Who pays for busted stuff?

I bought a Nak tape deck from a gent here; I made an offer, he counteroffered with a slighly higher price, including shipping. We agreed, and it was left up to him to select the shipper. You guessed it, UPS ground. So the deck finally gets to me, the box looks like it hasn't sustained any real damage. I unpack it and it looks terrific. I plug it in, and the "load" and "autoreverse" features will not work at all. I get a brief grinding sound and then nothing. At first I though I really ought to have made sure the transport screw was removed. It wasn't there, so a non-issue. I wrote the seller "the boyz in brown showed up tonight at 8:00 with the deck, overtime I suppose. The Nak is in as new cosmetic
condition, really nice. Now for the "but". The "load" and "reverse" features do not work, makes an odd brief grinding
sound and will not eject nor reverse the cassette. Am I doing something wrong?" The seller wrote me back (promptly) "Read the manual carefully. Everything always worked fine for me. Keep trying, maybe something went to sleep". Now to the question...the seller packed the item in it's original box (and did not secure the transit screw), selected the carrier, and now the deck needs repair. I can't see how I could make a claim with UPS since the deck looks prisitine and the box has normal wear. The gent insists that when he shipped it to me it was working perfectly. Assuming the deck does not "wake up" I'll need to get this serviced locally (if any of you have an idea what may be wrong I'd appreciate hearing from you), who pays for the repair?