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Claim for economic damages caused by the malfunction of the purchased item
Summary: giusung72 started a discussion regarding a claim for financial damages caused by the malfunction of a purchased item. marioelegio replied, but neither contribution contains any further details or specific content.
Good evening everyone.
I’d like to share with the community the experience I’m about to tell you about below.
A few days ago I bought a graphics card to upgrade my workstation, on which—in my free time—I do (or rather “did”) CAD work; price: “the outrageous sum of a mere 23 euros for a card”; a small expense for a small satisfaction I’d wanted to treat myself to for a while. The price, incidentally, was in line with the others on the platform: nothing that suggested any anomalies, in fact a few euros more than some other sellers, but being the only Italian among many English and German sellers dealing in the same item, I had decided to gladly give him that extra bit of attention.
Yesterday afternoon the card arrived and—right after I stopped working—I installed it in the server and turned it on, immediately noticing an anomaly: its fan sped up and slowed down with a regular rhythm that showed a voltage that, instead of being steady, was going up and down like a wave. A few seconds later the machine crashed, shut itself off, and refused to start again. At that point I took another PC, installed the card in it and, …magic…. it too died in less than thirty seconds. Finally I took another old card I had kept, and I witnessed the third suicide of an electronic device in less than half an hour; all this under the amazed and amused gaze of some family members: my wife, my parents, and my brother, who was filming me with his smartphone to post me in some post I don’t know where (and, incidentally, I have to thank heaven that fate made him do it).
The total outcome, then, of an experience that should have given me satisfaction was the irreparable damage to three motherboards (including one server-type, dual-processor one, now impossible to find), four CPUs, a raid controller, 4 hard disks (two “dead” instantly and two more shortly after), 4 memory sticks and—finally—my old video card which, after the first crash, still unaware, I had reinstalled, imagining and hoping the server would reboot: almost 600 euros in damage for an item whose price didn’t even reach 23! Still stunned, but at that point aware of what had happened, I thought back to the little fan speeding up and slowing down as if it were being lifted up and down by a wave instead of working with a steady voltage and, since I work in IT and in about 25 years of “honorable” work in the largest Italian company in the sector I had accumulated skills, experience and knowledge, I called a colleague who professionally manages server electronic components (with so many qualifications they could wallpaper a 10-story building) and went to his house with the server case, which he disassembled to test the individual parts with his professional-grade test bench, confirming what I had imagined: the graphics card was operating with an abnormal wave-like electrical phase with negative spikes that burned out the card’s video channel (PCIe), which in turn burned out the data channel (Sata, Ata) and, in a chain, the working memory channel and, finally, the processors. In all this, the graphics card was still (badly) working, absurd!
I went back home, and I “didn’t” sleep on it, thinking to myself all night (though I assume that, I don’t know for sure) “but do people like this really exist, so careless and selfish that they are willing to cause such a disaster just to close a 23-euro sale?” It’s as if a car dealer delivered a car without testing the brakes because they worked months earlier and the person who picked it up died because of it; the only difference is that he gets arrested, while we are left to fend for ourselves.
This morning I wrote to EBay customer service and asked for a phone call; they called me, I told them everything, and the only response I got was along the lines of “......contact the seller, we don’t want responsibility, at most we’ll refund you the price of the card if the seller doesn’t do it...” so I was told to immediately open the return case as that was the only way to write a post that went beyond 200 words, and therefore could be at least somewhat explanatory of what happened: based on the behavioral principles of the company’s country of origin and without taking into account that in Italy, instead, there is the legal principle of the company’s patrimonial and joint liability, which accompanies and, in some cases, replaces that of the other obligated party (...the lawyer’s words, not mine... but I’m getting to that now...).
Even more disappointed and angry, I thought that, ....american style for american style...., I should contact a consumer association; I did, and within less than an hour I was called by one of their lawyers who, after having the whole story told to him and having seen the video, reassured me with words to the effect of (I’m giving the meaning, not the exact wording) “....don’t worry, we’ll take them to court; thank your brother who made a video proving your correct installation of the component. That video, together with the card still “badly” functioning (...which will be delivered to legal experts for examination) and the testimony of four people who witnessed the events, makes a legal basis that allows us to ask for and obtain fair compensation. Forget just getting back the 23 euros: the card, the video and the testimony of 4 people are more than normally needed to obtain full compensation for the damage; in short (again the lawyer’s words) “....enough to buy you back components of the same quality at the current market value, to compensate for the loss of data you suffered and the service disruption you endured...”
