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Beware the Dr Who on Ebay...

1stoppinball

1stoppinball

Registered
Joined
Aug 24, 2012
Messages
246
Location
Poole
Alias
Mel
A word of warning , the Dr Who on Ebay if it has not been repaired is a real dog.
I bought it a few weeks back, like a mug unseen, it was delivered and we found no end of problems with it, fortunatly I opened a Paypal dispute and got my money back.
Don't make the same mistake.
Mel
 
SH1T , only just seen this, I bought it and it is delivered to me tomorrow, what are the issues with it?

Andy
 
johnwhitfield said:
So Andy, how bad is it then?!?:behindsofa:
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Well, with thanks to Jon who took the time to email me pictures of the game I called Martin and cancelled the delivery, I have told the seller that I will require a partial refund of £300 if he wants me to have the machine, it looks pretty rough, from the pictures the main playfield has what looks like a cracked clear coat (or it could be mylar) in a lot of places, the mini playfield doesn't work at all, despite owning the machine for 15 years the seller says he had no idea that it should raise etc and I am inclined to believe him.

If he agrees and I get it for £700 I think he will have done well, £700 is top money in the condition it is in BUT I am prepared to strip it completely and restore, like a lot of pinheads I enjoy the restore/repair side of the hobby just as much as I do playing.

Will post back here with the outcome, seller has promised to contact me tomorrow.

Cheers,

Andy
 
Fingers crossed. Hopefully you'll be able to resurrect it. I always get a sinking feeling before Martin drops off a new machine in case I've just bought an absolute dog off ebay.
 
OK - Devils Advocate time here :rolleyez: ....... you bought it *sight unseen* from ebay. That was yr decision.

You took the risk and it has backfired. You will be very lucky if the seller is decent enough to agree to refund - unless you asked him a ton of questions/extra photos etc beforehand and he clearly misled you. You have to remember there are a lot of people out there who own/sell pins that honestly have NO CLUE about what they are selling condition wise. To them its a pinball machine - it it lights up, it works, end of. There may well have been no intentional mis-selling of it.

I hope you get it sorted but you may have to just accept it as an unfortunate lesson.
 
GrizZ said:
OK - Devils Advocate time here :rolleyez: ....... you bought it *sight unseen* from ebay. That was yr decision.

You took the risk and it has backfired. You will be very lucky if the seller is decent enough to agree to refund - unless you asked him a ton of questions/extra photos etc beforehand and he clearly misled you. You have to remember there are a lot of people out there who own/sell pins that honestly have NO CLUE about what they are selling condition wise. To them its a pinball machine - it it lights up, it works, end of. There may well have been no intentional mis-selling of it.

I hope you get it sorted but you may have to just accept it as an unfortunate lesson.
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I am pretty sure I would get a refund through a paypal dispute given that the machine is described as working but the mini playfield does not work, also in the description 'It is certainly above average condition and I have owned it for over 15years with no repairs being needed in that time, but then it has only had light private use!!! I have enjoyed many happy hours on this and you certainly will.' Above average it certainly isn't.

Andy
 
GlebeCS said:
I am pretty sure I would get a refund through a paypal dispute given that the machine is described as working but the mini playfield does not work, also in the description 'It is certainly above average condition and I have owned it for over 15years with no repairs being needed in that time, but then it has only had light private use!!! I have enjoyed many happy hours on this and you certainly will.' Above average it certainly isn't.

Andy
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This just highlights my point. Descriptions like 'above average' are utterly meaningless beyond the person making them.
 
This is the same seller that, in his original listing for this machine, stated that he had owned it for over 25 years. He only changed this after a few people pointed out the game was less than 20 years old. Was he mistaken or was he just making it up?? Who knows. Bit odd though.
 
This was exactly the reason I posted the warning in the first place.

The machine is a real dog , I bought it unseen , trusting a description , what a smuck I was.

Luckily for me I paid by paypal andput a dispute in straight away , as the machine was not working and differed considerably to that it had been described as.

It cost me the delivery charge , but hopefully a small cost lesson that I must heed.

One piece of additional advice I can give , any machine that is padi for in this way does have recourse if its not working , check the distance sellers act , the buyer does have rights and recourse.

So those cowboys selling machines on ebay , who want cash , ask yourself why they want cash , becasue you then loose some rights and it takes longer to get your money back.

