eBay advice please.

I recently bought a rather heavy item (CNC milling machine if it makes any difference) from a seller in HK who has a good feedback rating for £400 + £250 postage.

However when it arrived it was not new but had obviously been used and both has some damage from its use plus general wear and tear and a few bits, such as a couple of clamps and some drill bits missing.

I started communicating with the seller and sent them a large number of photo's showing the damage. They however are insisting that it was new and tested when it was dispatched (plainly impossible) and that the best they were prepared to do would be to pay £25 pounds compensation (that after about 2 to 3 weeks of communications).

Fed up with that I raised a dispute with ebay but they decided that it just counted as "not the item I was expecting" and that all I could do would be to send it back for a refund but that I would not get the cost of sending it back, somewhere around 200 quid, refunded. Not to mention they did not answer my question about if I would get the original postage refunded so if I do what they suggest I will be wither 200 or 450 quid out of pocket with nothing to show for it.

The item will need a bit of repairing but does appear to work.

At the moment I suspect my best bet is to try to get the compensation from the seller increased, possibly by stating I will leave entirely truthful negative feedback if I am not satisfied. Does anyone have any other suggestions as to what to do? The item was paid via paypal so no chance I suspect of getting the money back via the credit card company from which the paypal money came.

I thought paypal would cover you for a £160 refund (or similar figure) if you open a dispute and convince them you are in the right.

I thought paypal would cover you for a £160 refund (or similar figure) if you open a dispute and convince them you are in the right.

Had not thought to look for paypal buyer protection as assumed it was all mixed in with the ebay system. I will have to investigate, thanks.

I would NEVER buy from China or Hong Kong seller. 99% of ebayers wouldn't.

You've learnt the hard way i'm afraid.

I bought a laptop for £160 from a dodgy bloke and it was faulty. He was kicked off ebay, I got a £115 refund from Paypal and sold the broken laptop on ebay for about £70 so I did alright.

Okay I have tried to open a dispute on paypal about this but it says I can't as I have an ebay dispute open. Anyone know if I close the dispute on ebay if I can open it on paypal or if I close it and I closing all my stable doors?

Man uses Ebay to buy from Hong Kong = Looking for trouble.

Man uses Ebay to buy from Hong Kong = Looking for trouble.

I have bought other items from HK without a problem, though never this large. I explicitely checked the sellers feedback rating and looked for and found positive feedback from people in europe buying the same item. If I could have got it without importing I would have but a similar item in the UK would have set me back several hundred pound more if not twice the price so I decided to take the risk, unfortunately.