In the US the seller has no legal obligation to refund or replace an item that is marked as delivered.
The morally correct thing for FoxLabs to do would be to refund or replace, because they undervalued the item and therefore made the insurance useless. But legally in the US they have no compulsion to do so.
I know things are different in the EU, which has stronger consumer protection laws.
The only way to consistently win this kind of claim in the US is to request signature delivery, inspect the package before you sign, and refuse delivery of the item with the deliverer there if something is missing.
Undervaluing items shipped to the US is dumb, as we do not pay any import taxes on items valued under $800. The only reason for the seller to do it in this instance would be to save a few bucks on shipping.
This is what I dont get. Why undervalue if shipping to the US.
In Europe it would be like this: Parcel is shipped, from that moment on any claims of it being missing have to be dine by the receiving party.
Same here, if it were undervalued they wouldnt be able to do anything, the insurance wouldnt be covering it. BUT at the same time, that heavy parcel from china would AUTOMATICALLY end up at costums and they would unwrap it and see it was undervalued.
As the receiver you would now have to pay taxes and a fine on top.
Regardless of the oft referred to āseller obligation,ā which does exist, the burden of proof falls on the plaintiff in these situations, as established through both common law and statutory law. In the US if a company refuses to refund or repay you, there is zero legal consequence for them.
They wonāt be investigated, fined, or penalized. Nothing will happen to their credit rating, etc. In a small community like keyboards it may affect their reputation. You can try to sue them at your own expense for civil damages, and again the burden of proof will be on you.
eBay and PayPal enforce the sellerās obligation to the extreme, because it ensures money keeps flowing through their platform and keeps them, as the coordinator of the transaction, out of court.
However, for a small business, where replacing or refunding an item could put you in the red, it is completely reasonable to demand burden of proof from the buyer and reject their claim. Sellers also need to be protected from fraud.
Of course, the laws as written favor the rich, because something like this might be investigated, for example, if the value of the item was high enough (maybe to qualify as grand larceny, or large enough to have significant tax ramifications, etc.)
Wow. FoxLabs really screwed their customer by lying to the shipping company about the value. IMHO theyāre (morally) as much to blame for the customerās lack of recourse as the apparent thief at DHL.
Really, this info definitely makes me much, much, much more weary of Foxlabs as a vendor. I get if the customer asked for it, but even then in a big GB situation like this why would the seller even want to expose themselves to a situation like this by undervaluing the shipment? Now the customer is most likely totally beat unfortunately. If they wouldāve just properly declared the price then there would be enough money to refund or pay for a extra unit if replacement happens. Just so stupid in my eyes. If you want to be serious company/business that sells high end boutique keyboards operate like a serious company/business! Itās not like you canāt build in the amount saved by under declaring the packages in the price of the keyboard kit itself or anythingā¦ SMH
Hope Foxlabs makes this right & eats the loss themselves since itās their fault there is a loss at all. Although I have to say I doubt thatāll be the case here & dude is gonna get strung out to dry on his Time80RE. Just goes to show anything can happen even with established vendors. So when you enter a GB donāt ever go in thinking itās a guarantee you will get what you paid for or even get anything at all. Buyer beware still applies in the hobby even though things have improved a good bit on that front.
The HMKB GB seems to be progressing well now. All of the powder coated boards are done (see pics below ā the yellow shows off the paint texture well), and the SS cases and brass plates will be bead blasted soon. After that, the plates need galvanized, and then packaging can commence! Iām sure it will at least be a month till they go out, but Plastik has been giving timely updates with pictures which inspires a bit of confidence at least.
Ye itās moving along, still a shit show thoā¦
What I canāt comprehend is why he chose to do the plate last instead of first so he could package every batch as they come back.
This is one of those situations where the GB runner could easily prove what is going on, but will not. For example, he claims he received all boards and they were damaged when shipped by sea and by customs officials. Pictures? Show people a giant stack of boards. Show some of the damage.
He claims he is making the boards himself in his shop. Show some boards in progress.
If only everyone carried a device with a camera on it that could easily upload pictures to the internetā¦
People would be instantly sympathetic and understand the delays, even if they are really pissed off about it.
The Rukia rd. 2 GB is becoming super sketchy at this point. I kept having faith in Jaxx & even joined the GB cause of his good reputation. Just goes to show even proven GB runners can have bad ones. Fingers crossed we get our boards, but I canāt confidently say thatāll happen after all that has been said & happened.
I LOLād while reading the Rukia thread, not at Jaxx or the folks like Rob who bought in, but because of the poor fellow who asked about extras in the middle of that whole discussion
Iām in the Rukia 2 GB myself, and Iām not worried about not getting my board. For the record, Jaxx has shown pics of the cases he made in house recently as well. Heās given plenty of updates and outright refunds along the way to anyone who wanted one (what GB runner does that?) that if he was trying to swindle us all, he would have run and hid long ago. Itās only been a year, and one filled with personal tragedies and global lockdowns ā give the man some slack. People have no problem waiting 15 months for a keyset (yes, I kniw this was disclosed at the time of purchase) . Everything is going to be fine. The real horror story is the nasty people trolling his discord who either never bought into the GB, or received refunds but canāt let it go. Regardless of what party you support in all of this, Iād hope we can all agree that being horrible to each other doesnāt do us any good.
end_rant;
