My son wanted a gaming PC so he asked for money for his birthday and bought one from an EBay shop. His brother bought one from the same place earlier in the year and it worked well.

Received it and he switched it on. It worked for half a day and then displayed ‘disc error’, and wouldn’t boot up etc. We messaged the shop and after 3 days of chasing they sent us instructions to reinstall windows. This failed.

After more chasing they asked us to send it back and sent us a returns label. We received it back almost immediately – and on switching on, found that the error was displayed. They said that they had checked it, found no error and returned it. I explained that it wasn’t fit for purpose and said I wished to return it for refund. Faced with a very upset child I bought another PC and waited for my refund.

Eventually they responded and offered to swap out the inner components. I explained that this was too late, my son had waited for over 2 weeks and now had a new PC which he was happy with. Nothing.

Chased – again nothing. I then sent the PC back (it was collected yesterday).

Today we got a message saying that now the 30 days had passed we are not eligible for refund.

From digging into Ebay I realise that I should have raised a return within 30 days for a money back guarantee. The seller is now very communicative saying that their delays were caused by Covid and we can’t hold them responsible for wasting time.

I know people often post stuff like this on here – anyone got any advice on how to proceed?

personally i’d say always raise the ebay dispute, but message the seller at the same time,

ring ebay they can be helpfull.
otherwise can you sell it on £1 FVF listings over the weekend are planned

Open a dispute via Paypal rather than eBay (that is, if you paid via Paypal). Paypal has a longer dispute period than eBay, something like 180 days. If no joy there you could always raise a dispute with your credit card company.

Obviously too late now, but always raise a dispute as soon as you have any issues. You can always close the dispute later. It’s worth trying Paypal but they are not as good as ebay for this sort of thing. It might also be worth contacting ebay. When I had a dispute that was delayed due to Covid they extended the period (although the dispute was already open)

Yep, bit late now but I never message sellers and always open a case to deal with any questions as they have to reply/sort out issue then.

Looks like your option here is to get the ‘fixed’ PC back again and hope that it works and then either keep it or sell it.

Assuming your coms were through ebay and your request for a refund was in 30 days eBay will likely side with you. PayPal certainly will.

As far as their returns policy goes:

The seller is now very communicative saying that their delays were caused by Covid and we can’t hold them responsible for wasting time.

You cannot be held responsible for their delays, you’ve 30 days* to report a problem, not 30 days for them to fix it. As to those delays being reasonable or otherwise, yeah covid is a good excuse even if its not relevant. Assuming they’re a business seller you and they are covered by the CRA so they can be politely told to go jump.

*30 days will be an effective doa period. Iirc by law on electronics it’s 90.

Thanks all – really helpful

Obviously too late now, but always raise a dispute as soon as you have any issues

Well and truly learned my lesson on that.

The Ebay case thing does tend to light a fire under the offending sellers sensitive areas. Best of luck.