What would you do: Buyer claims board does not work

[prOk]

To me a board known to work with honest photos and video of it working is a done deal. There's just no way at all to know just what the person on the other end does.. is their power good? did they know how to plug it in? monitor right? who the heck knows. It's a risk you take when buying boards on ebay.

Of course, I take each incident on a case by case basis and deal with the person. It's pretty easy to determine their level of knowledge in a couple emails and pin down whether they'd make a dumb mistake or if the possibility of a bad powersupply is there and assist accordingly. No clear black and white answer.

 

[EVB]

I guess my concern is if a buyer puts a board in a game that has power supply problems and ruins the board. Or maybe has bad chassis transistors on an XY monitor and blows something on a deflection board you just sold him. If you get it back and find something wrong, it could have been caused by the game it was put in. You fix it and send it back or send another good one and it will happen again. So now you probably lost money on the deal or broke even at best. I am just having a hard time deciding what is fair to both the buyer and seller.

It's a concern but part of the territory. I sell quite a few boards and I'd say this situation is less than .05% of sales. Yeah sure it's a risk and if you use paypal you might as well expect a return and a credit to their account as is or no as is. If not I'd take the return anyway in good faith. After all that is what good business is about. If I think they are trouble or something I can just never deal with them again and I don't think I have ever needed to go this far.

 

[MtZRcade]

After seeing several post about secretly marking boards. Im curious how many have had problems relating to that. As for selling boards, i alos put in that it was tested or not. All jamma boards are tested on a test rig and has a picture of the board hooked up to the monitor and all shown in one picture, then a picture of the board close up. Since it would be easy to take a screen shot of a game with a different board. This way you know that the board was tested. Any vector stuff is sold as-is period, whether working or not since so many different things can cause problems. Exspecially with games like tempest where the monitor can easily take out board areas.

But back to the secretly marked pcbs. I have marked many boards in areas that people either wont look or such a mark that you didnt know that it was suppose to be there. And on a few occasions over the last 10 years i have requested that they return the board that they claim did not work only to find out that they sent me a different board back. In other words, a free and easy fix for a game, buy a board, claim it doesnt work, and send you known bad one back. I would say that this has happened about 5 time in over 1000 sales, so it is not frequent, but does happen. And because of things like that, it make you wonder how often people do things like that, it leaves a sour taste for you and makes you doubt some of the good people as well

 

[RLEVIN]

This is purely hypothetical. If you had a working board or deflection board and packed it up nice, shipped it out, and the buyer got it and claimed it did not work, what would you do ?

Would the sale be as is ? would you refund the money ? Would you offer to repair it ?

Refund the money it is not worth that little of money to create a enemy.

 

[djw90]

If I sell something as "working 100%", it means I tested it minutes before it goes in the box for shipping. I add insurance to cover the cost of the board + the shipping, with delivery confirmation to make sure it arrives where it's supposed to.

If there is a problem, I ask the buyer to send it back so I can retest it. If I find a problem, then I will refund his purchase price and his return shipping if he wants. Or I'll fix it and resend, paying the shipping back and refunding his return shipping. If I have a replacement, I will send that.

And I also secretly mark everything I fix or sell so that I can identify it later as mine...

Sounds reasonable!!!

I guess my concern is if a buyer puts a board in a game that has power supply problems and ruins the board. Or maybe has bad chassis transistors on an XY monitor and blows something on a deflection board you just sold him. If you get it back and find something wrong, it could have been caused by the game it was put in. You fix it and send it back or send another good one and it will happen again. So now you probably lost money on the deal or broke even at best. I am just having a hard time deciding what is fair to both the buyer and seller.

I would try to make it right. he might be scamming you, but if he is not, how do you think he feels. He bought a advertised working board that does not work. I had a Lunar Lander board that was advertised as working a few months ago. My entire cabinet was rebuilt and tested before the board was installed. It was sent off for repairs. Seller has offered to pay for repairs.

I would try to fix it for him if you can. Take some pics and video of it working. if he has problems the second time around, I would be done with it. Always mark your boards!!

