Thundercats destroyed in shipping....

Collecting LJN ThunderCats Toys
1

Tell me if this sounds fair…

I won and bought some Thundercats from a guy in Peru for $330 shipped. I sent a Western Union money order, since Peru does not have the PayPal service. They consisted of several, including Stinger - the main one that I wanted…

The package was apparently opened by Peru customs and repacked poorly. In the process, Stinger’s wings were all broken off, and the one Berbil literally looks like it exploded. There is a sticker applied to the box that is in “foreign” language that says, “RECONOCIMIENTO”, which the post office told me it means reconditioned, or repacked.

He said that the post office in his country told him that they never opened the box, and that the sealed it one time. So, I guess they seal the boxes that they send out to the other countries for customers? The extrra sticker looks like something added afterwords in customs, not the post office that he took it to.

The seller is not blaming me, nor himself, but he says that he will give me back $250 and I have to send them ALL back to him??? Why am I out $125 for absolutely nothing, and no figures to show for it. He never considered my shipping cost back either…although, he is considering HIS shipping cost that he paid to send them.

The package never left his country, and all this happened. So, I am paying for HIS countries fault.

I know if I were the seller, I would not expect that the buyer had responsibility to pay me anything. I could not imagine how I would express that request to that person…

Oh, and this my second purchase from him, that was successful. he sent me a Stilt Runner that was in the box, unused. With that package, he sent it with NO packing materials and simply put it in another box that was barely larger then itself. The made it by sheer luck. So, when I saw this second box, and the little peanut packing material, I figured it was his pack job, and not from customs that opened it. he stated that he strapped the Stinger figure down inside the box. I did see that strap, but it was undone. It would still have never survived. The box he picked was WAY too small for ALL those Thundercats.

Here is the auction, and here are some photos…

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300424200299

http://www.mobilemachineshop.com/ThundercatsBroken001.jpg

http://www.mobilemachineshop.com/ThundercatsBerbilBroken001.jpg

http://www.mobilemachineshop.com/ThundercatsBroken003.jpg

http://www.mobilemachineshop.com/ThundercatsStingerBroken001.jpg

http://www.mobilemachineshop.com/ThundercatsPantherBroken001.jpg

2

Sadly this is why I do not deal outside North America.

I have never had a toy deal go down like this but have had many a headache while dealing with int shipping with my old company. The company is a huge med rehab company and had many issues with border package “inspections”. Broken,stolen, and “misplaced” product led to us using our plants outside the US to ship product to int shows. SUcks for your loss but try explaining to your boss how a 40,000.00 prototype table was lost out of a huge crate and the rest of the product made it to the destination.

3

:sneaky: This is the scam…you buy it and the seller sends the destroyed toys. You complain and the seller say…oh…gosh…well, I’ll give you 250 and you pay for the shipping back to me. You send it back and may or may not get your money. If you do, and I doubt you would, the seller makes $125 (or the whole $330) and the puts them back out sell to scam someone else.

My advice…keep the pieces and see if you can sell them to people who do custom action figures or see if someone who does OOAK figures would repair the Stinger. Either way, without PayPal and being out of the country the risk of scam is very high.

Sorry you had this experience. BTW…great KITT avatar! :pumyrahappy:

4

I’ve gotta agree. I never buy anything on Ebay now unless Paypal is accepted. Just too risky…

Also $330 seems a lot to pay for loose figures! :o I know it includes The Stinger complete with wings, but still it’s a lot to pay. I dare say it might be cheaper to get a carded Stinger and open it up.

Maybe you should contact Ebay to see if they can do anything about this? I’m not sure what their policies are these days for those that pay by other methods other than Paypal.

5

I cry every time I get an eBay package that arrives in a tattered box like that. No matter how this turns out, you absolutely MUST give the guy negative feedback to serve as a warning to others. His packaging skills need a wake up call.

Also, because I’m a spiteful *******, I would hammer the remaining unbroken figures into pieces before sending them back to him (in the same box). Maybe get my dog to urinate on them too.

Merged Post:

Hold up a second… The seller of this auction (richie2780) has positive feedback from the buyer (rl20iiguy):

“(¯'•.¸(¯‘•.¸AWESOMEº¤ø,¸¸,ø¤ºEBAYERº¤ø,¸¸,ø¤THANKº¤ø,¸¸,ø¤ºYOU¸.•’´¯)¸.•'´¯)” from rl20iiguy ( Feedback Score Of 2857)

knt2000, if you are rl20iiguy then why did you leave positive feedback?

6

First off let me say that this sucks that it happened to you, especially since there is a L/C or near L/C (I only see the 4 wings, AND it’s the American ver) Stinger (shimmering wings).

However, doing business with people outside of the US is a VERY risky thing. I personally will never do it. Whether they are PayPal verified or not, it’s just a lot of transit time for very delicate items.

I can tell you for sure that “Reconocimiento” means “Inspection.” This means the box was flagged, then later opened and it’s contents inspected by customs. BUT why would they take that Berbil apart like that!? Perhaps they thought a hidden back of crack or something was in there (it does happen, people hide drugs in all sorts of things). Still, that’s some heavy duty damage.

If it was me… I would probably tell the guy to give me back half of my money ($165 in your case) and keep the figures; chalk up the other $165 to a lesson learned. The Lion-O, Lynx-O, Stinger (Even in that condition), and from the looks of it a companions Wily-Kit are of value.

7

Yeh, I’m also curious about that… And, IMO, chances are the Peruvian customs did cause the damage… And I have to agree that 330 is pretty steep for those TCats…

Still sucks :frowning:

8

Thanks for the replys…

I left the feedback on the Day that he sent them out. He was afraid that the time limit for leaving feedback would go away…and since I bought from him prior, I thought it was okay to go ahead and leave it… :frowning:

$330 is a lot to pay for loose, but I planned to sell off the rest, since I had all of those already, and then maybe Stinger would have on set be back $100 or less…that was the plan.

He is still working on getting his Post Office to pay the value. I don’t know how far that will go, but I will see…

Stephen