Helmet to avoid - Legal advice needed

[Brigham]

Just a quick post to warn people of an issue I am in the process of trying to sort...

Ordered a Royal Guard helmet from eBay. Images showed a beautiful looking lid, description stated that the image was for "display" and that the helmet would be of similar quality but obviously colour may be slightly different due to monitors etc etc.

Paid for the helmet, plus postage, plus import ($230 total) to have it shipped to UK.

Waited 2 weeks, finally a big box arrived - very excited.

Inside the box, a brand new shiney "Star Wars" box for the helmet.
Inside that box, a home-made roughly cast, very bad copy of a DP lid, with a "2011 Lucasfilm TM" badge glued on the inside.
The Paint finish was horrendous to say the least. Unfinished around the eye slot, air bubbles over one side of the eye slot, pin holes everywhere, and the shape of the lid was uneven and the shoulders were two different levels, so the lid sits wrong on the wearer.
TK IAIN lives close by, so he popped round to have a look and simply said "send it back".

I took his advice and started a claim procedure through eBay, which has had a reply:

If I send back the lid, I will be entitled to a full refund of $230 which includes the original postage charges.
However, since they do not ship internationally, they cannot send me a pre-paid return label, so therefore I have to cover the return shipping fee of £60!!!

If they don't ship internationally, then how come they were happy enough to ship to UK from Florida when I was paying the shipping costs, yet now suddenly they expect ME to pay for return shipping.
If it was a wrong size or colour choice or any other fault of mine that was causing the return, I would be happy to cover the cost. But surely they cannot expect me to pay return shipping if the reason for the return is a badly made lid that should never have been shipped in the first place!

To help anyone else from falling into this trap, please avoid the eBay seller "7thavenueshop".

Any advice on how I should proceed with this would be welcome.

[stripes]

Unfortunately, this is one of the drawbacks to international shipping. I have found that in my dealings, most of the time I have had no choice but to pay the return shipping if I wanted to send something back, regardless of what the reasoning was. Unfortunately, there isn't really anything else you can do. The company is based out of the US (Ebay or the person you bought from) and if they cannot provide you with a shipping label it's unfortunate but you'd have to eat the return shipping cost. The only other thing you could do would be if you know someone who lives states side coming to the UK... they could potentially take the helmet and get a shipping label and return it, but I know this is a long shot.

[Brigham]

Hmm, got some friends in US but not sure when any of us is visiting either in the immediate future lol.

What's the legal implications, anyone know?

[capthank]

That is exactly who I purchased mine from. There were a couple of spots on the helmet where it looked like the paint hadn't dried before it was packaged. I emailed them and after a couple of weeks I received a package of paint to fix the helmet.

I am sorry to hear that you have had such a hard time with that.

[Brigham]

All sorted in the end. I put a complaint in through eBay and they came through for me.

They sent me a free pre-paid postage label to return the item to the seller, then they charged him the original cost plus 2x the postage. I was refunded the original price PLUS return postage (even though they covered the cost) and if he refused to pay up, they were gonna shut down his eBay shop.

I now have a lovely new lid from StevieBxx in Birmingham (sells on eBay regularly) and it's a cracker. Made clearance with no modifications required. Perfect lid.

[bjsavage7]

Glad it worked out in the end.
I got one from Stevie too & it's awesome!

[GPearson]

I think he is selling again under a different username http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... TQ:US:1123

i am about to have a bucket cast based on my measurments, can anyone give me feedback on this seller?

[Brigham]

Sorry, not seen that one before. My lid came finished, fully painted and shiny, ready to wear.

[kornishpyxee]

I'm glad you posted this because 7th Avenue Shop is also on amazon.com, and I was just about to purchase what is being marketed as a Rubies Star Wars Adult Supreme Edition Imperial Guard Helmet, when I remembered this post and made a point to re-read it before making my purchase. So this guy is a recaster--and probably a lousy one at that? http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005N5 ... GL17E0UZT3


For what it's worth, it appears this guy is based in Florida. Here is amazon's info on 7th Avenue Shop: http://www.amazon.com/sp?_encoding=UTF8 ... asStoreID=

Jennifer (Kornishpyxee)