Hey guys,
I'm pretty new here so if this is not where this thread go would the mods please move it?
Okay, so straight to the point. I was going to purchase a BiB Spidey comi on EBay through the best offer. The seller then said that he could do a better price through PayPal. Being aware of fraud I sent the payment as a contract and not as a gift and the agreement was that he would charge me shipping on top of the selling price. So he ships the product through UPS and I received it yesterday. The box looked a little ratty but not anything out of the ordinary considering the age of the piece. I brought it in a room to open it and heard a rattle. The first "Oh crap" moment hit me. I then proceed to cut the tape over the brown shipper. The lid for the 4-color box was not closed and just left sitting over the lip of the box, I opened that and the Styrofoam was not taped. Second "Oh, crap" moment. I opened the Styrofoam and the piece was thankfully still a single 'piece' with no breaks, but to my shock there was water on the back of the torso and the bottom of the base. I carefully wiped of the statue with a downy rag and saw water damage/spots on Spiders Traps and down the rivlets of his back. Also upon inspection there were numerous scratch marks and paint chips both of Spidey and one on the base. I first texted the seller the numerous pictures showing the damage and also the water spots and rubbed off paint in the Styrofoam from the water. The outer boxes were not wet so maybe this was put into the package wet? Also on the EBay page the item says displayed for a few days and then kept in storage. The piece had dust on it like it had been displayed for years and had never been touched. So there was a red flag. I contacted a painter that I know of on one of the boards and he said for a full statue repaint it would cost me around $175. I then contacted the seller and filed an incident with PayPal requesting a $175 refund for the price of repainting the statue which I assumed would be fair. Today I finally recieve some texts from him and he says that he is willing to do half of the $175 but he is not going to refund the full $175. He then went on to say that I got a "good deal" and should be happy that I only paid $550 + shipping because there is one on EBay asking for $1,000...That made me laugh. I told him of the Styrofoam not being sealed for shipping and he is claiming that he offered me a more expensive option of being delivered sooner and double boxed and I declined because of the cost. I told him that another box wouldn't have done anything because the inner Styrofoam was still not sealed and that is the culprit of this problem. Since then I asked him if he could talk with UPS and see if they will partially refund the money and I can use that for my refund for the insurance and he is saying that he won't call them and he will give me the tracking and I would have to call his UPS store to resolve this issue myself. That seems so sketchy to me. Do you guys feel like I've been unreasonable and am asking too much? This is one of my dream pieces so it is stressing me a little bit but so far I have been completely civil. I can provide pics if that will help.
Thanks for the help!!
I'm pretty new here so if this is not where this thread go would the mods please move it?
Okay, so straight to the point. I was going to purchase a BiB Spidey comi on EBay through the best offer. The seller then said that he could do a better price through PayPal. Being aware of fraud I sent the payment as a contract and not as a gift and the agreement was that he would charge me shipping on top of the selling price. So he ships the product through UPS and I received it yesterday. The box looked a little ratty but not anything out of the ordinary considering the age of the piece. I brought it in a room to open it and heard a rattle. The first "Oh crap" moment hit me. I then proceed to cut the tape over the brown shipper. The lid for the 4-color box was not closed and just left sitting over the lip of the box, I opened that and the Styrofoam was not taped. Second "Oh, crap" moment. I opened the Styrofoam and the piece was thankfully still a single 'piece' with no breaks, but to my shock there was water on the back of the torso and the bottom of the base. I carefully wiped of the statue with a downy rag and saw water damage/spots on Spiders Traps and down the rivlets of his back. Also upon inspection there were numerous scratch marks and paint chips both of Spidey and one on the base. I first texted the seller the numerous pictures showing the damage and also the water spots and rubbed off paint in the Styrofoam from the water. The outer boxes were not wet so maybe this was put into the package wet? Also on the EBay page the item says displayed for a few days and then kept in storage. The piece had dust on it like it had been displayed for years and had never been touched. So there was a red flag. I contacted a painter that I know of on one of the boards and he said for a full statue repaint it would cost me around $175. I then contacted the seller and filed an incident with PayPal requesting a $175 refund for the price of repainting the statue which I assumed would be fair. Today I finally recieve some texts from him and he says that he is willing to do half of the $175 but he is not going to refund the full $175. He then went on to say that I got a "good deal" and should be happy that I only paid $550 + shipping because there is one on EBay asking for $1,000...That made me laugh. I told him of the Styrofoam not being sealed for shipping and he is claiming that he offered me a more expensive option of being delivered sooner and double boxed and I declined because of the cost. I told him that another box wouldn't have done anything because the inner Styrofoam was still not sealed and that is the culprit of this problem. Since then I asked him if he could talk with UPS and see if they will partially refund the money and I can use that for my refund for the insurance and he is saying that he won't call them and he will give me the tracking and I would have to call his UPS store to resolve this issue myself. That seems so sketchy to me. Do you guys feel like I've been unreasonable and am asking too much? This is one of my dream pieces so it is stressing me a little bit but so far I have been completely civil. I can provide pics if that will help.
Thanks for the help!!