Universalgadgets01

oldfellafromBerks

Just a vent and a warning to others. Brought a phone from Universal Gadgets that trades under the ebay shop name universalgadgets01 in February 2016. All was fine until December 2016 when the phone developed a fault. It was sent back as part of the year warranty and approx.1 week later universalgadgets01 said they have posted the now fixed phone. The phone was lost in the post and I had to wait 6 weeks for universal gadgets to investigate. On the 25 January 2017, the company said it would send a replacement phone, and then went quiet. They are not replying to emails or phone calls so I assume they have decided to keep my phone, my money and hope that I will go away.

kwikbreaks

Always handle and disputes with eBay sellers using eBay procedures. Had you done that and not received any satisfactory outcome eBay would have refunded you. I know the process works having used it. The sellers do too because they cough up very quickly.

shaun_from_Africa

kwikbreaks wrote: »

Always handle and disputes with eBay sellers using eBay procedures.

The problem is that the phone the OP purchased only went wrong 10 months after they bought it and this would make it far too late to attempt to go through the ebay dispute process.

kwikbreaks

I'm by no means sure it is. I can see purchases back to Dec 2015 in my history and contact seller (which is the way into such disputes) is still available. I've had a faulty item replaced through eBay well outside the 30 days they mention for returns where you've had the wrong thing sent etc..

shaun_from_Africa

You can contact the seller and even open a dispute after 30 days but you don't get the option to escalate it so a seller can be asked to help out if they refuse then there isn't anything that ebay or paypal will do.

oldfellafromBerks

Thanks for the replies, unfortunately because of the timescales ebay and paypal are unlikey to help. Universalgadgets01 are using this to their advantage and basically have decided not to give me either a phone or a refund. Maybe they will come good in the end but this feels like a scam. I will investigate taking them to the small claims court and seeing if the police will do anything but at the moment I just feel robbed.

peter_the_piper

I'm not surprised you had troubles
http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Universal_Gadgets

oldfellafromBerks

Looking at the link above just confirms my experience with them. Oh well, hopefully others will read this and not buy from this company.

agrinnall

Normally the advice would be to write a Letter Before Action then follow that up with a Small Claim through Money Claim Online. However, to do the latter you need an address to serve the claim, and from a quick look on the universalgadgets01 ebay shop they don't provide one. All may be not lost though, if they are the same as UNIVERSALGADGETS Ltd then a quich search will show you an address in Ilford.

oldfellafromBerks

Thanks for the advice, I will checkout if the company in the above post is the same as the ebay company. If it is, I will start to take them to the small claims court. It's not just the money, its about the principle. Just because you can get away with something doesn't mean you should try.

Le_Kirk

oldfellafromBerks wrote: »

If it is, I will start to take them to the small claims court.

Don't forget the letter before action is the first step.