On Sunday, April 11, 2004, at 12:29 AM, Philippe Le Zuikomane wrote:
> This means the item condition was misrepresented, the seller refused
> to address it by offering a return or a rebate, and you should file a
> fraud complaint with eBay.
I agree. Seems to me this is exactly the kind of behavior recording and
displaying feedback is intended to discourage. The whole system is
dependent on appropriate feedback.
Another thing to keep in mind is not to leave feedback too soon.
I learned this through sad experience, on like my 7th or 8th auction.
When I was just getting started with my L*eica last August, I won an
Elmar 50/2.8 lens from ebay seller Jonathan Bloom, ID "platypuspaw"
for $290--about what a perfectly functioning one ought to go for. It
was described as mint minus, perfectly functioning. I got the lens, it
looked fabulous, I left glowing feedback. Took my first roll with the
lens and _all_ the shots were low contrast and out of focus more on one
side than the other. I contacted the Jonathan as soon as I got the
first roll back--a week or so later. I asked him if the lens had ever
been apart, or if he'd noticed any issues. He told me he hadn't had any
focus problems with the lens, it had never been apart, that it was my
technique. I shot another roll just with that lens, really "focusing"
on getting the focus right, pulling the lens out and locking it--same
problems, and I told him so. I told him I'd take it into a local repair
shop to have them look at it. Unfortunately, what with a new baby,
running my own business and moving to our new house, it took me three
months to get the lens to Focal Point, Inc in CO for an evaluation, and
another month to hear the results--so it was five months from the close
of the auction I had an objective outside opinion that the lens he'd
represented as perfect was in fact a POS. John at Focal Point told me
the front element was canted in the mount (obviously reinstalled
improperly) and badly hazed to boot. The only real fix was to replace
the element, to the tune of $250. I contacted Jonathan (platypuspaw)
again, after many e-mails he reluctantly agreed to a $125 partial
refund...which he then never sent, and now will not return e-mails. I
left a follow-up feedback on the transaction, but after the initial
positive, it doesn't change his rating. And in any case he's not
selling under that ID any longer, so I suspect he's out there under a
different ID. Use caution!
Rob Harrison
Seattle
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