marketplace/ebay disagreement

[auditude at cox.net]

Many of us have probably seen the disagreement between the buyer and seller of some urq wheels that started on Ebay and is also on the marketplace.  

Maybe nobody cares to get involved, and I'm not involved, nor am I a consumer advocate, but I just want to say that from reading about both sides, and basing my impressions from that information alone, I think the seller is in the wrong.  If he agrees to take back the wheels, then he should take back the wheels.  Refusing to accept the shipment is just wrong, regardless of if they are, or look, unopened from his original packaging.

It also makes no sense to think that the buyer was trying to back out of the deal by going through with it and trying to send them back unopened.  That is just ridiculous.

I'm almost positive have spoken to the seller xdavids on the phone before.  He seemed like another enthusiast interested in the same things as most of us.  I think he was the guy that when I brought up converting from CIS to EFI, he mentioned some idea about using two CIS fuel distributors on one motor for a some kind of upgraded fuel system.  I didn't pursue that line of conversation.

It sounds like the buyer got screwed to me.  If the seller agrees to take the wheels back, then the supposedly unopened packaging is irrelevant.  Why would the seller agree to take them back unless he knew they were damaged?

In my opinion, all the negotiations that lead up to a final agreement to buy the wheels are irrelevant.  
All the stuff about shoulda coulda woulda as far as payments being late or whatever don't matter.  If one wants to refuse to accept a payment after the auction-specified period has passed, then they can refuse to accept it.  If they accept payment then it must've been fine.  The final deal is the deal, and the sellers suspicions of the buyers intent are just that, suspicions.  The seller isn't in the buyer's head and can't know that he really didn't want the wheels when he bought them, or that he didn't open the package.  But it is certainly possible for to sell bent wheels and go back on a promise to accept a return with a cheesy excuse.  The seller even tries to cover his bases by saying that the wheels might be bent now, by the buyer out of spite.

While the shipping cost thing doesn't effect anything as well, since it was agreed upon by both parties, the fact that shipping was cheaper for the buyer than the seller also gives weight to the seller scam theory.  The sellers response to the shipping cost issue doesn't even address what the buyer wrote, which makes sense.  The response seems typical of someone who's wrong and won't resolve the situation using logic and honesty.

The only blemish I see in the buyers story is that the FedEx guy watched him open the package.  A better situation might have been a refusal to accept the first shipment at that point.  But if the seller says he'll take them back then it's a totally plausible story, unlike the other side.

I think Judge Judy would say that one of these stories makes no sense and is therefore not true (she would probably use harsher words).  Judgement is for the plaintiff.

Ken