Help with shipped amp

[don]

I sold an amp on Ebay. It worked perfectly. I packed it in a box with 2" of foam padding and shipped via UPS insured. Here is the email I just received from the buyer -sound legit ?

"I just recieved the amplifier. I went to play it and there was no sound coming out. The tubes were glowing so I thought it might have been the speaker. I read the resistance of the speaker with a DMM and it came out unreadable. I guessed there is a broken connection in the speaker. Just to make sure I hooked it up to a speaker in another amp and it worked fine. Instead of returning the item because it is faulty I thought it may be best if you sent be 25 bucks or so in compensation for the speaker? Does that seem fair since I need to replace it?"

[maestrovert]

careful......

[sudancat]

Where did you ship it to? Could be a scam !!

[don]

shipped to Texas, yes insured. Might be easier to give him $25 and forget it but what could go wrong with a speaker during shipping to quit working completely?

[Daddy Elmis]

well, to me there's the legal answer and the practical answer (occassionally these are the same).

The legal answer is that you may have a claim against UPS for damage. However, your buyer is going to have to cooperate and if he's already torn up the box, etc., you could be screwed re insurance.

The practical answer is: how much was the amp and what's your time worth? $25 doesn't seem like a lot if the amp was valuable. On the other hand, if it's a loose speaker connection, that could be a simple fix that doesn't require trashing the speaker (as your buyer states).

As a buyer, you never trash the shipping container until you know the item is good. If the buyer has good feedback, I'd give him the benefit of the doubt -- maybe has him to check the amp--to--speaker connections and make sure he's not missing something obvious.

For me, personally, $25 to avoid the whole PITA of a UPS claim would probably be worth it if I was 51+% sure the guy wasn't dancing me.

[sudancat]

Well anything can happen, but IMHO I wouldnt think anything happened to it during shipment unless there was damage to the box. I have never seen a speaker just quit under normal conditions or through shipment.The cabinet alone should absorb any kind of vibration through shipment.......Probably be alot less grief to send 25 if thats all he wants....If he is in the wrong,he will never benefit anything from that 25,you might not have the satisfaction of knowing that but what comes around goes around

[Ringo]

I tend to agree that in this case the speaker shouldn't have gotten damaged since it was in the amp cabinet, I've never had that happen and I've shipped and received a bunch of amps over the years.

BUT I have to say that out of all the items in 5 years of internet trading I have received that were damaged, there were 3 speakers that were well packed and were damaged in shipping.
One had a bent frame and the other 2 must have been dropped or thrown or something because the voice coils were messed up to the point that they both buzzed terribly.
I've read horror stories on the Weber VST board about how UPS has trashed so many speakers that they won't even use UPS anymore.
And they do know how to pack them.
FWIW I might pay $25 but I'd ask the guy to send the speaker back to me so I could check it out first.

[don]

Couple of emails later, I think the guys legit. I'm thinking if he's legit then $25 is a deal for me, if he's scamming me then he shoulda asked for more! I paypaled him $25 and he's happy. Case closed. Life's too short.