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Heh–I’ve lurked on here quite a while but this is my first post 🙂
So I’ve never had a problem with Windstones on ebay but this seller was a piece of work! I’ve been trying to get a male kirin for a long time now and after many close misses, FINALLY won one on ebay. I was so happy…until about 20 minutes after the auction ended….
I win the auction for $158 + shipping.
Seller contacts me 20 minutes after the auction ends and says she just can’t let him go for such a “low” price, she wanted $300 for him and wants to cancel. (WHY WAIT FOR ME TO WIN IT?!?! Also ironically there was a whole family on there in mint condition at the same time and it only went for $265. The whole family!)
I inform seller that she had the option of “reserve bid” and request that she honor the transaction.
She agrees.
I send payment via the Paypal link on her item page immediately.
Link directed me to her OLD paypal account because she never bothered to update her information. I figured this out after several e-mail communications with her trying to discern why my payment was still sitting unclaimed after days.
I inform seller that the payment got made to an account with a different e-mail address, tell her the e-mail address associated with the account, and ask if she can access her old account to retrieve the payment. No communication.
I get a message from ebay notifying me that an unpaid item strike has been filed against me. (After I’ve been holding the seller’s #$@%ing hand trying to instruct her like tech support on how to GET the payment WAITING for her!)
Seller insists I make the payment to another account, which requires a call to ebay customer support to make sure this doesn’t void my buyer’s protection.
I get the clear from the ebay support rep, cancel the old payment, and make the new payment.
Seller receives payment and tells me my kirin has shipped.
3.5 weeks after first winning the item, I finally get the box in the mail today. At last, my mama and baby have their daddy, and my ordeal is at an end.
Imagine my delight when I open the (poorly packaged) box to find that the kirin listed as “in excellent condition” and nothing further has 13 paint rubs and an obviously broken and poorly repaired horn, which the seller cleverly hid with the camera angle in the item photo.Can I just say…..ARRRRRRRGGGGGG!!!!! I had to jump through flaming hoops for 3 and a half weeks to get a damaged kirin I wouldn’t have bid on in the first place had it been accurately described!
FAIL!
I’d contact eBay buyer support and follow the steps towards getting your money back. I’d contact PayPal as well… It seems they hold a buyer’s money in a “escrow” until notified of buyer’s receipt or something these days. False advertising and fraudulent non-disclosure of the item… those facts should be in your favor.
Good luck…
Welcome out of your lurking status. I’m sorry your first post is about a terrible transaction; that really stinks 🙁 The male Kirin is such a beauty. I’ll cross my fingers that you can resolve this mess without further trouble.
WOW! This sellers tactics sound strangely familiar!?! I wonder if it’s the same seller who did something similar to another member here???
I would report them immediately to Paypal and ebay and file a Paypal claim stating that the item was not as described. What a jerk!
So much for lurking, welcome to the insanity! I’m sorry you posted under such awful circumstances, but welcome anyway. *condolence hugs*
Got a busted Windstone?
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*OPEN for repairs**SEEKING GRAILS*
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After all the dealings with this seller I’m pretty good at navigating their buyer/seller dispute issues! Per ebay’s instructions I’m gonna try and resolve it with her and see if she’ll let me return it. After that it gets a little sticky so hopefully we can smooth it over ourselves.
If she doesn’t, I wonder if I can keep him and send away for a replacement horn? I’m ok with the rubs but that horn break was pretty heartbreaking. Such a clumsy repair. Does anyone know? I would fix him up if so and give him a home, he’s already grown far too much on me and he’s only been here a few hours! It would certainly be less of a hassle than returning the item and getting my refund.
Truth be told too, I thought I got a reasonable–not exceedingly low, but reasonable–price on him, so I was going to send the seller a thank you gift, a coral pendant and chain. My mother sells stone/gem jewelry and I can get her wholesale price on pieces, so I could spend a little extra and get her something truly nice as a token of thanks. At first I did feel bad for the seller…that faded!
[edit] Ooh, Lokie, it was love at first sight when I first saw a picture of the kirin family in my roommate’s Windstone booklet. The male Kirin is my #1 end-all-be-all holy grail, reason I started collecting!
drag0nfeathers wrote:WOW! This sellers tactics sound strangely familiar!?! I wonder if it’s the same seller who did something similar to another member here???
I thought the same thing.
What happened there?
