So it turns out the Manitou Mattocs I bought on ebay have a royally screwed rebound cartridge. I initially contacted the seller after I took them out for a gentle first ride and they felt nothing like the one’s I’d tried before and maxed out at around 100mm of travel and he seemed pretty genuine and surprised. I thought maybe there was a negative air spring issue as I’d read about a couple of others so opened them up only to find the rebound cartridge is bent and buckled. i haven’t heard back from the seller since.

I’ve sat on them for a couple of weeks whilst waiting for parts and I got rid of the box for my old forks. Apparently it’s a couple of weeks minimum for a new assembly. How screwed am I likely to be if I initiate a return and send them back (reassembled) in the wrong box and with an uncooperative seller? Should I speak to ebay about it first? I’m pretty annoyed since this is my only MTB and I’mm supposed to be doing the Mega next month, so no working bike and no cash for new forks really.

Apologies for the essay. Any advice appreciated.

**** the seller. Get straight on and raise a dispute with paypal

Start a claim on ebay? If you have communicated through ebay from the start, alerted the seller to the issue and then discovered what the problem is you should be covered.

No point moaning about it on here. Ebay has a very well developed dispute resolution process that normally favours the buyer, if you’ve followed the rules. You start a claim, and then their system tries to get you to resolve it between yourself and if not it will escalate it.

It’s just last time I tried to return something the ebay system was terrible, didn’t accept that I’d returned it and the seller claimed never to have received it despite my tracking suggesting differently and that was that. I stared a return but that seems to take ages since the seller doesn’t accept returns.

It’s not a return, it’s a dispute. You’ve been sold something that’s not as described. Ebay / Paypal is loaded in the buyers favour in these situations.

Oh, should I have done something else? I didn’t see the section for a dispute, it just led into asking for a return,

If you paid by PayPal then you start the dispute through PayPal rather than just asking for a return (if someone appears dodgy enough to sell broken kit, do you trust them to handle a return properly?)

Thanks for the help, I went via ebay. Paypal says that since I’ve opened a case with ebay, I can’t open one with them. Should I cancel the ebay one?

The seller is being really aggressive and accusatory and suggesting I broke them now that I’ve opened a case, should I respond?

Tell them youre a qualified mechanic, not like theyre gonna check

Paypal now sends you to ebay to resolve. Still works.

Tbh if I sold used forks and the buyer opened them up themselves I’d be suspicious. Especially if I thought they were working when sold.

I’d think the buyer was meddling and bawked them doing a self service etc or was angling to keep thrm/refund.

Just saying

Tbh if I sold used forks and the buyer opened them up themselves I’d be suspicious. Especially if I thought they were working when sold.

I’d think the buyer was meddling and bawked them doing a self service etc or was angling to keep thrm/refund.

Just saying

And I understand that, but equally I contacted him before opening them up and he was suspiciously defensive and promised they were fine. I saw a write up where someone had had a issue with the neg spring and it was an easy fix, so I thought I’d have a look. Obviously now wishing I hadn’t

And if you could manage this attempting a service, then I commend your cack-handedness