Won a bid for a Sironar S 150 early Saturday morning, I paid through paypal within minutes, seller says he'll ship Monday morning. I wake up this morning to the seller messaging me:
"hi there, i'm absolutely gutted and sincerely sorry about this, when i was about to start wrapping the lens in bubble wrap i ended up dropping it and broke the outer glass and cracked the inner glass. I feel so stupid i cannot believe i had this for over 10 years and once i sell it i managed to break it. I am sincerely sorry about it. I contacted a camera shop this morning and according to them its not worth repairing it as it would probably cost more than what i have sold it to you for. I contacted Ebay to find out what to do, i need to send you a transaction cancellation request, which you need to accept and once this is done they refund all your money onto your paypal account. I'm so sorry to have inconvinienced you, my old age is clearly catching up with me and costing me quite a bit."
He THEN marked the item as shipped THEN sent a cancellation request. I refused the cancellation request until he'd sent the refund, which after some messaging he did. I contacted paypal by phone to make sure it was sent.
To me the whole thing just seems fishy as hell. Dropped a lens and did the worst possible damage JUST before it's time to send the item? I'll be double checking statements over the next few days to make sure the refund doesn't get taken back due to ISF on his part or a bogus account. Seller has 99.5% over a decent number of sales, though in hindsight very few photo related items.
What should I watch for? I made sure the refund included the shipping I paid - I was wondering if he was in the habit of defrauding buyers out of shipping costs.
I still have the option to leave feedback....should I just let it drop? (pun intended) Or should I escalate the issue? I requested he send a photo of the broken lens, at which point he got very defensive.
I'm doubly bummed at the moment. Ran into (probable) fraud and I've been hunting for that lens for a while.
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