I won an auction on a laptop using buy it now on Feb 9th, and paid for it immediately via paypal, over $1k. The auction stated that seller would ship within 4 days, but after winning I didn't receive the normal e-mails congratulating me on winning the item. So after a couple of days I sent a message to the seller asking them when the item would be shipped and to please give me the tracking # when it did. I was very polite.
I received a same day response with instructions on how to track order. At the bottom of the page it said:
"If you send paypal echeck, please contact us via phone, there is problem with paypal some time when they clear the payment"
So the next day (feb. 11) I tried to call, but it just rang and rang. So I sent another message asking about the note at the bottom of the first email. They replied pretty quickly again apologizing for the inconvenience and asking for my contact info, said they would call me. I sent the message with my phone number, then tried calling them again and this time someone picked up. I asked about the echeck problem, and he told me that he found out from the laptop company that it was backordered for 3 and 1/2 weeks. I politely asked him to find a comparable model. Over the next couple of days we negotiated. They were unable to give me the next model up, but He said that if I waited the extra time, they would take $50 off my order. I asked if they could also throw in a cooler pad. It was friday and he said he would have to check into this, but was trying to get me to make a commitment to the order if they gave me the $50 and maybe the cooler pad, if his manager approved it. I did not make the commitment, I told him I wanted the cooler pad also.
btw I want to mention that through this negotiation he failed to call me back 3 or 4 times when he said he would. I don't mean didn't call me back on time, i mean he didn't call me back at all that day. i had to call the next morning.
so monday i spoke to him and he was still unsure about throwing in the cooler pad and said it would cost them an extra $50, and they were already taking $50 off my order. The funny thing is, they have cooler pads for $25 on their website. So here I was lied to. Also in this conversation I asked about a different model I had found on another web site that was only slightly more, but they didn't have it available at that time, so he would have to check into it and call me back. again he didn't call me back for the rest of the day!
So that evening I left a message on the answering machine that I wanted the next laptop model up in the mail the next day, or i wanted a refund. Next day I didn't hear from him all morning. I waited until the afternoon to call. When he picked up i asked if he got my message. He said no, so I told him what I said in the message, that I wanted a refund or the next model up shipped immediately. He said they couldn't do that so he would issue the refund, but it would take a couple of days to process as he would have to first cancel the order with the laptop company, then with ebay, and it would take a couple of days.
That night I was looking at the seller practices policy under "product availability". It says that refunds should be given immediately. So I called back the next day and told him he needed to process the refund immediately, and i wanted to see the money in my paypal account in 1 hour, or I would report him to ebay and file a dispute with paypal. He said he wasn't the one to issue refunds and he couldn't transfer me to the credit dept. cause they were in a different building. He also wouldn't give me their phone number. He asked me to send him an e-mail asking for the refund so he could forward it to the credit dept. I re-iterated that if i didn't see the money in my account or hear from the credit dept. within 1 hour, i would report him to ebay and file the dispute.
Sorry for the long story. That was all yesterday, and I didn't do any reporting or filing the dispute. I still haven't heard from them, and don't have the refund yet. My question: How long should I wait before filing the dispute? Am I being unreasonable here in any way?
