I need some advice, badly.....

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lsheldon

lsheldon

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I have sold a MINT Busse Active Duty to an individual here on BladeForums. The situation is that I sent him a MINT Active Duty, and he is claiming to have received a used knife. I have pictures of the knife I shipped below, as well as the content of an email he sent me this AM.

I just received that knife back from Busse two weeks ago. I sent a knife with some damage in, and Amy had Garth make me a replacement......

What do I do in this situation? I really need some advice from you HOGS with longer tusks than mine. And I think my feedback speaks for itself..

Best, Les.

Contents of email from him....

Les,

The satin finish has clear signs of use and it appears it has been sharpened, it doesn't have the normal Busse "factory" edge. The finish has horizontal scratches on all areas of the blade (from the spine to choil to edge) as if it was used. Plus, there are marks around the choil area as well.

-Nick.



Picture of the knife I shipped...


 
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tricky one mate, give him a refund, ask for your knife back, shake hands and put it behind you ..

these things have a habit of potentially turning ugly. If he's not happy, reverse the transaction before he causes trouble for you
 
Frankly, I'm always ready to "undo" a transaction. I simply won't consider a transaction done until about 3 days after receipt ... and a positive response from the buyer.

Of course, no one has ever accused me of cheating them. That would make me angry, but I'd still simply cancel the deal and retrieve the knife.

Life's too short to put up with problems like this.

Suggestion: try to find out how "picky" the buyer is up front. If you detect ANY signals along those lines, send out some top-quality pictures of the knife first. Of course, even that won't eliminate all mis-understandings.

Sorry this happened to you, but the best advice is to just 'cut bait,' as it were.
 
Hard call, I've seen these type of situations get real ugly and believe it or not some times the good guy ends up looking that way. If it were me I'd take the knife back and eat it. Better to not have my reputation in question than worry about eating a few bucks. Yeah I know it may be a hard pill for you to swallow but If you put your name on the line you better be Stellar like to the level of Eric Issacson! I personally don't put a whole lot of faith in iTrader reputation because a lot of people use it as "Quid Pro Quo" system and in my opinion true rep comes unsolicited. For future reference always downgrade your knives never list them as mint condition and always provide closeups of the blade's condition. In 8 years I've manged to avoid this type of situation. (knock on wood)
 
All right guys, message received. I sent the buyer an email telling him I would refund his money if he would return the knife.

It chaps my hide to do it, I feel I'm being scammed.

I have over 60 Busses and only two users. The rest are as mint as the day I bought them.........

But, I guess I will just "Cut Bait" as someone said. And I won't ever sell to someone again who I don't know the character of...

Thanks for the fast responses.

Les.
 
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The pictures you posted show the knife looking good. Sometimes marks will show up at certain angles only, so I'm not saying the condition of the knife isn't as you describe, just that without it in hand, it is hard to make informative decision.
In the hundreds of knife deals I have made, I have only sent back a couple of knives and had one or two returned. The general rule is that if both parties are not satisfied, the deal is undone. With that said, if you feel (as it seems) that the knife was shipped "as described", (maybe the buyer just didn't like the design, or maybe saw another knife he liked better or any other reason he decided to back out) then I would have him send the knife back on his dollar (shipping costs). If you receive the knife and you are correct that the knife was "as described" when you sold it, I refund his money less shipping both ways. If you discover that he was correct (and the knife wasn't used, damaged or the marks done by the buyer), I would refund the price of the knife plus shipping both ways.
I hope it all works out for you.


:D
 
Send his money back and be polite.

Take the comments with a grain of salt and don't worry too much about it. I learned long ago that "Mint" means 110% flawless to some people. It sucks, but I have yet to see a 110% "mint" Busse that doesn't exibit some miniscule flaw. A nick in the choil (from belt edge), mar on the blade, horizontal scratch on satin (cardboard sleeves can be murder on satin/mirror), chattered talon holes, an overhung handle scale or tang...the list could go on from a "mint" standpoint.
The sharpening issue could be the final strop belt finish variance...to some, it may look post factory.
Resell the knife but list is a NIB, Unused as received from Busse.:thumbup:
 
lsheldon said:
All right guys, message received. I sent the buyer an email telling him I would refund his money if he would return the knife.

It chaps my hide to do it, I know I'm being scammed.

I have over 60 Busses and only two users. The rest are as mint as the day I bought them.........

But, I guess I will just "Cut Bait" as someone said. And I won't ever sell to someone again who I don't know the character of...

Thanks for the fast responses.

Les.
Click to expand...

This may be small compensation, but in my opinion your rep just jumped up a few levels.:thumbup::thumbup:

Integrity is not a painless state.
 
Tough call for sure. I bought a Busse awhile back. Supposed to be an unused perfect Knife. Came with an edge roll. I did'nt get my money back. I was pretty much told Busse could fix it. I let it drop, and took the loss. But won't deal with that person again. Although it is possible it could of happened in transit, but I'll never know.

If it were me, I'd take it back. Keep the Rep in tact, but thats just me. :)
 
trukreltrog said:
Tough call for sure. I bought a Busse awhile back. Supposed to be an unused perfect Knife. Came with an edge roll. I did'nt get my money back. I was pretty much told Busse could fix it. I let it drop, and took the loss. But won't deal with that person again. Although it is possible it could of happened in transit, but I'll never know.

If it were me, I'd take it back. Keep the Rep in tact, but thats just me. :)
Click to expand...

If I had got it for a user I wouldn't have cared because I always reprofile the edges anyway on my users.

However if it was not to be a user then I would have a problem with it, edge rolls just don't happen without it really hitting something.
 
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Ankerson said:
If I had got it for a user I wouldn't have cared because I always reprofile the edges anyway on my users.

However if it was not to be a user then I would have a problem with it, edge rolls just don't happen.
Click to expand...

I agree with you 100%, most of mine are users anyway. However, this particular one was a Grail. So I was bummed a little. All water under the bridge now. :)
 
I think the lesson here is to avoid ever describing a knife, especially a Busse knife, as mint.

I can pick out small factory imperfections in just about every knife I own. It's stuff that doesn't effect performance, so I could care less, but I could see a collector getting his g-string all twisted if I described some of them as mint.


I'm also a bit confused - was this a replacement knife, or was the original blade repaired? Again, I wouldn't care about the difference, but "fresh back from the spa" might not be the same to some collectors as "mint from the factory".





I'll also say it probably wasn't necessary to mention the buyer's screen name here until AFTER you have worked everything out with him. If you end up really unhappy with the transaction, then maybe it's not a bad idea to post that and warn others not to deal with him, but wait until the whole situation is resolved and worked out before you do that. Just MHO, of course.



All that said, the knife looks fine to me, and I think it's ridiculous to nitpick over some scratches that could come from taking it out of its paper sleeve. It's a cutting tool, not a piece of jewelry.
 
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