 

[djw90]

After seeing several post about secretly marking boards. Im curious how many have had problems relating to that. As for selling boards, i alos put in that it was tested or not. All jamma boards are tested on a test rig and has a picture of the board hooked up to the monitor and all shown in one picture, then a picture of the board close up. Since it would be easy to take a screen shot of a game with a different board. This way you know that the board was tested. Any vector stuff is sold as-is period, whether working or not since so many different things can cause problems. Exspecially with games like tempest where the monitor can easily take out board areas.

But back to the secretly marked pcbs. I have marked many boards in areas that people either wont look or such a mark that you didnt know that it was suppose to be there. And on a few occasions over the last 10 years i have requested that they return the board that they claim did not work only to find out that they sent me a different board back. In other words, a free and easy fix for a game, buy a board, claim it doesnt work, and send you known bad one back. I would say that this has happened about 5 time in over 1000 sales, so it is not frequent, but does happen. And because of things like that, it make you wonder how often people do things like that, it leaves a sour taste for you and makes you doubt some of the good people as well

Good to hear people dont screw you over, the way you screw people over Troy!!! I find it very funny that you doubt people, your the one who leaves people high and dry!!!!

 

[modessitt]

I guess my concern is if a buyer puts a board in a game that has power supply problems and ruins the board. Or maybe has bad chassis transistors on an XY monitor and blows something on a deflection board you just sold him. If you get it back and find something wrong, it could have been caused by the game it was put in. You fix it and send it back or send another good one and it will happen again. So now you probably lost money on the deal or broke even at best. I am just having a hard time deciding what is fair to both the buyer and seller.

That's always possible. I've been thinking about including a pinout printout with each board I sell, along with instructions on how to test the voltages at the harness before plugging it into the machine.

Of course for locals, I'll just take the board beck to test, and sometimes even their power supply, etc to make sure everything is okay and working fine together...

 

[arcadejunkie]

i will only take a board back if it is someone i know and trust. i sell all boards working or not ,rebuilt or not, as is no returns or refunds. i have read too many horror stories on here about morons doing dumb shit and i will not be responsible for that. i insure packages i send a well packaged working item i have done my part at that point.
i keep hearing about people not using a multi meter but turning the power supply up and guessing that it will work. YOU ARE A MORON IF YOU DO THIS!
its people like that that keep people like me from giving a warrantee. does anyone remember the threads that would pop up were some collector bought a tested working NON jamma board and swore it was jamma and put it in their jamma cab? that is also why i dont take returns people are idots and ruin it for others.

 

[TonyH]

I bought a pole position11 board sold as working sent the guy his money when I finally got time to install it his working board had 1 chip that had at least 2 legs to far to one side legs just floating in the air and a big glob soldier siting between to legs on another chip theirs no way it worked as he shipped it to me.The flip side its the cleanest pole position board set I've seen. I emailed him no replies of course I just want him to man up.

 

[arcadejunkie]

I bought a pole position11 board sold as working sent the guy his money when I finally got time to install it his working board had 1 chip that had at least 2 legs to far to one side legs just floating in the air and a big glob soldier siting between to legs on another chip theirs no way it worked as he shipped it to me.The flip side its the cleanest pole position board set I've seen. I emailed him no replies of course I just want him to man up.

that must be a rare game ive never heard of a pole position 11

 

[TonyH]

that must be a rare game ive never heard of a pole position 11

Yes even rarer to see one working I guess I should have used II instead of 11 lol

 

[arcadejunkie]

Yes even rarer to see one working I guess I should have used II instead of 11 lol

atleast in your situation the parts are easy to replace i would start trying to find replacements. if its just a few jacked up legs your probably out another 10-20 bucks.

 

[EVB]

Refund the money it is not worth that little of money to create a enemy.

Yeah, I agree and if they send a different board back block them. It's such a small vector by merely blocking them you reduce that small amount by a lot. I think most people buying this type of stuff are pretty honest and the ones that aren't stick it like a bomb going off.