I recently purchased a pair of speakers on Audiogon. The price I offered was accepted and I sent the payment promptly. The seller in return shipped the 2 speakers promptly and sent me the tracking numbers. One of the speakers was delivered the next day and UPS has lost the other speaker. The seller has put in a lost package investigation however UPs has not recovered the speaker. It has been 8 days since the lost investigation has started. I come to find out that the package was only insured for only half of what I paid for the whole package and it would cost twice that to replace the lost speaker new. So even if UPS cannot find the speaker and pay the insurance claim I cannot even replace the missing speaker for the amount of the claim. I'm not sure how to go about solving this issue. I purchased and paid for a full set of speakers and only have 1. Any suggestion on what I should do next? Has anyone ever experienced an issue such as this? Does Audiogon have policies around issues such as this?
Vince, Save yourself a LOT of difficulty. If you paid with a credit card, either directly or via PayPal - contact your credit card company and explain that what you paid for has not been received. They will handle everything, after allowing a reasonable amount of time - you will receive a full refund. Returning the item will be the responsibility of the seller. I went through this with an eBay purchase. Always use a credit card when making a purchase just for this reason. PayPal and Audiogon policy do not provide buyer protection of major a credit card.
I bought a McIntosh MC2105, that was fully insured and packed very well by an independent pack/ship business. Insured to the full amount. Upon arrival, the front glass panel was cracked. With the seller and the shipping store assistance, we submitted the insurance claim to UPS. after about 2-3 weeks, we received an answer that it was declined. The shipping place resubmitted the claim, and after 55(!) days, I received a check for the total repair cost. They sure didn't make it easy though.
Several years ago, I bought a large pair of B&W speakers on ebay. I paid for professional packaging and full insurance - total of $2,200.00 . When I received them, both speakers were totally destroyed - boxes and top drivers of both speakers totally smashed. UPS offered to pay only half of what I had paid for the speakers alone. When I contacted seller, he said UPS refused to negotiate with him and that was all he could do. When I contacted UPS they told me that they would only settle with the seller, as he got ins. and would only pay half of original cost of the speakers, even though they were insured for full amount - my lawyer said differently. Regardless of who got the ins. once payment was received on the speakers, they became my property, in the care and trust of UPS and my speakers were destroyed because of their negligence and poor handling. My lawyer sent a letter stating that - "If full payment wasn't received immediately, we would sue for full reimbursement of My speakers, plus expenses and inconvenience. I was reimbursed within a week for the full amount....Jim
WHEN YOU USE A CC WITH PAYPAL THE CREDIT CARD COMPANY FORCES PAYPAL TO PAY BACK THE BUYER THEN GOES AFTER THE SELLER IF THE SELLER HAS NO MONEY IN HIS ACCOUNT. YOU SIMPLY CONTACT BOTH. NOT DELIVERED OR AS DESCRIBED THE BUYER IS COVERED EVEN IF PAYPAL TRIES TO BACK THE SELLER. TOO BAD IT PROTECTS BUYERS THAT GET BUYERS REMORSE.
The Audiogon rep's advice was right on and was solved my problem when my purchase went very bad: contact Tammy at Audiogon.
I bought a pair of amps from a dealer in Florida--my first Audiogon transaction. Not only did he ship me the wrong amps, but he also refused to cancel the sale. He insisted that I send back the wrong amps, and he would then send me the ones I had bought. The amps he sent me, however, arrived in damaged crates--one had the lid swinging open--so sending them back was problematic. And so was agreeing to complete the transaction.
When I brought this to Audiogon's attention, Tammy was right on it. She even called me promptly to help. And when she contacted the dealer, he was suddenly very eager to make things right. Soon thereafter, the dealer's driver picked up the amps, and I had a full refund.
PayPal and a Credit Card are a buyer's ONLY protection. Audiogon has no means of protecting the buyer, as I recently found out. The Audiogon specialist I spoke with had no way of resolving the problem so I called PayPal and they refunded my purchased within 24 hours!
Here's what I got from PayPal the next day!
We have concluded our investigation into your case and
have decided in your favor.
We were able to recover $2,479.61 USD and this amount has
been credited to you. Please allow
five business days for this adjustment to be posted.
If you are due any additional funds, we will make our
best effort to recover the balance from the seller.
If the seller's account has insufficient funds to
complete the refund owed to you, please be assured that we will take appropriate
action against the seller's account, which may include limitation of the
seller's account privileges.
PayPal saved the day, as the Audiogon seller had no intention of refunding my money, he lied to both me and the Audiogon agent about having issued a refund when he had not.
It was PayPal that protected me, and took the money from his account to reimburse me.
I've bought several items on Audiogon and aside from this one problem the sales have always gone without a hitch, but it only takes one bad experience to make you appreciate PayPal's buyer protections.
PayPal helped me out on a bad transaction once. Worked out well. UPS lost a receiver on me once. Got a refund, though I had to hassle with eBay a bit. The receiver showed up a month later, looking a bit beat up. UPS lost a subwoofer on me once. Seller sent me a replacement and it arrived somewhat beat up. I managed to repair it. I’ve had other items damaged in transit (Equitech 2RQ = 90 lbs) Shipping heavy items can be a gamble. Shipping expensive stuff always a worry. Prefer local purchase when possible, even if more expensive.
Funny, no one in this thread mentioned use of PayPal. They cover the
buyer and seller. I wouldn’t buy anything without using PayPal.
Actually, the only value of PayPal is the ability to use a credit card.
The one time I had a problem receiving a damaged preamp about 10 years ago, Audiogon and PayPal proved absolutely worthless.
The bank that backed my credit card used through PayPal saved the day. They refunded my money, and had me ship the preamp directly to PayPal, thereby leaving me and my bank out of the transaction. Now it was down to PayPal and the seller. I assume PayPal won, but who knows?
