I completely understand that this would have been a disappointing experience for the buyer. With all the effort i put in to pack the item; it definitely is for me as well. I also understand the buyer's right to document his concerns on the forum which should be the case so that everything is clearly discussed in open.
BUT
What I do not appreciate is the buyer not representing the facts correctly (may be unintentional) and the forum members jumping on the band wagon and not giving the seller the time to even respond.
I am a member of this board for around 15 years with a 100% positive score of 28. The buyer has posted this at 5:17 PM without making a single attempt to contact me via WhatsApp or PM. And people like me with day jobs should at least be given time to respond. Anyways, below is my response which is being posted 3 hours after this has come to may attention for the
FIRST time.
Okay, so i bought this for a friend of mine, he brought it to me today for assembling. so the motherboard is bent and does not POST, it was packed as a whole along with the heatsink and cpu as it is! + i paid extra for shipping through bluedart, but it was shipped via dtdc anyway and we had specifically talked about packing it separately. So i dont know what to tell my friend anymore since he bought it on my recommendation!
How did I pack the item ?
It was clearly explained to the buyer that i do not possess the original packaging so i will pack it in another box and will stuff it properly so that there is least amount of damage.
I have not shipped the motherboard with the cooler attached ! I have kept the processor attached to the motherboard as that is the safest way to ship it. It was then wrapped in almost 3 layers of poly wrap and 3 layers of bubble wrap. The cooler was packed separately in the same way and
kept in the same box with enough packing material in it. I even informed this to the buyer that he should reapply thermal paste again as it may get smudged in transit. The RAMs were also wrapped and kept safely. The box was large enough to accommodate all 3 items.
How did I ship the items ?
During our negotiation, I clearly informed the buyer that I want to ship it via BlueDart (I had suggested this) as they ship it carefully and since I anticipated that they will charge around INR 700 and hence i asked the buyer to pay additional INR 300, which he promptly did. However, Blue Dart denied shipping the item to the buyers PIN Code and I in fact waited in their office for 30 mins to try to make it work. When it did not happen, i informed the seller and we mutually agreed to send via DTDC. Even they refused to ship it to the buyer's location as it was outskirts as per their routing. I paid INR 1.1k to DTDC Express without charging a single extra rupee to the buyer and all this time I kept him (her) informed on WhatsApp and on call as well. We had an open and very transparent communication channel.
What has actually happened ?
This is a typical transit damage that has been caused by DTDC who have put weight on this package, even though i marked it as fragile / electronics. I know this really doesn't mean anything in the Indian Logistics scenario.
What could I have done better ?
I could have sent the snaps of the way i packed the items to the buyer so that if he / she had any inhibitions, we could have cleared it up there itself. I could have also kept the mother board separate and the cooler in a separate box - although this would have been treated as 2 parcels and double the shipping cost.
What could the buyer have done better ?
Before posting it on the forum in a way that can be perceived that I have been incommunicado, it would have been better if he / she would have informed this to me directly over PM or Whatsapp first so that we could have more than easily resolved this. Infact, I was the one who pinged the buyer on WhatsApp, to enquire if they had tested the hardware on 18th Nov. To which they said that they will get back to me once they have tested it.
TL;DR : What happens next ?
Even though shipping damage is completely on the buyers risk, and technically out of the 4 components i.e Motherboard, CPU Cooler (after market), CPU and the RAMs (16GB), only the motherboard seems to have been damaged. I am ready to refund 50% of the mutually agreed value of the MOBO within the agreed combo price. This discussion we can do over TechEnclave PMs to which i usually respond to within 2 hours max.
