Ethics and eBay question

I would like a reality check here.

I have some speakers which I purchased several years ago. When I got them they retailed for $1,100 a piece, but the street price was more like $800. I purchased 5 of them, 3 of which came with grilles and 2 which did not (open box buys). I recently sold them all on eBay (individually).

One guy bought one with a grill (won the auction for $150), and asked about a 2nd one. I had one which I had not yet listed, and he said if I would take the same price of $150, he would buy one of my other speakers which did not have a grill. I agreed.

I shipped them to him, and unfortunately the grill on the speaker was cracked in shipping. The guy emails me and asks what I intend to do about it. He also forwarded me a link to where you can buy the grill new from Infinity for about $70. After thinking it over, I didnt think $70 for a new grill was fair. I tried to determine fair compensation for the grill. He paid less than 25% of the speakers original cost, and in this fashion 25% of a new grill cost would be fair - $15. He wanted a 2nd speaker with no grill for the same price as one with a grill, so by this method the grill adds little to no value. I see the grills occasionally come up on eBay for about $20 for a pair, so by this reasoning the grill is worth $10 or so. I also noticed in my auctions that without grills they maybe go for $10-20 less than with grills.

So, I offered to pay half the cost of a new grill - $35. The guy would simply not give up. He ended up being REALLY PO'ed but I told him I was not willing to give up 1/2 the cost of the speaker to buy a MINOR component of said speaker which was damaged in transit. The box looked fine so I'm not even 100% sure it happened in shipping, but I'm taking his word for it. I also told him I wanted the old grill back. This set him off... first refused, then I said I would send a tag and have it picked up by UPS. Kept saying "I will return your stupid worthless grill but its a total waste of time, its totally destroyed", etc, etc. It seemed to me his real beef was he didnt get a new grill and to keep the old one.

So am I wrong here? I am certainly willing to do what I can to make a customer happy, but I think that ending up taking $80 for a speaker which has a fair market value of $150 just due to a small mistake is stupid. He obviously wanted one with no grill for $150, so to pretend the grill is SO important that he must have it now at full retail price I think is disingenious.

but I want a reality check... what would you do? What do you think is fair?

 

I shipped it UPS. The box did not appear to be damaged at all. I ship a LOT of stuff UPS, and this is the first time I have ever had someone say something was damaged. Maybe I am just lucky, or maybe this buyer has something more going on. I would have to be the one to file the claim, and from what my UPS guy tells me, they will pretty much always pay the first claim, especially for corporate customers, but after that they will fight tooth and nail. I dont want to use up my goodwill (having shipped thousands of packages UPS with never a single claim) on this jerk.

He said a claim was impossible since the box was undamaged (true). he said it was packed incorrectly (we disagree on this). I have a hard time buying that it was damaged in the way he said based on how it was pacaked. It had 2" of foam on all sides and the grill was literally shattered, but the foam was intact as was the outside box. Looked REAL fishy to me - almost like he dropped it when he took it out of the box or it was a staged incident.

The problem is he is unwilling to accept anything other than a brand new grill, full retail, from Infinity. I am not willing to do this. I told him I will pay 1/2 the cost of a new one, or he can send the speaker back for a full refund. He declined the refund and is unwilling to wait for me to get another grill. The only thing he would accept was to be reimbursed for a new grill. Interestingly, he told me he has encountered this before and other sellers had refunded him $75-85. To me, that sounded like a scam - maybe something he pulls often. He seemed to be cool until I said I wanted the old one back at which point he got belligerent and threw a fit.

No way was I gonna refund the guy 1/2 the cost of the speaker for just the grill. By the same token, lets say you sold a car for $5,000. It drove fine when it left. When the auto transport company drops it off, the windshield is cracked. But because its a special year and glass is hard to find, the windshield is $3,000 retail. Would you reimburse the full cost? What if you knew you can get OEM windshields on eBay for $500 but they only came up every few weeks - would you agree to pay the $3,000 for his convenience? I would feel he bought a used car with a used windshield, and the reason a new windshield is $3k is because its new. I would say an equal or better condition used part is fair.

I also forgot to mention the repair issue. He first told me he tried to repair the grill and failed. I raised an eyebrow and asked him to please attempt no further repair. He snapped back that he didn't try to repair my "junk" grill but was able to repair the other one he purchased. So, turns out he told a previous seller (or two) that the grill was cracked, got $80 for it, fixed the broken one and is still using it. I feel like he's trying to pull the same stunt on me. I have detailed pics of the grill, so if it ends up being not the same one I sent, I will have a few choice words for him.

 

I have about 65 feedbacks, all positive except one where the guy (with 0 feedback) never mailed payment after I invoiced him twice and left me a negative. Have several hundred transactions but I never beg for feedback - if they want to they can. I also sell several hundred products a month (for my business, not through eBay) and I can count on one hand the number of unhappy customers I have. I go out of my way to try to take care of people, but occasionally you get that one guy - this is that guy.

 

I agree with you - thanks for your time in replying. The other thing I forgot to mention was after I offered $35, he shot back that he would take $50 and he keeps the broken grill, and if I agreed he would agree to leave me good feedback. I told him no, 1/2 the cost of a new grill and I get the old one back and that I dont pay for feedback. His last emails were saying I will not be in business long if I don't know that its better to lose profit to take care of a customer, and how all I care about is my profit and don't care about giving him what he paid for, etc, etc. I've been in biz long enough to know the customer is not always right, and this guy is *definitely* in that 1% that causes 99% of your problems.

He'll probably leave me bad feedback. I will sure leave it for him I will wait until the last day though, mark my calendar and all.