My seller only had a feedback score of 3, I bit because as mentioned, daddy Kirin is my holy grail.
What a bummer, chrisherself 🙁 The male ki-rin really is a beautiful sculpt. I hope you can either return him, or get one of the talented forum members here who specialize in repairs to give him some TCL for you.
What a nightmare! And to think she wanted $300 for a kirin in that condition! Makes me wonder what she has been smoking. 😆 But please don’t let it discourage you from bidding on Windstones (unless of course it’s a Windstone I want 😉 😀 ) – most people are honorable. And we are glad you came out of lurking – welcome!
Man, that sucks! What an dishonest and sneaky seller ! When I hear stuff like that it really ticks me off 👿 ! I have to admit that this forum is the best place to get support when we Windstonys get burned on ebay. I’m thankful for it. For some reason I don’t get the same kind of understanding from my hubby 😆 …
I thought the same thing about this situation being familiar!!! I don’t remember who the seller was, but if this is the same one, she has pulled this stunt before! If I were in this situation, I would go direstly to paypal, file the dispute, tell them what you want to do, refund it fully, negotiate for a partial refund and the right to keep the piece, or return it. Then if she doesn’t respond and PP rules in your favor, they will refund your money up to $200 and get it out of her if they can. Then you can keep the piece unless she wants a return, then you can negotiate for it. If you check with Kyrin, the residant Dragon Doctor, and find out how much it would cost to restore this poor baby and add shipping/insurance costs, and tell PP that’s what you want to do and how much it will cost and they will stand up for you. Paypal has always been good to me when I get into something like this with an unscrulpulous seller. I wouldn’t be too hard on ebay about this, they can’t investigate all the sellers that post stuff on ebay, but they can monitor the complaints that particular sellers get and take action against them, which is another good thing and posting negative feedback really alerts other buyers to this seller. Especially tel PP that the seller tried to change the selling price after the auction was over, essentially trying to extort more money!!! That’s illegal with ebay and PP policy and against the contract she agreed to when you bought the piece!!!! Very wrong!!! 👿 😈 🙄 ( I wonder if that seller is going under another name now!!! I’ll bet she doen’t know the long memories on this forum!!! 😡 )
ddvm wrote:But please don’t let it discourage you from bidding on Windstones (unless of course it’s a Windstone I want 😉 😀 ) – most people are honorable. And we are glad you came out of lurking – welcome!
*laughs* Good one, ddvm.
Welcome to the forum, chrisherself! I’m sorry about the circumstances of your first post, but most people on here are *reaaaaly* good about fixing any type of bad Windstone experience. Good luck!
Windstone collector in remission. 😉
Welcome to the forums, well as a non lurker now. I’m sorry this happened. I would open a dispute with paypal. About the horn though, can you wiggle the horn? Is it loose? See the horns are deeply embedded in the head, if you force it out you can break the head.
I have a male kirin that is in pretty good condition, I’m fixing him up. Once I’m done I’m thinking of selling him for around what I paid for him. He was shipped in a tiny box with one piece of bubble wrap. But, most of the damage was from before he was shipped. The owner just didn’t want to admit it. I was very lucky that he wasn’t too terribly damaged. There is a post somewhere around here about it.
I’m so sorry this happened to you! I remember reading about a similar problem a forum member had… actually it sounds VERY similar! I wonder if it’s the same seller! Yikes. I can’t recall who it was though… maybe someone else can remember.
If it was me, I’d fight to get a refund/do a return. Your item arrived not as described, and it wasn’t damaged during shipping. Totally unfair of the seller, and they need to make it right!
The problem with the horns is that they are glued into the head of the kirin very deeply and with a special type of cermet/epoxy that ordinarily does not give way. In my experience, in Windstone’s experience, and in the experience of many here… if you try to remove the horn to replace it, usually chunks of the head come with it, or the horn stem breaks off inside the head and you cannot insert a new one properly.
It is possible to repair it in some cases, but more frequently than not, removing the horn causes more damage and sometimes damage that cannot be repaired! I’m sorry. Melody is trying to figure out ways to do horn repair maybe in the future, but right now we can’t figure a way to get the horns out safely without wrecking the whole thing!Some members have suggested and tried using solvents carefully dribbled down into the ‘horn socket’ to loosen the epoxy glue, but this doesn’t always work either, and often the solvent can wreck the surrounding paint job.
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