refund or repair or replacement of the faulty part under the warantee he sold it under.

He is still selling computers and using his "warantee" to give potential customers a false sense of security ...

The refurbished equipment that we sell is covered by our 1 year warranty.

"The warranty covers the hardware of the unit and does not include software or consumables such as ink or batteries. The warranty does not cover any problems which arise through misuse or accidental damage.

If you have a problem please contact us as soon as possible with your order number (or the email address you used to order if you can’t find it.)"

I will know in future to ignore ebay seller warantees - it seems from the replies below that such waranttes are meaningless.

[tsmgmd]

.. Do you have a copy of the the 12 months warranty and what it covers.

I feel sure you have invalidated any cover you had by removing the hard drive yourself.. I'm afraid your only way forward is to replace the hard drive yourself. 

[red_magpie]

EBay is NOT like buying from the shops. We regularly warn buyers that warranties for items bought here are liable to prove worthless.

Even statutory consumer rights count for little unless buyers can enforce them, which is often difficult or impossible against unknown, distant eBay sellers.

If it's any consolation, despite this eBay is still a far safer place to buy things than to sell them. EBay is a jungle.

[rusticrye]

You don't seem to understand that Ebay's Money Back Guarantee, along with PayPal's Buyer Protection, can legally only cover items which you can see are damaged, faulty, or not as described on receipt, ie. items must be returned in the exact condition in which they were received. Ebay and PayPal (or any payment processor) cannot possibly assist with items which you report as problematic further down the line, or which fail under warranty, as they can have no idea who is at fault - you for misusing the item, or the seller for supplying substandard goods.  Only a judge can make such a decision.

But Ebay's MBG and PayPal's Buyer Protection are generous extras to your consumer rights - they don't replace them.  If the seller is a UK business seller, go to the CAB's website to learn if there's anything you can do, just as you would when dealing with an unhelpful retailer in your local mall.

If the seller is not in the UK, there is nothing you can do, I'm afraid.

@scotavia 

[john1297576]

"he managed to get me over the ebay and paypal time limit at the end of July 2020 when he no longer had to repair.refund."

Think you completely misunderstand Ebay Money Back Guarantee isfor 30 daysfromreceipt and is for Condition on arrival, not anything that goes wrong after arrival.

Paypal have 180 days, BUT this is fot Not Received, you would have difficulty convincing them that after Months it was a problem on arrival.

If there isa problem on arrival you open a Not As Described Case immediately, never allow sellers to drag you out of time, and any warranty given by the seller is only as good asyour ability to enforce it.

If you want a Real Warranty buy from a Well Known Shop or on line seller.

[*guinevere*]

Sorry but neither ebay nor Paypal deal with  warranties, and to be honest you would struggle with a Paypal case after a few months. 

If your seller is a UK business you can take advice from the Citizens Advice Bureau about taking legal actionbut if they are overseas or a private seller there's nothing you can do.