If someone sells you something as working and it doesn't then that is misrepresention , and you are quite entitles to get your money back.

The guy selling this machine took it back saying he would get a freind to look at it, obvioulsy he hasn't and its still in the same sh1t state that I bought it in , mini playfield non working , half the target wires unsoldered , cracked playfield mylar , broken switches, cracked plastics and to top it all some cowboy had put gaffa tape on the miniplayfield to cover wear on the edge of it.

if they wont provide close up pictures then they have something to hide , if pictures are taken in the first place then surely if you ask for more to be taken of close up areas then this should be possible.

Rant over , lesson learnt hopefully by myself and others, there are plenty of cowboys selling machines and some used to troll on this and other sites .....
 
GlebeCS said:
I am pretty sure I would get a refund through a paypal dispute given that the machine is described as working but the mini playfield does not work,

Andy
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Not as described. You'd get away with that easily. However had you picked it up and then noticed this when you got home they wouldnt have supported it since you have already been there, given chance to check it out etc etc. They like those....
 
I've noticed that with the most recent sales by those :)

Did you see the thread on UKpinball by Kirk , I have given him the heads up .

On Ebay where would you stand if you had looked it over and then got it home and it was a non worker.

Is there any rules on length of time that the machine should work , I now its electronics etc but surely it should come under fit for purpose rules , and broken machine after five mins play should surely fall undet this category.

As a side note I know Pinball Pleasure in London , sell machines , and talking to Dave the other day ( not every ones cup of tea I know because he a plain no nonsence talker ) he said that he has to offer after sales support for a period of time by law. So his machines may be a bit dearer but you do get the back up , and he is a genuine guy.

Mel
 
Dave at PP was one of the first people I spoke to and really appreciated this attitude. He said that as a commercial business he did have to follow some "fit for purpose" rules, plus he didn't want anyone to be put off by something that was rubbish.
As for ebay sales, that is why the line "sold as seen" gets so commonly quoted, same as old car sales. The seller can't be responsible for everything that could go wrong or be wrong on a complicated and 20 year old machine. But deceit is different, where someone describes a machine in one way when it is not true is wrong. But as GrizZ says, some words of assurance have no meanings such as "better than average". There are no published guide price for pinball like there is with cars, no real concept of average.

Ebay is all about the bargain, all about the chance you might have done well on an item. It often back fires but occasional it works out. I bought a MK2 Golf GTi from ebay in 2006 for £158.98 with a full tank of petrol and the owner gave it a wash for me too. £400 of parts and work and when it was written off, whilst parked, the insurance had no worries of giving me £1000 and letting me keep any parts I wanted.

Good luck, I hope you get it sorted.
 
i'm 100% with GrizZ on this one, i think if you bought it sight unseen it should all be your loss, frankly, and bad luck and all that but lesson learned.
i'm amazed he agreed to take it back or to offer a partial refund, as i suspect that's also a grey area.

ah well. i bet the fixes you describe can all be done for less than £100 too - any unobtanium parts missing?

i love eBay, but if i buy a bad one for too much money without seeing it, i have nobody to blame but myself.
 
I think description is key here. A couple of months ago I bought my SST unseen off ebay (basically a buy it now deal with no photos or description so I took a punt based purely on the price). Obviously, when it turned up it needed work doing, luckily pretty minor stuff and it could have been far far worse but clearly it hadn't been playable for years. However, if it had been totally ****ed I would have had to take it on the chin.

However, if I bought a machine described as "fully working" and found the DMD was shafted or, worse still, it had no boards then I think I'd have a right to moan.

The problem comes when machines are somewhere in-between eg broken ramps etc. With cosmetic damage, GI problems, broken switches etc personally I think you have to take as part of the risk of buying unseen. Playfield damage is also very subjective, one persons "good" is another's "trashed".

Ironically, I've often been luckier with ebay than buying from the group (with the exception of my first purchase off ebay which in hindsight was a dog of a machine....now I know why no one else put a bid in for it!) Don't think anyone's ever tried to shaft me on purpose but some people's descriptions are better than others.

