In the middle of August I sold a PC on eBay. It was nothing special, an HP SFF rig containing an AMD quad, 4GB ram, HD5450 with a 60GB SSD and a 500GB HDD. It was a machine I'd refurbed and tested extensively. It went for a little less than I'd have hoped for, but you've got to take the rough with the smooth and the buyer got a good deal. The item was delivered on time, and the seller duly left excellent feedback. Happy days. Got a message earlier from the buyer that the SSD has failed, it's no longer detected in the BIOS. The buyer is asking me what he should do. Now I could wash my hands of this and say tough, but I'm not like that. Whilst I might have only cleared maybe £50 for this sale, I don't like the concept that something I've sold has failed within two months. The buyer is making no demands and is not being unreasonable - how would you handle this situation?
It sounds like the buyer got a good deal, and knew and accepted that there were no guarantees. A 60Gb SSD costs nothing these days. Even with that expense, the buyer still had a good buy. Recommend him a good quality cheap SSD and advise him on its installation. You will have been more than honourable.
It depends on what 'type' of seller you are. If you're a 'business' selling used / refurb gear then offering a 3mo warranty with the sales wouldn't be unexpected. If you're just a common Joe selling bits and bobs then any warranty beyond covering "not as described, would be unusual. I'm assuming you didn't state there was a warranty and therefore you don't HAVE to do anything. If your seller history screams 'business seller' then maybe there was an expectation you'd 'do the right thing' if a problem occurred post sale. But out-of-the-blue buyer expectations are not contracts. If it was me, I'd offer to phone them and discuss it. I'd likely as not remind them that it wasn't a business sale and (as described) included no warranty... hence the low price! By talking to them I'd get a feel for what has happened, whether it was through their own fault or just bad luck. If they seemed genuine, understanding and friendly I'd offer to help them with one off advice at no cost/ Maybe if I could (without great expense) I'd help them out in getting it working again. Maybe send them an old HDD, but I'd be very way of the 'send it back to me and I'll fix it at cost' route as that could get very messy real quick. An alternative option (and one I'd use if the person became difficult to talk with and I just wanted to avoid agro) is to get them to send it back to me (At their expense), once I'd verified the system wasn't trashed through their own stupid fault I'd refund the full price and hope to at least break even by selling the rig once I'd got it working again. You win some, you lose some. Sometimes you have to take a fall for the team to come out as the good guy. Me thinks you'll get a lot of 'You included no warranty, don't refund ever' responses. That's totally valid, but I wouldn't go down that route until I'd spoken to them first. It's much easier to be the bad guy if the other side is a rude selfish git! Not so easy when the other side is having sleepless nights because their afraid their dad is going to whoop them for buying a 'no good worthless piece of crap from some geezer off ebay'. Good luck.
Kit dies, that's the way it is. When do you draw the line? If I buy something as used, I don't expect any warranty. If I wanted one, I'd buy new. That's the risk you take.
I wouldn't turn round and say 'tough' but like a few already said just advise a cheap replacement and maybe point them to a link for a website showing install guidelines. I wouldn't get directly involved as I understand not wanting to wash your hands of it entirely but its a lot different having a part fail after a couple month compared to say it failing a week after delivery.
Try and be helpful but as has been stated, kit does die and replacing the SSD costs little these days. The buyer got a good deal and I know from personal experience you are not a shyster, odd perhaps lol, but damn honest so the PC would have been well tested before sale. What more can you do.
As Guinivere said if you offered a warranty, you'll have to honour it. If the SSD was new then it'll be under warranty anyway. If it was all used with no warranty given or implied then suggest what can be done to fix it. I'll not bother to explain to you what to do on that front, you know what you're doing. You could suggest a replacement if you wanted to, other than that apologise but it is a used item.
Thanks for your opinions. I've given him 4 options, ranging from a DIY fix to me doing it for him at cost. Let's see how this develops Fortunately he already left good feedback some time ago!
just get him to RMA it with the manufacturer. its his problem especially after 2 months, on second hand items.
What's the warranty like on old OCZ drives these days? It would have been out of warranty anyway I should think, it was a Vertex Plus R2 from memory.
Another dead Vertex? Sadly I am not surprised. If ever there was a company that needed to exit the SSD market, it was OCZ. What good is performance if you haven't got reliability to accompany it?
Mate, this is what you're probably after: http://ocz.com/consumer/support/warranty The drive does seem to be under the supported items.