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What to do when buyer claims sellers item broken?

I recently sold a Bottlehead Paraglows amp with AVVT 2A3 meshplates on Audiogon. The tubes were triple boxed and shipped separately via USPS Priority insured. The amps bases were shipped separately via Fedex Ground insured. I was very careful with all my packaging. I know these amps work perfectly before I shipped them out. Now the buyer received the amp and the tubes, and claims the tubes glow up then died. This is the first time I have had problem with selling my equipment, and I am not sure what to do here. If the amps and tubes arrived without any visible box damage, how can they be broken? There are minimal circuits in the amps to be broken, especially inside a wood box covered by thick foams and double thickness box. Please understand that I am not saying my buyer is doing anything to it, I just need advice on what to do next to rectify the situation. I don't sell a lemon, and I don't want a negative feedback from any buyer, ever.
PT
pt999

Showing 4 responses by marakanetz

marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
PT,
I believe that it only happened on one of the amps
Did you ask if he/she accidentally connected wrong speaker?
This is the most horrible situation for the tube amp since in this case time delay of fuse might be greater than tolerance to keep such load for tubes.
marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
By the way:
Did the buyer send you or faxed you or e-mailed you the parts invoices that he spent the money for?
His responce as from the technical point of view seems to look like a responce from a confident person on that issue, but anywhay it needs to be checked for the "gipsy transaction". Being confident sometimes gives you a power to argue and flirt even if there is nothing to argue about and YOU are in the situation that you have to trust to what the buyer sais(pretty odd isn't it?)

Further on to avoid such situations follow Will's advice firmly.
marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
YES! YOU should arrange a technician who will examine the units and tell YOU what realy happened. If it's the fault of the buyer than you have no worries. Make sure to arrange the telephone conversations while the unit will be examined.
marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
...it seems like the primary reason on defected cathode resistors were bad tubes i.e. old and the amp needed re-tubing real urgent...
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