I guess repairing stuff is all part of the hobby and I'm sad enough to get a thrill whenever I manage to solve anything (although I've still got Andy on speed dial)
 
cooldan said:
i'm amazed he agreed to take it back or to offer a partial refund, as i suspect that's also a grey area.
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He has not agreed to anything yet, I am awaiting a response, if I hear nothing this evening I will Paypal dispute and get a full refund.

I agree that if this was a grey area such as wear or the odd broken switch etc I would be happy to accept what I had bought, but when the description is clearly misleading then I have every right to reject or negotiate, eBay is a business place at the end of the day and they (I include Paypal in this as eBay own Paypal) will invariably decide in favour of the buyer, the company I own half of has an eBay division with 35K+ feedback and we still get decisions in favour of buyers even when they are in the wrong.

Andy
 
Make sure you tell them that you have not even laid eyes on the machine yet ;) Should help yr case.

Sorry ...couldn't resist .... but can't help finding this story all a bit farcical. I bet poor old Martin is sick of the sight of that DW in his truck.
 
Luckily I was able to cancel Martin before he collected, hopefully I will never lay eyes on the machine as if I do it will mean I have lost my dispute and had to pop round to see it in person, seller did offer me £150 partial refund last night but I declined.
 
I think this thread highlights the importantance of either 'seeing' a game before buying, or at very least adjusting yr 'expectations' considering price paid.

I personally expect the following issues with almost ANY pinball bought from a non pinhead ebayer .......

Blown bulbs, non working GI
Perished/missing rubbers
Broken /flaky switches
Dirty, filthy everywhere, crappy mylar
At least one major mech playing up
Crap flippers
Broken or cracked plastics somewhere.

All of which are easily fixable usually and to me are part of the pinball world. A lot of people who have a machine do not ever take the glass off, let alone strip it down for a full workshopping ! The machine prob came from an op years ago and prob changed private hands several times before anyone even takes a rag to it. Its only the hardcore nutters on forums like this that immediately dismantle a game and rebuild it :eyebrows:

And as we have discussed, a non pinheads verbal description of condition is next to useless.
 
Hold on you've missed off..

Rusty balls / any combination of more or less balls than needed but NEVER the right number
missing keys for the back box
Random animals (my last one had a a large collection of live spiders, previously I've also had a dead mouse)
Missing power leads
Socks/underwear! (OK, just the once but it did come as a bit of a shock, so I'm now prepared)
Bolts that don't quite hold the legs on
Strange smells that never quite leave
 
Best thing I have found in a machine was in a Gorgar, inside a decrepit instruction book were 5 pristine £1 notes, still got the Gorgar and the free fiver :)
 
First game I ever bought was described as a HUO, never been in an arcade, just an operator's house - since 1966. I took the listing at face value, asked lots of questions but as I was new to it all, couldn't spot the obvious! Anyway, the pin was a lot of fun, I just paid about twice what it was worth as it had been in arcades for donkey's years! Lesson learnt, have a look, ask questions, ask friend's for opinions, high res photos, know the seller etc etc.
 
I think we have all been caught out here, myself on more than one occasion, these days if I am buying without viewing (99% of the time) I factor this in, it's to be expected and if I am pleasantly surprised it’s a Brucie bonus, I think sometimes you have to leap before you look esp if it's an ebay bargain on a BIN, shoot first ask questions later, I have purchased two dogs in the last 12 months, one I knew was going to bark when it arrived, the other off ebay sold by a group member which was a pile of S H I T E on arrival, it goes to show that crap can be purchased anywhere even off members, I often see statements like "that's why I only buy off the group or forum members" don’t let this cloud your judgment unless it's a respected member that you trust, there are plenty out there eager to make a quick buck at your expense.

High res pics are essential, although nothing beats viewing in the flesh and pics don't show up mechanical/electrical faults, this becomes more crucial when buying from a seller that has no knowledge of the machine, how many times have you purchased/viewed a machine listed with no faults only to hear ," dong, dong, dong" as soon as you flip the switch, most of these will be simple switch faults due to poor playing along with knowledge but some may be more sinister, the further you get into the hobby the less you are phased by these but initially it's the end of the world, well not quite, about the same amount as Friday was : - )
 
Blackpool ...... (spidey sense activated) ...... seller ID stevie694 : this is our old friend Pinball Paradise's account

Stay away unless you need a new friend
 
That's his 3rd eBay account because his first two filled up with negatives within weeks of opening them
 
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