I have never heard of PayPal protecting a seller. That would make an interesting story....
Funny, no one in this thread mentioned use of PayPal. They cover the buyer and seller. I wouldn’t buy anything without using PayPal. It doesn’t matter if you buy through Agone, Craigslist, or any other internet market. Just to CYA, whenever you buy anything of value, do your due diligence and get on the phone with PayPal and ASK QUESTIONS> I bought an Anthem P5 and made sure everything was straight before sending funds. This unit weighs in at a hefty 135 lbs. The UPS store packed it, I had it insured and a few days later it arrived at my local UPS depot. I wasn't gong to chance one more person handling this behemoth package than necessary. Another thing to note, Anytime you ship, take it to a UPS store or FedEx store and have THEM package it. Even if you have the original packing material, which should be sufficient because thats how it was shipped to the selling dealer when new. I make sure everything is double boxed and FedEx does the packing. Let them take the responsibility! It’s worth the extra cost! I hope you receive your speaker undamaged.....
Not surprised. I upgraded my electronics and turntable in the past 3 years selling my old gear on audiogon. I insured the gear for the full sale price. Now the bad news, out of four separate shipments, 2 (50%) were destroyed by UPS (a turntable and a cd transport). In both cases the buyer returned the damaged product to me and i refunded their money. Then i did battle with UPS. Be aware that UPS is not quick to admit fault and pay insurance claims. Thank goodness i took pictures prior to shipping! Also note that my shipments were made in the factory original double boxed containers! I have an excellent relationship with my local mailbox etc franchise and they went to bat for me pressing the insurance claim with ups. Ultimately, UPS did honor the insurance, but it was no easy transaction. My learning is that i would never buy or sell fragile equipment (ie turntables and cd transports) via ups. That is really frustrating! Buyer and Seller beware!
Things like speakers can get separated, sometimes. When you consider how many boxes are shipped, it is amazing that so much get to where it has to go without problem. Of course, it always seems to happen with high price items. I hope everything turns out okay. I am sure the seller has learned his/her lesson. B
Thank you everyone for the insight and recommendations. I just received word from the seller that UPS found the other speaker at their lost and found facility. They are shipping them soon. I have not received any new tracking information yet. I just hope it was not damaged.
Word to any buyers and sellers, make sure you establish insurance coverage prior to shipping. I would have paid more for shipping to insure them for replacement cost in case something like this happens to you. That way if the lost item is not recovered or is damaged beyond repair you can at lease have enough to replace it new.
The buyer and seller will determine which party is responsible for paying the shipping charges. Regardless of this determination all items shipped will be F.O.B.* destination. In other words it will ALWAYS be the responsibility of the seller to guarantee that items shipped will be as described and fully functional upon arrival. The seller will further be responsible to insure each package for at least the amount the buyer has paid for the item.
Shipping damage/losses:
The seller in the instance of damage occurring during transit can expect full cooperation from the recipient in filing a damage claim with the shipper. The recipient however will not be required to wait for a successful claim to recover his purchase price.
My son, who lives in Arizona just came back from a year in New York. He is a government contractor. Just before he came home, He sent two foot lockers to his home in Az. One foot locker showed up on his door step, the handle of the other foot locker with shipping tag showed up sitting on top of the first foot locker. JUST the handle. UPS had no idea what happened to the other foot locker...Go figure.
While the morality may be the same for professional and non-professional sellers, the laws may not be, depending on where you live. Professional sellers, ie, stores, usually bear the risk of loss in shipping. Non-professionals may not, assuming they shipped everything as they should. I hope this works out for you, but that's why I don't ship speakers. Just too much risk of damage or loss that I can't afford to take. Good luck. Really.
Having been through this from both sides as seller and buyer; the shipping company will only deal with the shipper as he is the one who paid for the service and their contract is with him. As he accepted your money with the good faith promise to provide you with a pair of speakers in whatever condition(s) were described, it is his responsibility to make good on the sales contract. I suggest you contact him and either agree on some set additional time for the speaker to be found or inform him you want a full refund and that he provide you the means to return the delivered speaker. If you paid with paypal they can help. If not certainly contact the audiogon Admin as offered above.
Hopefully the other speaker is on another truck and will be found. If you sell a pair of speakers for 5 grand you must insure them for 10 grand in case one gets lost or damaged because you will only be covered for the one that is lost or damaged. I hope all works out for you. Both speakers should be strapped onto a pallet then have shrink wrap around both of them to prevent losing one.
If you used a credit card, just wipe out the transaction with a phone call to your bank. I suspect that 1 speaker is worth way less than the 2 you contracted for. Can you even replace just one speaker of that type?
Admin Audiogon Official
Vince,
Please contact support@audiogon.com, Attn: Tammy if you want us to intervene.
I think both Elizabeth and jmc are correct. Though, for me, I would send back the one speaker and let the seller deal with the headache-Of course, you should receive a full refund. Audiogon, too, should be made aware of the issue. B
Ran into this with USPS on two mono amps that were shipped in two boxs and insured for the total paid, 1 was lost and they wound up paying 1/2 of the total for that one and left me to scramble to replace that amp. Who knew? Me now.
Vince, I would make arrangements with the seller to pick up the one speaker that you have, return it to him, and get a full refund.
This should not be your headache, as you did not employ UPS as the shipping agent. This problem lies directly between the shipping agent (UPS), and the person that employed the shipping agent. The liability rests with the person who contracted the shipping agent.
Have you agreed with the seller for an insurance covering half the price you paid?
Otherwise, there is some responsibility from the seller as long as it was stated in the ad that the speakers would be insured. Common sense and good faith indicates that interpretation.
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