Just for the record, I genuinely am just seeking opinions and advice – I don’t want to start a witch hunt and I’ll be ruthlessly honest so you don’t need to go poking around in my forum activity history 🙂

Long story short, I bought a bike on here (normal PayPal, not gift) a couple of weeks ago. It was well described and the price was reasonable. The photos showed it as being ready to ride. The fork had just had a respray and oil change and the brakes were bled.

When it arrived, the rear mech was swinging loosely – I tried to tighten it but it was immediately evident something was wrong. The fork paint was flaking away and it had obviously just been sprayed without any key, or preparation. I could also pull both brake levers back to the bar.

I took it straight to my excellent lbs. The (Cytech qualified) mechanic phoned me back the same day saying the rear mech was hooded, the brakes needed bled and the fork required a rebuild. They also reckoned there was no fluid in them. So a hefty expense and I’d still need to strip, prepare and respray the forks myself.

The seller started off badly by insisting there was absolutely nothing wrong with the bike. He then relented and admitted the paint job was a legitimate cause for complaint. Given the cost of getting it ready to ride, I asked for a refund. Seller says no, but he will send.me another rear mech and a link to instructions to rebuild the fork…

Would you just bang in a PayPal dispute? Unreasonable? It’s an old bike and I wasn’t expecting miracles, but did.expect it to be rideable.

Dispute – it was clearly not right and they want you to do the work that they said that they had done

And what is a ‘hooded’ mech

Clear cut this one – seller says it was rideable, it wasn’t.

How much was it?

Well you’ve already got the Bombers…

Sorry, not hooded – can’t even remember what I was trying to type now… basically, it’s broken – tab snapped off.

yep as he has described it as ready to go then it is clearly incorrectly described.

paypal dispute all the way !

Well, he didn’t actually say it was rideable, but he never said it wasn’t either.

It’s basically a half finished project – a really nice frame with some shoddy parts hanging off it. And some really good parts too, to be fair.

Paypal dispute.

Ah, we got confused by this

The photos showed it as being ready to ride

. He did say that the brakes were bled though

Start a dispute, it’s what you paid the PP fees for isn’t it?

Yup. Just asked for either £100 refund to make it roadworthy or a full refund and I’ll ship the whole sorry mess back to him. If not, PP dispute opened tomorrow.

EDIT – thanks all.

Well it’s not as if you or STW owe him anything, pretty much as classifieds only user so I wouldn’t of thought many will be siding with him.

As leffeboy said.

I think what you’ve asked for OP as recompense is reasonable.

Any update on this ?

Just that he wants photos of the damage. Which is fair enough if he’s thinking about refunding, but I doubt he is tbh. Still planning to open dispute tonight.

Quick update… Dispute immediately upped to a claim, seller buried his head in the sand, Paypal sided with me, sent bike back to his registered address yesterday (the dispute team gave me the address).

Call from the courier this morning saying there was no-one of that name at the address and they could hold it at their local depot until close of business. Called Paypal (again!) and they advised no action – bike would be returned to me at which point I would be refunded, having tried as best I could to return it.

But I wanted everything done and dusted and wanted to do the right thing, so I contacted the seller and told him he could sign for it at his local depot. There followed a loooong email correspondence in which he continued to blame everyone but himself, asked all the questions I had already answered and told me I had to sort it out. The address turned out to be an old one, but of course, it wasn’t his fault he hadn’t updated it in Paypal.

Eventually told him I’d done all that could be expected of me and he could pick it up from my garage or organise and pay for a courier.

I’m rather cross (GGGGgnGgghnnn). I’ve paid for postage twice (£60ish) and will have nothing to show for it, apart for an ongoing headache.

Just in case anyone cares, this is still ongoing. Paypal seem to be incapable of consistency of thought. Every time I call them, I get stuck on hold for 10 minutes whilst the handler reviews the case (I suspect they are having a cup of tea).

They then come back to me, three steps backwards from where we should actually be. I reckon it will all pan out, but the time I’ve spent on this; uploading various documents and scans, waiting on the phone, trying to pacify the seller, emailing and all the other toss is worth more than the bike cost.