Hey Ozbargainers, I bought A Samsung A54 5G from the Allphones Ebay store during their last (I assume last) sale where it was only like $450ish. I only bought because I saw the deal on Ozbargain and had seen horror stories of people waiting weeks or months for their orders from samsung direct (would have been education store).
I am hoping for an Allphones rep, or alternatively it seems Mobileciti handle the Allphones ebay store. I bought my A54 and when I first got the phone the screen had a thin feint white line through the screen which mostly went away after a restart. I didn't bother because I had just received the phone after paying for express and waiting nearly a week for them to even send it out. I NEEDED my phone for work and my only alternative was my old cheapo from BigW which barely runs anything with its 1gb of ram. I opened up a returns to the seller as I put it on charge one night, said just over an hour till charged - cool I come back around 2 hours later and the screen is black, showing no picture but I can feel the vibrations and attempting to put my pincode in I was able to unlock the phone by approximating the location of my pin, and turn the torch on with the hotkey binding.
I tried force restarting it countless times and taking sim/sd card out. I then had the process of trying to drain the battery to empty and do a 'fresh start-up' as some people had suggested on the internet, this took like 2 or 3 days of leaving the torch on till the phone died. I sent back the phone and tracking showed it was delivered, within a few hours Allphones closed my refund case and are seeking Ebay remedy falsely claiming damage.
When I returned the phone, I packaged up the phone in several layers of bubble wrap in its original box with everything included (even things like the sim eject tool and nice type c -c charge cable as I figured I would do everything right so they can't say I didn't send everything back) and then placed it in another box for protection. I took photos of the phone before they accepted the return which they saw and accepted the return after seeing the photos. The phone was around 30 days old at this point and even still has the peely strip on the sides of the phone. I know for a fact that I did not damage the phone and I am not trying to abuse the system. My ebay account is over 10 years old with over 300 transactions all positive feedback, never had to return a product before. Yes the phone was in a wallet case and protected from scratches and other damage.
I guess any insight on what people think will happen? I plan to take it as far as I can because why should I be screwed out of $450+ (Which is money I kinda really needed/still need, when the phone died through no touch of my own or anyone else for that matter. The photos show back and front and show the obviously no damage because the phone is literally less than a month old. Now they are asking Ebay to mediate and this is the response from Allphones on the return case that they closed:
"Hi Team, We believe the customer is abusing the returns system as the phone they returned back to us has been extremely physically damage. Please refer to the photos provided. This would therefore void the warranty. Please kindly investigate this matter. Kind regards, Kevin Mobileciti"
How can I prove that I sent back a genuinely faulty through no fault of my own phone, i took photos at every step incase something arose and was happy to see it be tracked by Ebay automatically. I am so confident I did nothing to this phone that was counted as misuse or damage that I will literally write a stat dec stating that I did not misuse or damage the phone and that it was technically faulty from day 1 but I didn't want to make a fuss as I was just happy to have a new phone that wasn't outdated garbage and it had already been two weeks without a proper phone. I went out to BigW and bought the exact same colour A54 (Just a hundred or so more) from my local store so if something like this happens again I can deal with the return in person. Does anyone know any Allphones (ebay) or Mobileciti contacts on here that can help me out? I saw that there were a few reps on the site but I don't know who to contact or who is even still active. I paid through afterpay using my debit card and hadn't even paid the last payment before all of this.
Kind Regards
Empoleous
7:22am Aus post confirm delivery
7:46am Ebay confirm return
10:57am Seller contacted Customer Service "The seller asked us to review this case and make a final decision
Hi empoleous,
The seller has asked eBay Customer Service to review this case and make a final decision.
We'll get back to you within 48 hours."
11:09am Your case is on hold
"eBay Customer Service has placed the case on hold until 6 Aug 2023
Hi Empoleous,
Your case was temporarily placed on hold. We'll get back to you with an update by 6 Aug 2023.
We've sent you an email requesting further information to allow us to investigate your case. Please provide this information before 6 Aug 2023 to assist with the process.
Pray Ebay will be on your side.