Beware of the eBay seller “gibsondependable”
Last November I bid on a Duncan P bass active pickup (item no. 401230588669) sold by the seller whose ebay ID is “gibsondependable”, and won it for just $4.25! What a great deal! Even the wiring harness is included! However, I ended up completely dissatisfied. Guess why?
As you can check with the USPS tracking number LJ921646806US, the seller shipped the package at the end of November 2016. Since Xmas was close and I’m living overseas, I was fully prepared that the delivery could be delayed. So I didn’t ask for a refund when the package didn’t show up in 45 days. But in the middle of February it still got no trace at all. So I open an ebay case and PM the seller. At that moment I still thought that it was the carrier’s fault, thus I still didn’t asking for a refund. Instead, I merely asked the seller to push USPS to track the package at their end, since I already did so in my local post office and they replied that they haven’t received any information on the item in their domain yet. The seller simply told me to wait.
I waited for another month with no luck. Therefore, before the deadline of the closing of the ebay case, I PM the seller again, telling him that it’s time to declare the loss of the package to USPS, so that I could be refunded. The seller didn’t respond this time. Then there came a bug of ebay customer support: as the status of the case became “waiting the seller’s response”, the link for “Escalate this case” was gone! So I had to watch the case closed automatically, without being able to get help from ebay customer support, simply because the seller refused to respond!
Still, it’s merely a $4.25+shipping deal so I can live with the fact that the package got lost and my money is gone. Indeed, I decided to forget about the whole thing and let it end. Until ...
At the end of April 2017, I was surprised to see that the same seller post the same pickup for sale on ebay again:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Seymour-Duncan-Black-Active-EQ-Precision-Bass-Pickups-P-/401314192167?
I know that these pickups look very similar to each other, but checking the soldering marks on the pots and you can see that it’s exactly the same pickup I won last year. I PM the seller and here is his reply: “Hi, we just received this item back. It's too long ago for us to look up in records since it's past the 90 day point so we're re-selling it under the assumption that it was lost during shipping and refunded already”.
I told him that I didn’t receive any refund and he didn’t respond for about a week, until I sent him another message. This time he replied: “Hi, I'm really sorry if there is any kind of confusion over this. However we can't be sure that you didn't already get refunded for your purchase. That purchase was had to be from more than 90 days ago and beyond the purchase history. You should have been able to receive a refund up to within that 90 day period already under buyer protection limits and there is no way for me to know if you did or didn't.”
And this is his last reply. I PM him again and he remained silent.
I have to say that it really makes my angry. It’s not merely about the little $$ I lost. Everyone can see that the time I spent for typing so many words actually is worth much more than that. It’s about the pickup, which is relatively hard to find. It’s also about the countless effort I communicated with him and checked my local post office for so many times. And most of all, it’s about his attitude. Surely it’s my own fault not to ask for a refund within 90 days of the purchase and not to escalate the case to ebay customer support before further communicated with him. But as we all know, there are so many trust-worthy sellers who always do their best to keep their customers satisfied. Obviously “gibsondependable” is not one of them.
Thank everyone who had spent the time and patient for reading this long post!
Last November I bid on a Duncan P bass active pickup (item no. 401230588669) sold by the seller whose ebay ID is “gibsondependable”, and won it for just $4.25! What a great deal! Even the wiring harness is included! However, I ended up completely dissatisfied. Guess why?
As you can check with the USPS tracking number LJ921646806US, the seller shipped the package at the end of November 2016. Since Xmas was close and I’m living overseas, I was fully prepared that the delivery could be delayed. So I didn’t ask for a refund when the package didn’t show up in 45 days. But in the middle of February it still got no trace at all. So I open an ebay case and PM the seller. At that moment I still thought that it was the carrier’s fault, thus I still didn’t asking for a refund. Instead, I merely asked the seller to push USPS to track the package at their end, since I already did so in my local post office and they replied that they haven’t received any information on the item in their domain yet. The seller simply told me to wait.
I waited for another month with no luck. Therefore, before the deadline of the closing of the ebay case, I PM the seller again, telling him that it’s time to declare the loss of the package to USPS, so that I could be refunded. The seller didn’t respond this time. Then there came a bug of ebay customer support: as the status of the case became “waiting the seller’s response”, the link for “Escalate this case” was gone! So I had to watch the case closed automatically, without being able to get help from ebay customer support, simply because the seller refused to respond!
Still, it’s merely a $4.25+shipping deal so I can live with the fact that the package got lost and my money is gone. Indeed, I decided to forget about the whole thing and let it end. Until ...
At the end of April 2017, I was surprised to see that the same seller post the same pickup for sale on ebay again:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Seymour-Duncan-Black-Active-EQ-Precision-Bass-Pickups-P-/401314192167?
I know that these pickups look very similar to each other, but checking the soldering marks on the pots and you can see that it’s exactly the same pickup I won last year. I PM the seller and here is his reply: “Hi, we just received this item back. It's too long ago for us to look up in records since it's past the 90 day point so we're re-selling it under the assumption that it was lost during shipping and refunded already”.
I told him that I didn’t receive any refund and he didn’t respond for about a week, until I sent him another message. This time he replied: “Hi, I'm really sorry if there is any kind of confusion over this. However we can't be sure that you didn't already get refunded for your purchase. That purchase was had to be from more than 90 days ago and beyond the purchase history. You should have been able to receive a refund up to within that 90 day period already under buyer protection limits and there is no way for me to know if you did or didn't.”
And this is his last reply. I PM him again and he remained silent.
I have to say that it really makes my angry. It’s not merely about the little $$ I lost. Everyone can see that the time I spent for typing so many words actually is worth much more than that. It’s about the pickup, which is relatively hard to find. It’s also about the countless effort I communicated with him and checked my local post office for so many times. And most of all, it’s about his attitude. Surely it’s my own fault not to ask for a refund within 90 days of the purchase and not to escalate the case to ebay customer support before further communicated with him. But as we all know, there are so many trust-worthy sellers who always do their best to keep their customers satisfied. Obviously “gibsondependable” is not one of them.
Thank everyone who had spent the time and patient for reading this long post!
