Buyer wants to return possibly bricked device

[ben_phillips]

I sold a device that allows you to connect a laptop to a vehicles obd2 port. You can then change settings in the vehicles computer. This is used to tune the fuel injection system on modern vehicles. The device is a MPVI 1 from www.hptuners.com .

In order to write changes to the vehicles computer you must marry the device to the vehicle's computer. This costs 2 credits. Credits are $50 and purchased from hptuners.com.

I used the device 6 or 7 times and it worked great. I then sold the device. The buyer said the device worked 2 times then he got an error message. Now the device works sometimes and other times it does not. He wants a refund.

There are 2 red flags.

1.) The buyer wanted to know the firmware version of the device before he bought it.

2.) The buyer paid $380 for a used MPVI 1. The newer version sales for $299 brand new.

I believe the buyer wanted an older device with older firmware so he could hack the device and get free credits. I am worried the buyer has bricked the device.

Am I protected in any way from receiving a bricked device?

[gwzcomps]

No protections from my experience with electronics like this unless you can get the buyer to admit to breaking it or modifying it. Preferably get them to admit they modified/altered it. Best of luck these cases never end well from my experience. If you are lucky they just aren't smart enough to know how to use it.

[mam98031 · Accepted solution]

No not at all.  To try and deny a return request will only result in Ebay ruling for the buyer and you getting a defect and Ebay won't refund your FVFs.  Sorry, I know that isn't what you want to hear.  But unfortunately this is how the return system works on Ebay.

[ben_phillips]

Is there a certain amount of time from the delivery date that a buyer has to request a refund?

[emerald1830]

30 days on Ebay...

180 on Paypal...

So he basically has a lot of time to return it...