Mobile Phone & Faults - What are the rules??

Reca_5050

Hi,

Mate bought a phone off eBay (about £120), the description stated 'very good condition', and there was no mention of any faults. When he recieved it, it had white dots on the screen, which I diagnosed as water damage, but we both thought it might be dust so tried to remove the digitiser (touch screen) following a guide on Youtube (stupid, I know!)

Anyway, to cut a long story short, the digitiser ended up cracking, and now the touch screen is temprimental.

We took it to 4 phone shops, all of whom said it needed a complete new screen to fix the dots, at a cost of £70.

Emailed the seller who said they will refund if returned, but in another (later) email said she would not refund because the screen was now cracked. Mate proposed to pay halfthe cost of the repair, but still no luck.

Question is, should the seller refund? Would be satisfied if they paid £30, but they say no. Should my mate take it up with PayPal/eBay?

Thanks a lot in advance!

soolin

As you have damaged the phone and can no longer return it in the condition you bought it thenn no, the seller would not be obliged to refund.

If you take this to a paypal chargeback for item SNAD then you would probably win, but what people on the ebay forum advise sellers to do in this situation where items have been significantly damaged (and it can be shown in photos ) after receiving goods is to then take buyer to small claims to recover the costs.

The correct procedure for future reference is to check items immediately they are received, if they are not as described to email the seller and let them know, Then the item can be returned fully tracked of course and with the correct postal insurance in case of loss, to the seller for a refund. Once you decide to start to work on an item you have basically accepted it.

Esqui

Why didn't you contact the seller before taking it apart and breaking it? That pretty much lost you hope.