Trolling?
I hardly think I'm "trolling" .... but as I said earlier, I *do* have a serious problem with the way eBay allows business to be conducted on their site.
eBay started out as little more than a "virtual" version of a flea market. But as anyone who has ever been to a real flea market knows, there's NO expectation of getting refunds if you're not fully satisfied with whatever you buy there! You're often lucky if you can even FIND the seller the next time you go back to one!
As eBay grew and became the dominant online marketplace, they started making all kinds of rules to try to maximize their profits - including the HIGHLY suspect buyout of PayPal and subsequent requirement you use it to pay for things! Then they proceeded to remove the ability for a seller to leave any comments on feedback left for him/her. They've put together an environment where the seller pays to list an item, pays extra to have a "buy it now" price put on it, and pays AGAIN when the item sells -- not to mention their PayPal part of their business taking a 3-4% cut of the funds received from the buyer when the item is paid for! After all of that? There's basically NO protection for the seller against fraudulent claims of "product not as advertised"!
It's simply a hostile environment for a seller -- and the ONLY reason a lot of us still resort to using it is because so many people look there for things. You just can't get nearly as many "viewers" by advertising anywhere else.
But directly addressing your story? It just doesn't add up to me. You're saying you wouldn't have minded if this iBook arrived all scratched up and maybe even with a broken latch, but a worn button below its trackpad is a "dramatic problem" for you, which would lead you to demand a refund?!
The supposed value of $70 on Mac2Sell is pretty meaningless, IMHO. I've seen used/refurbished iBooks going for over $150 (and selling out quickly!) when offered by popular Mac vendors on the net in the past (such as Other World Computing). And regardless, YOU are the one who agreed to pay $300 for this one. Why didn't you skip any listing asking much more than $70 if you believed Mac2Sell was the end-all be-all of Mac price guides?
I know SO many laptop users who carry a regular mouse around in the bag with their laptop and never use the built-in trackpad mouse. I would think that'd be a quick and easy fix to solve all your "dramatic problems" with functionality in this case (or even setting up a tap to click on the trackpad, as the seller mentioned -- which works too).
As someone else here also said, offering to give back $25 or maybe even $50 under the circumstances would probably be workable, as well. (If I was selling it, I'd give back as much as $50 over something like this, if it was such a big deal to the buyer.....) But $100 off? I wouldn't accept that either. For all I know, you could just be another buyer trying to con me out of some money on the deal, lying about the button being as bad as you claimed!
(Not too long ago, I went through that with a Sony camcorder I sold a lady out in Nevada. She demanded a full refund claiming a selector switch on it was broken. I *knew* it was fine when I shipped it, but she insisted the camera was "useless" without it working right. Reluctantly, I refunded her ... and guess what? I got the camera back and it was FINE! Nothing wrong with that switch whatsoever! But now I was screwed out of close to $40 in postage that I never got back!)
I hardly think I'm "trolling" .... but as I said earlier, I *do* have a serious problem with the way eBay allows business to be conducted on their site.
eBay started out as little more than a "virtual" version of a flea market. But as anyone who has ever been to a real flea market knows, there's NO expectation of getting refunds if you're not fully satisfied with whatever you buy there! You're often lucky if you can even FIND the seller the next time you go back to one!
As eBay grew and became the dominant online marketplace, they started making all kinds of rules to try to maximize their profits - including the HIGHLY suspect buyout of PayPal and subsequent requirement you use it to pay for things! Then they proceeded to remove the ability for a seller to leave any comments on feedback left for him/her. They've put together an environment where the seller pays to list an item, pays extra to have a "buy it now" price put on it, and pays AGAIN when the item sells -- not to mention their PayPal part of their business taking a 3-4% cut of the funds received from the buyer when the item is paid for! After all of that? There's basically NO protection for the seller against fraudulent claims of "product not as advertised"!
It's simply a hostile environment for a seller -- and the ONLY reason a lot of us still resort to using it is because so many people look there for things. You just can't get nearly as many "viewers" by advertising anywhere else.
But directly addressing your story? It just doesn't add up to me. You're saying you wouldn't have minded if this iBook arrived all scratched up and maybe even with a broken latch, but a worn button below its trackpad is a "dramatic problem" for you, which would lead you to demand a refund?!
The supposed value of $70 on Mac2Sell is pretty meaningless, IMHO. I've seen used/refurbished iBooks going for over $150 (and selling out quickly!) when offered by popular Mac vendors on the net in the past (such as Other World Computing). And regardless, YOU are the one who agreed to pay $300 for this one. Why didn't you skip any listing asking much more than $70 if you believed Mac2Sell was the end-all be-all of Mac price guides?
I know SO many laptop users who carry a regular mouse around in the bag with their laptop and never use the built-in trackpad mouse. I would think that'd be a quick and easy fix to solve all your "dramatic problems" with functionality in this case (or even setting up a tap to click on the trackpad, as the seller mentioned -- which works too).
As someone else here also said, offering to give back $25 or maybe even $50 under the circumstances would probably be workable, as well. (If I was selling it, I'd give back as much as $50 over something like this, if it was such a big deal to the buyer.....) But $100 off? I wouldn't accept that either. For all I know, you could just be another buyer trying to con me out of some money on the deal, lying about the button being as bad as you claimed!
(Not too long ago, I went through that with a Sony camcorder I sold a lady out in Nevada. She demanded a full refund claiming a selector switch on it was broken. I *knew* it was fine when I shipped it, but she insisted the camera was "useless" without it working right. Reluctantly, I refunded her ... and guess what? I got the camera back and it was FINE! Nothing wrong with that switch whatsoever! But now I was screwed out of close to $40 in postage that I never got back!)
