Another potentially dodgy situation...

rebeccauk

I seem to be getting them all lately......

At the weekend I sold a fish-tank. The kind you put tropical fish in with a light, heather etc and tons of spares. It was our fish tank up until my DH did an upgrade to a bigger one and was working fine.
Just before we sold it we did a test and all seemed to be working well - although the test we did was without water - not sure if that makes a difference or not.
As it would have been hard to courier we advertised for collection only and the buyer came to collect on Monday. They insisted on cash on collection as they wanted to check it all before they paid and I allowed that as I've never had any probs with it before.
The buyer was great - came into the kitchen for a chat for ten minutes and was getting lots of tips on keeping fish from my DH - really geniune guy.
Got feedback the day after to say the transaction was 'ok' - I was a bit disappointed that we hadn't had a glowing feedback since he seemed to have a bit of a rapport with my hubby but anyway.....
My hubby has got a text this morning (I gave them his mobile number as our address is hard to find using satnav so we often have to direct people to us) saying 'The heater on this fish tank doesn't work.' - nothing more....
My hubby hasn't yet replied as he wanted to check what we should do in this instance??!
The family travelled 50 miles to pick up the tank so doubt they would be pleased about returning it.... but then again I'm pretty sure it was all working - my hubby is very thorough and would have, I'm sure, picked up on the heater not working when he tested it.
I'm not sure whether it's genuine and it was our mistake (giving them the benefit of the doubt) or whether they are trying it on?
What should I do?
Thanks as always
Rebecca

rebeccauk

Sorry to bump guys but any ideas?

Heliflyguy

I used to keep African Cichlids a while back, I thought that it was not a good idea to run a heater out of the water?
If correct it may be that by doing this it has caused the heater to fail, knocking them about I dont think helps, not that I am suggesting your husband did.
It might be worth checking if he has the heater set corectly, are there any LED's on it to say its on (powered up) and/or heating?
Depending on how much the heater was worth taking into account what you were paid for the whole lot you could offer a part refund via a gift in pay pal or by postal order perhaps.
As it was paid in cash and feedback has been left you could possibly do nothing I suppose.

lindseykim13

to be honest i'd ignore them, seems odd to me and they can't do much with regards to getting a refund as they chose to pay cash. If they keep on i'd offer a refund on return but thats up to them to sort out. imo

motorguy

running a heater without it being in water will knacker it in a matter of seconds.

zorber

They came and saw the equipment before they purchased it. So sold as seen your not a shop, if was for the buyer to check before paying that all was in order as that why they came to collect it.

If you posted it then they could have argued distance selling laws etc.

Dave101t

dont worry about distance selling regs:
...They only apply to transactions between businesses and consumers (individuals acting outside the course of their business) and do not include business-to-business contracts and auctions.

rebeccauk

I just spoke to my husband - he didn't test the heater out of the water - he tested the pump. He didn't test the heater before we listed it as it was working fine up until us upgrading to the bigger tank - the old tank has been sat for a matter of months while we got sorted enough to list it so if the heater has stopped working then it's in that short space of time.

As far as knocking it about goes - we haven't - it's just been sat in our study for ages as my husband was in fact thinking of keeping hold of it as a fry tank but then changed his mind so we didn't chuck it outside or anything like that. My husband did suggest that the buyer could have damaged it in transit but not sure if we're in a position to suggest that... customer is always right and all that.

I'm also a little uncomfortable that they are texting my husband and no messages have come through via ebay. I know they might not get to a computer much but surely any conversations should be recorded throgh ebay for everyones records?

I'm very keen to preserve my 100% feedback but as you say as they have already bought the tank that's safe! It does worry me though that they know our address and my husbands phone number :-(

I do like to play fair on ebay and if something is faulty I'll aknowledge it but then again I'm aware this opens me up to abuse from not-so-scrupulous people so it's finding that balance.

mikey72

I bought my last heater for about £7 or £8 from hongkong, off ebay. You could always refund that much and ask them to do the same.

rebeccauk

Ok, I've sent them a message through ebay and asked my husband to ignore the text message as I don't want to get into a text debate with them. I just said it was working when we last had it running, it's been kept indoors, upright and well looked after so there is no reason for the heater to have stopped working. I have also asked them (at my husbands request) to check that the heater is turned up - dumb question I know but he says it's an easy thing to miss on that model. There is no LED to indicate it's on unfortunately.
Anyway I sent this last night at 8.40pm and so far no reply....:(