John Pye online auction, everything is broken on arrival, anything I can do?

fifer82

Hello!

So I spent a few hundred pound at johnpye.co.uk on 3 computer items, and all of them are broken:

• The CPU I bought was full of bent pins. I believe 3 are missing entirely making it useless. This is damage not viewable from the image provided on the lot.
• The Motherboard I bought has no tray for the CPU as it is clearly broken, and all of the mounting framework is missing so even if the CPU was fine, it wouldn't be possible to attach it. Again a picture of the box online with no details saying it is physically damaged.
• The GPU I bought seems fine, but it doesn't boot on 2 machines I tried it on, so it is goosed as well. In this case, I would kind of understand. It looks fine and you couldn't know it was broken. OK my bad... that is a risk I guess i took.

Have I been scammed by this process, or do I have any rights? It is difficult to find more information because it is an online auction that isn't ebay, and also I didn't buy it in person.

Here is Terms and Conditions.

johnpye.co.uk/terms/general-auction-terms-and-conditions.pdf

Thanks for reading.

neilmcl

I've been buying from JP for years and the golden rule when buying electronics in particular or any other item is to view and test them if you can before bidding. I assume you just placed bids without actually going to the showroom.

Unfortunately you have no rights for a a refund I'm afraid. Their T&Cs are very explicit about this and within the law.

soolin

Terms and conditions here

https://www.johnpye.co.uk/terms/general-auction-terms-and-conditions.pdf

Which suggest that buyers should inspect items beforehand, otherwise it is buyer beware.

Even sites that recommend them like

https://10ways.com/profit/quick/john-pye-auctions-is-it-a-scam-is-it-legit-we-reveal-all Warn buyers that inspection is a must as a lot of the goods can be broken returns and damaged items and with such vague catalogue descriptions and no guarantee you could be buying rubbish.

I buy a lot at auctions, I have on a very few occasions bought unseen, it's very rare and I would normally phone the auctioneer for an inspection report, catalogue entries tend to be one line at most, and photos rarely help when buying second had used or returned damaged goods.

fifer82

Thanks for your insight guys.

So the fact that it was an online auction where it wasn't listed as physically damaged, and I did not attend in person seems to me to be a misrepresentation of goods.

Why do they sell TVs as "SMASHED / BROKEN / SALVAGED" on the listing, but not on other items, isn't that a misrepresentation of the goods (online)?

nidirect.gov.uk/articles/auctions

neilmcl

fifer82 wrote: »

Thanks for your insight guys.

So the fact that it was an online auction where it wasn't listed as physically damaged, and I did not attend in person seems to me to be a misrepresentation of goods.

Why do they sell TVs as "SMASHED / BROKEN / SALVAGED" on the listing, but not on other items, isn't that a misrepresentation of the goods (online)?

nidirect.gov.uk/articles/auctions

It's not simply an online auction as you have the opportunity to inspect the goods beforehand.

bris

Most, if not all auction houses now have an online presence, but the golden rule is they are still sold at the venue to real buyers. I haven't bought anything from one for a while now but it was handy to go see the items first then on the day you could bid online if you can't make it that day.

fifer82

Cheers!

Finally what about my Credit Card, can I dispute the item and go down that road?

powerful_Rogue

fifer82 wrote: »

Cheers!

Finally what about my Credit Card, can I dispute the item and go down that road?

Course you can. They will also dispute, provide proof and you will more then likely lose.
If you do, expect to receive a LBA from the auction house.

soolin

Just looked at a few of their lots and all say

PLEASE NOTE: This is a Public Auction, not a consumer or retail sale – Lots inc. second-hand, returns, ex-display and damaged goods, sold as seen with no guarantees which is why Public Viewing is available (below) and recommended.

shaun_from_Africa

At least with online only auctions you have the fallback of a 14 day right of cancellation using your Consumer contract regulations rights (if purchasing as a consumer from a business), something that you don't get if the possibility of inspecting it before bidding was there.

fifer82

Thanks everyone.

Oh well! I had a drink last night and when I got back I seen this window open and I started down a rabbit hole. I couldn't live with myself if I am 300 down and John Pye is laughing all the way to the bank. My hands are tied.

However, what if I play the same online game of misdirection?

I fired together a ScapeBox profile for John Pye and run it on a Sunday to scrape all of the (onsite) lots into JSON. Then using the Azure Bot Framework and a ton of proxied emails, to generate a slow but relatively random and steady set of esquires.

Each John Pye Location has the following possibility (but the chances are low, it cannot be too frequent or patterned).

1. Contact JP about mundane questions on auction topics.
2. Contact JP about a specific Lot details for a specific site.
3. Contact JP about Packaging Requests for ended lots.
4. Contact JP with dud shipping labels (I found a generator for PDF on Github).
5. Contact JP disputing invoices of lots.

Lets say a human is 10 pound an hour. Of course the premium (300 +20% + 20%) would require roughly the investment of 45 hours worth of wasted time. I guessed when split across the locations, and accounting for lack of patterning, by October I could be where I wanted to be.

A small victory for my 300 pound landfill, atleast to me.