It's a shame that few buyers on ebay are willing to leave truthful feedbacks for fear of retaliation.
So here the story goes: 2 months ago I bought a higher end bike on ebay that was advertised as full DA group and brand new ("zero miles"). BTW, the seller has a 99.4% rating.
Well the bike arrived w/ signs of probably several months of regular use, and the cassette is Ultegra rather than DA. I sent 4-5 emails to the seller asking for an explanation. He did not respond for 2 weeks, so I filed a paypal dispute.
Within a few hours, the seller re-surfaced, saying his son died in the Iraqi war, and admitted to having test ridden the bike (which was total BS because the mileage was way more than test riding) and pleaded to settle w/ me because his paypal account was frozen due to the dispute.
He offered a partial refund (less than 10%) plus a new DA cassette. So I thought well, let's cut the hero's dad some slack and agreed.
So I dropped the dispute and waited for the cassette to arrive. 3 weeks passed, nothing showed up. So I emailed him twice, still no response. The third time, I emailed him that I would post negative feedback if he keeps hiding. Well, WITHIN 2 HOURS, he showed up and said I needed to return the original Ultegra part in order to receive the DA one. Otherwise he would'nt send me anything. "if you don't like it, tuff sh*t", he wrote.
It's not much money, but I am just sad that someone would make up a war hero story to rip off a fellow cyclist. And it makes me sad that ebayers wouldn't use feedback to defend themselves, because it's obvious the guy is a pretty shitty seller but has very high rating.
Oh, well.
BTW, in case you say I am being nickpicking, here is a picture of the stem I took off the bike right after I opened the box.
So here the story goes: 2 months ago I bought a higher end bike on ebay that was advertised as full DA group and brand new ("zero miles"). BTW, the seller has a 99.4% rating.
Well the bike arrived w/ signs of probably several months of regular use, and the cassette is Ultegra rather than DA. I sent 4-5 emails to the seller asking for an explanation. He did not respond for 2 weeks, so I filed a paypal dispute.
Within a few hours, the seller re-surfaced, saying his son died in the Iraqi war, and admitted to having test ridden the bike (which was total BS because the mileage was way more than test riding) and pleaded to settle w/ me because his paypal account was frozen due to the dispute.
He offered a partial refund (less than 10%) plus a new DA cassette. So I thought well, let's cut the hero's dad some slack and agreed.
So I dropped the dispute and waited for the cassette to arrive. 3 weeks passed, nothing showed up. So I emailed him twice, still no response. The third time, I emailed him that I would post negative feedback if he keeps hiding. Well, WITHIN 2 HOURS, he showed up and said I needed to return the original Ultegra part in order to receive the DA one. Otherwise he would'nt send me anything. "if you don't like it, tuff sh*t", he wrote.
It's not much money, but I am just sad that someone would make up a war hero story to rip off a fellow cyclist. And it makes me sad that ebayers wouldn't use feedback to defend themselves, because it's obvious the guy is a pretty shitty seller but has very high rating.
Oh, well.
BTW, in case you say I am being nickpicking, here is a picture of the stem I took off the bike right after I opened the box.