Go Cat Music Sales (EBay Seller)

Review: I purchased a premium mouthpiece for my daughter's clarinet so she can improve with her skills. Apparently, it is for a bass clarines and the base is too wide for her clarinet. I contacted the E-bay seller, **. [redacted], when he was out of the country and he agreed to send the proper one once I returned the original, FIRST, and as long as it was in the same condition which it was. She took it out of the box, saw it did not fit and put it back in the box. It sat on my kitchen table until the day I returned it. He is now telling me that it has been used, scratched and has lip marks and spit in it so he is refusing to send me the replacement or a refund and is shipping it back to me even though I have no use for it. I told him not to return it to refund me and I will never do business with him and that I will be reporting him to Ebay Escalations, Consumer affairs and Revdex.com. He has not had the decency to further respond. I have noticed that in June, someone else had a problem with the same item being too wide at the bottom. I asked him if he was sure he checked it before he sent it to me stating it was new. I have a feeling it has been returned once before and that is where the spit and lip marks are coming from. I want refund in full for all of my shipping and my additional $10 money order he had me send behind Ebays back and the other $10 he wanted in order to send the new mouthpiece that would fit that I paid him via pay pal.Desired Settlement: I would like my full $90 back.

Business

Response:

Case lD [redacted]

This is a most troubling case for me. I bend over backwards to help my customers. For example this very item. I was vacationing in the Netherlands when I ran across the email from this customer saying they bought the wrong item. I could have put the whole thing off, since this person received exactly the item that I advertised, and the ad specifically said I only took returns for defective products and there was nothing wrong with this one. But instead I spent a couple of hours of my vacation trying to help this person. I contacted two different wholesalers in the US looking for a replacement for her. I found it and had it shipped to me, so that I could get it out as soon as I got back into the country. It cost more than the mouthpiece she originally purchased and there would also be more shipping costs both from the wholesaler and getting it to the customer. When I got home I had to wait a while for her to finally send back the original unit. It arrived in abused condition as I noted to her. It was brand new when she got it, straight from the factory. I seriously doubt that JJ Babbitt, one of the largest manufacturers of mouthpieces in the US, sends out used mouthpieces. The box was sealed when it was sent out, just as it arrived when I got it from the wholesaler. It was scratched and spit covered upon return to me. She told me her daughter had taken it to school and her teacher told her it wasn’t the right unit for her clarinet. I called up eBay's Resolution Center and spoke with a number of their reps. When it was finally escalated to a supervisor, they told me I should return the mouthpiece to her, since I had delivered exactly what she bought, and she had not returned in original condition. They said that was all I could do. There was no way to pro-rate the degradation of the mouthpiece. In the meantime eBay took back the money she had paid for the mouthpiece, as is their policy on disputes, and in some unknown inner company confusion did not look at the conversation between myself and their own escalation representative. They refunded the money to this customer, without asking for any input on my behalf. So after having sent the mouthpiece back to her and eBay having sent the money back as well, I was out everything. I contacted eBay yet again and they admitted their error. They apologized and gave me a compensatory gift certificate as well as refunding me all the delivery charges and also giving this person money to ship the mouthpiece back to me. I didn't want it back, but they claimed it was all they could do.

She still hasn't shipped it out and it has been almost two weeks. So in the end I did offer her a replacement or a refund. But she wasn’t happy with either. And either she or her daughter is lying about using the mouthpiece.

And now, as for her to try to find another person who might have complained about me is truly over the edge. I am sure she saw (but intentionally didn't mention) that the other complaint was about a completely different brand and size mouthpiece. And in that case as with ALL clarinet mouthpieces, they have to be adjusted to fit the clarinet. They have cork at the base of the mouthpiece and it has to be sanded to the exact fit of the particular clarinet. The other case she brings up was about person who bought a mouthpiece and they thought that it should fit perfectly with no adjustment. They were advised this was not the case and when they took it to the shop and had it fitted...problem solved. They didn't return it. It was a $10 mouthpiece, and that information was and is available to her when she included it in her note. She had to see it since she took the time to try and look up some other complaint. And that was all she could find. She is grasping. She bought the wrong mouthpiece, which was not my fault, it was new when she got it, it wasn’t when she returned it.

So in the end I would like the customer to pay for the item they received, as they can not return it in original condition, since they scratched it up and used it. There is no reason for them to get a product for free.