Bartertown.com

I had a trade with some one and I am at a stand still. He sent me some figs but they weren't as described. I sent him a PM and informed him of the situation and said that I wasn't going to trade for the misdescribed stuff. He then PMed me back and said that he was sending me something to make up for the differance. It has been a couple months, I haven't recieved another package from him and he hasn't responded to any of my PMs asking what we should do. I don't know what to do now. I have his stuff and don't think it right that I have to pay to ship it back ($40.00+) but don't think it's right that I keep it either. He wont respond to my PMs so I am at a loss here. Any advice would be welcome.

How grossly misdescribed were the items?

My personal opinion would be to ship back. Its the right thing to do then wash your hands of the issue.

honestly, i dont know what i would do in your situation.

grossly misdiscribed and $40+ to ship back? i'd say hold onto em for a while and if he never responds.... well. ask again.

how long has it been?

smilbuta wrote:How grossly misdescribed were the items?

My personal opinion would be to ship back. Its the right thing to do then wash your hands of the issue.

With all due respect, I couldn't disagree more.
There's no way he should have to fork over $40 for someone elses mistake (I'll HOPE that's all there is to it).

I don't feel that it is "right" for someone to be out their own hard earned money (especially if he's in the US with our globally weakened dollar!) to rectify someone elses "error."


Here is what *I* would do:

Email him (if you have it) or PM him (or both), and restate your opinion on the matter.
Tell him you no longer want the trade and you wish to send him back his items.
Tell him that the cost would not be fair for you to foot the bill & that he'll have to pay for it. Give him your address again, to send the payment to, and your PayPal address, if you have one.

If he doesn't respond within a month, copy & paste the same message to him.

Do this once a month until you reach the six month mark (since the first time you tried to contact him about this "a couple months" ago).

At the six month mark, tell him that you now consider the package abandoned and that, if you don't hear from him within the next month (use a specific date), you will consider the trade off, the package abandoned, and you will no longer be held responsible for returning the contents.

If he doesn't answer you after 7 months, the stuff is yours to do with as you please.
I would leave a negative reference, as well.


I would like to reiterate that this is just what *I* would do.

If you think it is reasonable and want to take it upon yourself to follow that suggestion, I would PM the Administrator, Linrandir, with a link to this thread and ask him if that sounds reasonable to him.

Eric

Have you sent anything to the other person yet? If not, I would try to contact him every several days through PM and email. That way you can show you have done your due diligence to try and contact this person about the problem.
I would also make sure that what you call "misdescribed" truly is a gross misrepresentation of what you received. If it was something like they said it was painted blue and the model is painted light blue in your eyes, well that's more of a misunderstanding than the other person misrepresenting the stuff. I guess I am saying, just be sure that it was an actual lie about the stuff and not just a misunderstanding because not enough questions were asked. It would not be right to hold on to the stuff and ask for $40 to ship it back if it wasn't a total misrepresentation of what you received.
Good luck.

The misdescribed stuff was "the chariots are asembled (crew are seperate) and unpainted and in good shape" the items recieved were painted (badly), broken, the crew were glued in (and broken as well) and they were missing pieces as well as other figs in the trade were incomplete when he said they were all complete models. He lives in Isreal and I live here in the US (Idaho) so just sending them back is expensive and I don't think I should have to take the loss for his mistake. I haven't sent him my models (i have a higher rating so he shipped first) because when these arrived I imediately contacted him and said I wouldn't trade for the items I recieved and if he would have told me this was the state of the models I would never have traded. He responded saying he would send the missing parts as well as "something more to make up the differance". I responded with "what are you sending, I just want to make sure it's worth our time." and i haven't heard from him since. I PM him at least one time a week and I dont get any response. I will keep doing it for a few more months and see what happens. Thanks for the advice.

wow.... just wow. ummm yeah, give it up until the 6 month mark and then send one that says it is considered abandoned if he does not reply be xx/xx/08 at xxx time.

good luck man.

Now it makes much more sense. I would have to agree with your course of action on this one. You are being reasonable by seeing what he wants to do to make the deal right, and in the end will be willing to ship the stuff back and cancel the deal. I think it should be at his expense too. Good luck my friend. I hope it all works out in the end.

I agree with Magical Memories 100%.

dragons_lair04, keep in mind that what he may be sending you is also just more broken crap. Adding more crap to crap is just gets you a pile of crap.

A situation like this sucks but the sender, or anyone for that matter, ought to know better than to be sending broken mini's to somebody else. His mistake, his responsibility to pay return shipping.

6 Months??!! SIX MONTHS!!!??

If someone has your property it shouldn't take anywhere near 6 months for you to contact them & try to regain your items. I'd send several messages during the next 30 days, (60 days if you are generous) then keep it. Even public Libraries have computers, so the old standby "my computer is down, bleh,bleh." doesnt fly. I understand this guy is in Israel though. I'd wait 60 days at the most - make it clear to him in your messages.

I concur that six months is a little long, but things happen sometimes...especially in that part of the world. Then again, I'm impatient like that.

I would give 90 days/ 3 months for the other party to rectify the situation to YOUR liking. After that, the package and contents are abandoned.

Uhm. They told him to wait six months. Right now the only person out of stuff is the trader in Israel.

What everyone is detailing makes a lot of sense...

...that said, as lame a trader as he is, the dude lives in Isreal - so you might want to cut him a bit of slack on the lack of response issue. After all, he doesn't have your stuff, so you're not out anything by waiting longer and sending the occasional "Hey man, everything okay over there?" message - leading of course to the whole abandonment thing.

It's a pain in the ass, sure. But being where he is, there's a real chance that squaring up a trade is the least of his worries at the moment. Not saying that's what it is - but the fact that it could be might encourage just a wee bit more patience. He should definately get negative feedback and all - but there's really no rush, considering...

Another thing is the guy says he is in Isreal, but when I recieved the package it was shipped from Utah.

could be he is military .... ugh a whole new layer to this.