Facebook Marketplace - buyer wanting refund and threatening to "take further"

missmortgagehunter

Hi all,
Just looking for some outside advice. 
I sold a laptop on Marketplace on 07/06/2020. It's old and used and was described as such with a price of £100. I had been using the laptop and it was working just fine. A friend's sister messaged me saying she was interested and I reiterated that it was a few years old and used and was fine for basic tasks but that if she'd like it, I'd happily give it to her for £80 (she had been furloughed and recently launched her own business and I was trying to be kind). I delivered it to her and took cash, which was an inconvenience in itself (but again, I was trying to be kind). 
On 03/07/2020 I received a message saying it isn't working very well and is very slow. I suggested she take it to someone that knows about laptops. She kept chasing for a refund and I refused, on the grounds that it was working when sold and that it had been in her possession for almost a month before she declared any problems. I can't guarantee that second hand items aren't going to go wrong after a sale and, as such, am not in a position to provide a 'warranty' period. Of course, had she contacted me on the day (or that week) saying it wasn't working, we could have sorted something. She has contacted me again, today, threatening to "take things further" yet I can't understand what I've done wrong. I hate confrontation and am sad that it has got to this point when I was actually trying to do the right thing by giving it to her, and at a lower price, but I can't see that I actually owe her anything. 
I look forward to any opinions/advice (or reassurance!) anyone's able to give.
Thanks x

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

Was it a private sale?

If so, treat your friend as an ex friend and tell her to swing for it.

Nannytone

1
Why was it an inconvenient taking cash?
You have sold something to a person you know no.
Maybe the law is on your side but do you really want to cause such issues in your private life

missmortgagehunter

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth said:

Was it a private sale?

If so, treat your friend as an ex friend and tell her to swing for it.

Yes. She'd seen the sale post on Facebook Marketplace and messaged me to arrange to buy it. Thank you, I'm of the same opinion but wanting reassurance that I'm not being unreasonable.

missmortgagehunter

Nannytone said:

1
Why was it an inconvenient taking cash?
You have sold something to a person you know no.
Maybe the law is on your side but do you really want to cause such issues in your private life

Thanks for your reply Nannytone. 
It was during the lock down where unable to use any cash, that's the inconvenience, although not a main part of the post. I was just expressing that I had gone out of my way to do a nice thing for someone I thought deserved it and it has resulted in a not very nice situation. 
I agree, in part, about not wanting to cause issues in my private life but I'm not directly involved with her, her sister agrees with me, and I feel that this is totally unreasonable on their part.

unholyangel

Only requirements on a private sale are that it's as described & you have the right to sell it

Sidenote: Not so much an issue here if it was a friend's sister, but I do hope you know how to properly wipe a drive. Businesses are more likely to be targetted as they normally have vast amounts of customer data but prevention is better/easier than cure in this instance. 

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

missmortgagehunter said:

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth said:

Was it a private sale?

If so, treat your friend as an ex friend and tell her to swing for it.

Yes. She'd seen the sale post on Facebook Marketplace and messaged me to arrange to buy it. Thank you, I'm of the same opinion but wanting reassurance that I'm not being unreasonable.

You're not being unreasonable. She bought an old laptop at a bargain price. 

photome

Ignore her.  She got what she paid for. You havent done anything wrong

JetpackVelociraptor

There's nowhere further she can take it, as you're a private seller. Did she say why it took a month for her to notice that it's slow? If she's been using it for that whole time and it's just gotten slower and slower, it's highly likely that whatever has happened to it has happened after you bought it and isn't a pre-existing fault. If you wanted to be helpful you could suggest she run disk cleanup and an antivirus scan. If it's running windows 10 and failed one of the updates, windows sometimes doesn't delete the failed update files which can eat up a tonne of space. Disk cleanup with the advanced options will fix this. Or maybe she's tried to install some huge programs or the disk drive is just chock full of garbage.

It may be better not to engage her with reasons as to why this is happening.

missmortgagehunter

JetpackVelociraptor said:

There's nowhere further she can take it, as you're a private seller. Did she say why it took a month for her to notice that it's slow? If she's been using it for that whole time and it's just gotten slower and slower, it's highly likely that whatever has happened to it has happened after you bought it and isn't a pre-existing fault. If you wanted to be helpful you could suggest she run disk cleanup and an antivirus scan. If it's running windows 10 and failed one of the updates, windows sometimes doesn't delete the failed update files which can eat up a tonne of space. Disk cleanup with the advanced options will fix this. Or maybe she's tried to install some huge programs or the disk drive is just chock full of garbage.

It may be better not to engage her with reasons as to why this is happening.

I asked why she was only mentioning problems now and she told me that she has spent a month trying to make it work. Since then, all she has done is demand refunds. It’s difficult to believe that if there was a problem to start with, she wouldn’t have just said.
Your reply is really helpful. Thank you so much for taking the time, it’s much appreciated. 

DoaM

Simplest solution (for her - not you) ... backup any files and program installers and not any product keys, then wipe and reinstall a clean version of Windows. The machine will run a lot better. At the same time she could get the HDD replaced with an SSD (about £20), then clean install Windows and the laptop will positively fly in comparison - even better than how it was when you sold it to her. Plus the old HDD could be put in a USB caddy so she can easily access her old files - it could then be wiped and used for backup storage.