A1-COMICS-DVDS - NOT AS 'A1' AS YOU'D THINK... (UPDATED)

Some eBay sellers continue to disappoint me.  Even ones with 100% feedback can let you down in their customer relations technique (learned from Basil Fawlty it seems), and so reluctant is eBay to take action against offending sellers with 100% feedback, they'll sometimes remove honest negative customer feedback if the seller complains, as eBay don't want to sacrifice their percentage of that seller's profits.  I know that for an absolute fact 'cos it happened to me on a previous occasion.

I've got a goodly number of TV21s in the comic's various incarnations, but I was needing three to complete the first year's set.  The numbers are 44, 47, & 50, and I also wanted to upgrade my copy of 52 as it had coupons missing, though their absence didn't affect any of the story pages.  I saw a seller on eBay by the name of a1-comics-dvds (run by Wayne Green), who was selling 18 TV21s for around £199.99.  Amongst them were 44, 50, & 52, so I contacted him and made him a specific offer - £20 each for the three issues he had that I wanted.

He accepted, asking me for my email address so that he could send an invoice, and I sent it to his email address which was listed in his business details, and sure enough, an invoice arrived.  (Call me thick, but it never occurred to me that he was proposing an 'outside eBay' transaction until he later described it as such, as I was too eager to pay him so that he'd send the comics.)

He'd described them as 'very good/fine, complete, no cut-outs, no scribble', but when they arrived, one was defaced by a felt marker on the cover, which had also been absorbed into pages 2 & 3.  Now I don't know about you, but when a comic is said to have no scribble, I take that to mean it has no defacement by pencil, pen, felt marker, or any other kind of writing implement, and I don't consider myself unreasonable in that view.

I contacted Wayne Green (that's his name remember) and explained the situation, suggesting that a small partial refund of £3 or £4 would suffice in compensating me for my disappointment in finding that particular issue not as described.  (Incidentally, 52 wasn't great overall either, with multiple splits on the spines of almost every page, but I subtracted the pages with coupons and transferred them to the copy I already owned.)  Only 50 was in a condition that came near to matching the seller's description.

No doubt emboldened by the fact that he wouldn't have any negative eBay feedback to contend with, the seller 'declined' to accord me a small refund, and came up with all sorts of excuses for not doing so.  Remember, he'd accepted my offer of £20 per comic, but now claimed that #50 was worth around £50 and the other two worth only about a fiver each, so if he refunded me a few quid, he'd lose his profit on one of the 'lesser' issues.  While it's true that some sellers do indeed ask high prices for better condition copies of the 50th issue (on account of The Daleks being on the cover), it can still be obtained for a more reasonable price from time-to-time.

The simple fact is that, in this particular case, he was indulging in retroactive financial gymnastics in trying to ascribe different values to different issues, as he'd accepted my clear offer of £20 per issue.  That means, even if he was getting less money on #50, he was gaining more on #s 44 & 52, which considering that his description of condition was inaccurate (if not fanciful), he was still coming out well ahead on the deal - especially as he's avoided paying eBay's percentage. 

He said that if I was so dissatisfied with the entire transaction, I could return all three comics, but I'd only expressed disappointment about one comic, not all three.  He also said if he were in my position, he'd return all the comics even if it meant losing a little money in doing so.

So look at the images and judge for yourself.  I'd say the defacements are pretty pronounced for a comic that was described as having 'no scribble', wouldn't you?  Totally unreasonable seller in my opinion, not prepared to consider things from the buyer's point of view.  A small partial refund of £3 or £4 (no big loss considering he'd avoided eBay fees remember) would've ensured I'd have bought other items from him from time-to-time, but there's no chance of that now.

So just goes to show - you can't even always trust some sellers with 100% feedback to behave reasonably, ethically, or decently.  Just thought you should know in case you ever consider buying anything from him.

THE 'AFTER' EFFECT...

It's not quite finished yet, but here's the cover after I've started to do a bit of work on it to reduce the defacement.  Whenever I try the colours I've mixed on a piece of spare paper, they seem a perfect match, but when I apply them, they somehow don't look as they should.  However, I'll keep working on it 'til I get it more or less right, or see a better condition copy elsewhere.  I've also started to carefully paint out the red 'bleed-through' on the internal pages.  So, not perfect by any means, but better than it was, eh?