In the afternoon, finally, I wrote to the seller to give him an honest account of what had happened, telling it all in an “aseptic” way, without mentioning either EBay customer service or the lawyer, much less my decision to legally seek compensation, and, absurdly, he replied—with an evidently irritated tone—that such a tiny little thing could not cause all that damage and therefore that I must be the one making excuses, displaying a philosophy and attitude of someone who is—at least in my opinion—totally unaware that a voltage with even the slightest negative value is, for components that work on direct current, always disastrous and almost seeming to claim (again, at least in my judgment) that I, at 52 years old, had staged a scam against him, for the amount of just 23 euros, which would have made me a billionaire and sent him bankrupt. He then went on to say that he would be willing to replace or refund only the item and nothing else, because he had 100% positive feedback proving he was completely in the right (I still have all the emails saved in my personal mailbox). In the modern world, then, feedback is the deciding factor between right and wrong; not a video showing the correct use of an object which in turn reveals its malfunction, and four witnesses to the incident!!!
OK: if he really wants to play it that way, no problem for me: let’s play. I’ve already lost the workstation anyway, and compared to that the card’s 23 euros represent a thirtieth of the value: I’m keeping the card; Monday morning I’ll cancel the return request and, not even ten minutes later, I’ll file the card in court, together with the video and the testimonies. After all: I’ve already suffered the damage, both he and EBay customer service made it clear they don’t care, and the lawyer is “pro bono”. Let years pass if they must, but I feel I need to get the satisfaction of seeing this thing through to the end, whatever happens.
I’ll close with the following three considerations:
- Disappointed with the seller, who, after stating in the listing that the item was working normally no more than three lines 2 lines below the EBay rule that states that the seller assumes full responsibility for placing the item on the market, did not even have the intellectual honesty to admit to himself (not to me) that the component was faulty and had not been tested before shipment. If he had already taken a different approach, like send me your brother’s video, make another one proving the actual failure of the components and, if that convinces me, let’s meet halfway, maybe I would have accepted. But not now.
- Even more disappointed with EBay customer service which, with its eloquent silence, its irony, and its statement of being uninvolved in the facts, wanted to send me a message like “...but what the hell do you want: take your 23 euros, keep quiet in a corner and don’t bother us: an attitude completely in line with the philosophy of “politically correct” that our partners across the ocean present to the whole world as one of their economic virtues; probably they only support this principle when it suits them and is useful to them, or, just as likely, this was an isolated case that happened only to me; in any case it will not be them, but the magistrate, who will determine the scope of their responsibility.
- Enthusiastic, finally, about the well-known consumer association: responsive, fast and proactive, something I, having never turned to anyone before, would never have imagined. A tip: if you need them, contact them; they will certainly help you.
Finally, a request to you all: I kindly ask you to make three copies of this post of mine (just “copy and paste” three times) and send it to three forum members asking them to do the same: maybe we can create a wave that counters these attitudes and makes clear that honesty and integrity (in short, “politically correct,” as they call it) is not the party outfit to be worn only when you need to look good, but a work uniform that “those who sell” and “those who guarantee sales” should never take off.
marioelegio
Mentore1 year agoGranted, everything could only work if the seller was a professional and if you made the purchase as an ordinary consumer.
Even though the assumptions are true, unfortunately, even with Directive 2853/24, which is in your favor, I don’t see it as that easy.
You’ll have to prove the defect in the board and that whoever sold it to you knew about the defect. You’ll have to prove the cause-and-effect link, that is, that the damage was caused by the board. You’ll then have to prove that the exceptions in Article 131 of the Consumer Code (the post-2021 one) cannot be applied, relating to the possible consequences of the error during installation of the component.
A legal action for damages has uncertain outcomes and costs that go well beyond the amounts complained of.
hi
mario