Some advice please
 

OK this is sort of going on at the moment, so could do with advice fairly quickly.
No cliff notes, read if you want, advice appreciated.

I bought an exercise bike off eBay, from someone in my local area, because I have no car to carry it home in. It cost me £25, plus about £2 busfare and £15 for a taxi to get it home. I paid for it with Paypal before collecting, and also it turned out the seller hadn't yet registered with Paypal, so their e-mail didn't work. This meant I got an e-mail from Paypal saying that I could cancel the payment. She realised nothing was happening and I offered to cancel and send it again which would've worked, but she insisted on just letting it wait to go through. Anyway I go and pick it up on Saturday and bring it home. There is no manual to it, and none available online. Basically I cannot get it to "go up gears", to actually provide resistance to make it worth using. I tell her this in an e-mail, and she insists that it works if you go into the program function. I'm not exactly incompetent though. I go into the programs and it won't increase in resistance or anything. When it says it's getting harder, it really just does nothing.

So I sent her an e-mail asking her for the manual, maybe she could post it to me. Previously she had responded to my e-mails quite frequently, but now she stopped answering, for three whole days.

So I came to the conclusion that she may have sold it knowing it was broken, and was hoping that the paypal would go through before I worked out I'd been hustled. Also note: she does seem like a nice person in her e-mails. I didn't meet her when I picked it up, but her brother who was there. So today I sent her this message:

[ QUOTE ]
I've cancelled the payment through Paypal for the exercise bike. I last emailed you three days ago to ask if you had the manual for it, because I've seen no evidence yet that it even works. I'm reasonably certain that the exercise bike is broken, that you knew this but sold it anyway, and that you didn't reply for the last three days because you were hoping the payment would go through before I had a chance to work out that you had no intention of claiming any responsibility for it being broken.

Of course, if you can give directions for getting the exercise bike to function correctly (you don't even need to send me the manual if you can describe how to work it well enough from your end), then I will admit I am completely wrong, apologise and pay you immediately.

[/ QUOTE ]

I also cancelled the pending payment on Paypal. A few hours later she sends me this message:

[ QUOTE ]
Hi sorry i have not replyed but i have been busy at college and not been online.
I can asure you that the exercise bike does work i don't have the manual for it sorry.
You have to press the program button and scroll through the options and select what you want it to do x

[/ QUOTE ]


So what do people think I should do? And depending on what you think I should do, how should I reply to her? I am genuinely uncertain whether she is being honest or de-frauding me. This has already cost me £17. I don't particularly want to pay another £25 for something that takes up space and I would actually need to pay someone from the council to take to the tip. Plus I think it would be immoral to try to sell it on eBay to recoup my losses. Possibly I could say it's broken? But then I stand to make nothing anyway. Do I pay her? She didn't try very hard to explain how it works IMO. But then she could just be stupid, or not have used it for a long time and be unfamiliar with it?

Re: Some advice please
 

Don't pay her until she helps you figure out how to work it. If it's broken, don't pay her.

Re: Some advice please
 

If she refuses/cannot be helpful next time, do I just make a general "[censored] you then" statement? I have to admit I feel a bit bad about her not being paid. I feel more bad about myself obviously.

Re: Some advice please
 

1. Any chance YOU broke it in transport?

2. Ask her to come by and show you.

Ray

Re: Some advice please
 

[ QUOTE ]
1. Any chance YOU broke it in transport?

2. Ask her to come by and show you.

Ray

[/ QUOTE ]

It is a possibility yes. A pretty slim one I think because it didn't exactly go through stress to get here.

These are the possibilities I think:

1. She de-frauded me and is obviously pretending she knows nothing about it so she gets paid.
2. It does work and I just can't get it to work. (I wouldn't be in a quandary if this possibility was reasonably likely though) And she isn't offering any useful advice to help me.
3. It somehow broke between moving it from her place to mine.


The problem is these possibilities all seem quite unlikely, even though (I think) they exhaust the possibilities, so one of them must be true, and I'm not sure which is most likely to be true.

Also, I'm not entirely happy about asking her to come and show me how to use it. If I ask and she disagrees, how much is that a sign of guilt? Plus, her brother looked pretty kickass, and I don't really want him to know where I live, in case he comes round with a sledgehammer or something.

Re: Some advice please
 

If you can't get it to work, don't pay. If she wants the bike back and is willing to pick it up, give it back to her.

Re: Some advice please
 

[ QUOTE ]
If you can't get it to work, don't pay. If she wants the bike back and is willing to pick it up, give it back to her.

[/ QUOTE ]


Bingo.

Re: Some advice please
 

Yes, offer her the option of picking up the bike. It is the only reasonable non-dick move in this case, and there's nothing much else you can do.

Re: Some advice please
 

don't cheat her out of what you offered to pay, OP. The - karma isn't worth it. Go to the manufacturer's website and try to find your answers, or even call them and ask for a manual, deduct any costs from your offer. But you need to pay her, or give it back.

Re: Some advice please
 

Yeah, telling her to come pick it up is a pretty good idea. Or at least giving her the option. I knew there was some rational explanation: that's why I asked here anyway. Will e-mail her back tomorrow and update accordingly.

Plus I get the bonus of looking extremely foolish if she comes over and shows me how to work it.