Sold system board and processor on ebay...

MrsTinks

And the buyer has come back and said something is not working... he isn't able to test if it's either of the parts he's bought from me or something else - the problem description means it could be either part I sent him (which were brand new!) or it could be insufficient power supply, faulty drive connected to it, duff memory and so on and on.
Buyer isn't capable at trouble shooting so wants to send the items back - told him by all means do so, I will test them and if they are not faulty I will charge him for the time (which will include setting up a full test machine at work because oddly enough I don't have the facility to build a machine at home anymore hence why I was selling the bits...) and he will have to arrange for the bits to be picked up and returned to him.

Being as he's in Southern Ireland the shipping alone is £20 each way (so if the parts aren't faulty that's £40 it'll cost him on top of what he's paid...)

IF the parts aren't faulty (which I strongly suspect is the case - unless they were damaged in transit or he has messed them up by not knowing what he was doing building the machine) or if he has damaged them and I refuse to refund (I will only do this if I am sure they either work or haven't been damaged and are the original parts after matching them to the serial numbers) then where do I stand if he disputes me? I can get an independant computer engineer to look at them and verify what I find if needed would that help? (sorry just trying to cover all eventualities here...)

Hopefully if he returns the parts (and the serial numbers match) they will be working fine and to be honest I won't have an issue with refunding him everything other than the postage which as the parts are working I don't think I SHOULD refund him for. But I don't mind refunding and reselling the working components.

What i don't want to happen is that I will end up £40 + ebay fees down and still have 2 working components but be seriously out of pocket...

Thoughts on a postcard

ormus

what was the selling price?
it has a bearing on what the buyer will do next.

if i bought summat for 50 quid and thought i might possibly loose another 40 quid in postage cost, then the item would be going into the skip or back onto ebay!

MrsTinks

One item was £32 (system board) and the processor was £44.
Chances are only one will be faulty if either is at all! (I strongly doubt either is faulty and if they are chances are they are damaged by the buyer... Unless they got some seriously rough handling in transit in which case I'd have expected him to state so when he first contacted me...)

ormus

in that case send him another email stating the terms of the warranty, ie any pp cost are his.
and politely suggest he might be better off looking at other alternatives, as you are 99% confident the items are ok.

AlexisV

Test it, get it working and take a video of it working on a digicam.

Little things like having a brass standoff touching the mobo would cause it not to start up, so it's probably his installation.