Hello everyone, I am currently dealing with a situation that isn't ideal at all on eBay. A buyer bought two bats from me exactly two weeks ago and yesterday opened a return on both of them without contacting me first. They have a combined value of £500 and were two of my best/favourite bats. As he stated in the return reason "doesn't work or is defective" eBay automatically offer him two return labels (that I have to pay for) to send both of the bats back without any possible input from my end. The two bats were sold as brand new and not knocked in, with the description stating that this will need to be done before the bat is ready to be used.
With how buyer friendly eBay is I am very worried I am going to get completely stuffed by this. I can (and plan to) dispute the refund once the bats get returned back to me and then they will make a decision on what has to be done but I really am not hopeful. Here are the pictures he has added for the first bat, including this comment in the return reason:
"I’ve had the bat serviced and knocked in, I’ve used the bat once and a huge crack has appeared on the side of the bat. I’ve taken this to a cricket shop and they’ve told me that this is not an authentic limited edition bat, limited edition willow does not crack after one session."
The bat is of course a genuine GN Limited Edition model that was sourced from India. "Limited Edition willow" did make me laugh. Here are two pictures he has added:
The second bat was without a doubt my favourite and I went back and forth between wanting to keep it or not several times, it makes me quite sad to see what he has done to it. In the return comments he added:
"I’ve had the bat serviced and knocked in, I’ve used the bat once and a huge crack has appeared on the side of the bat. I’ve taken this to a cricket shop and they’ve once again told me that cracks like this do not appear on this quickly on gray nicolls bats."
I sent him a message asking for the name of the person or company who serviced the bat, but unsurprisingly did not receive a response. Here is the only clear picture he added showing the damage on this one:
If anyone could share some advice on how I can word my defence I would be very grateful, of course willow is a natural product and these things do happen but it seems extremely suspicious his two are in this condition in less than a fortnight.
Thanks
“Gray-Nics bats don’t crack in the first week of use”. What an absolute joke. I had a hit with David Boon 30 years ago, he had 2 brand new GN bats, threw one to the ground when he edges a ball resulting in a crack just like this. He was angry at him self for playing a s#$t shot!
There is more at play here, quality of the ball?, temperature of the environment?, quality of the shot selection? Knocking in does not make soft willow immune from any damage.