eBay RaceFace cranks, misleading description?

In 99% of cases the buyer gets their money back in full if a "Not as described" case is opened

If he comes back with a negative reply start a dispute immediately.

Does the crank end look damaged, it should if it doesn't fit that well?

Also just playing devils advocate - and this is unlikely - are you sure the crank is for your bottom bracket? There are 2 standards JIS (shimano etc) and ISO - (campagnolo and a few euro brands)

TK, he hasn't got back to me since I e-mailed him, through eBay, the 2nd time. I will start a dispute if I need to, eBay seems to like you to try to resolve it yourself.
When I unwrapped the drive side crank I looked inside the taper, instead of uniform flat contact patches where crank tapers fit, the contact patches have 4 grooves where corner of crank tapers have dug in. This has probably been caused by the bolt being loose and cranks being pedalled. Obviously this affects how tightly the crank fits on BB taper, not tightly in this case.

I also thought about JIS and ISO, so checked last night. It's got nothing to do with it.
The fact that there is a difference in fit of the 2 RaceFace cranks compared to each other when they should be the same shows the drive side crank taper is damaged/spread.
Later today or tomorrow I'll pop into the LBS and ask to try the cranks on several new and used BB's just to remove any doubt that there is something wrong with crank.

I saw these on the Bay a week or two ago. The description was pretty ambiguous, so I decided not to bid. It's a tricky one....on the one hand he says "tapers are fine" - then "i have no way to test the tapers" and lists as "not working, for parts only".
Still worth opening a dispute, I'd be well hacked off if I'd bought them - I think you have a good chance of a refund. Good luck!

Well he replied still insisting that there was nothing wrong with crank taper and that I must have damaged it while fitting. All I did was, by hand, fit the crank onto a BB that wasn't fitted to a bike, no tightening up with bolt, just slid on.
Took some pics,



















As you can see the RaceFace drive arm is flush with BB axle end so a bolt won't tighten it up. The non-drive RaceFace arm is OK as can be seen with some other old cranks for comparison.
In the last pic I was trying to show how the BB axle has dug in to taper at bottom left just where shadow shows the angle of it. All 4 inside faces of crank taper are like that.

start a dispute. he can't say he tapers are fine then put a caveat on them saying he has no way to test them. you'll lose out on return postage (make sure it is tracked) but its worth it for a refund on a dodgy item.
don't wait any longer, get onto paypal and get the dispute asap and include copies of his listing text and emails between you.

paypal will tell you to send them back and give you a refund when he has received them, in the meantime - email the seller again informing him your opening the dispute as he claimed they were fine when they weren't as there is no way you could do that sort of damage by dry-fitting onto an unmounted BB.

jax13,

I've just finished doing that.
PayPal/eBay will now contact him and he/we have 10 days to resolve it. Once you start a dispute PayPal get access to your email correspondence with seller. The seller obviously thought he was being clever the way he worded the description because when I informed him I was going to open dispute part of his reply was "we will let ebay decide what should happen about a 'for parts' listing, i'm quite curious myself to see how they will deal with this."

Any progress on this? I'd like to know how you got on

I started a dispute about them not being as described. Seller denies there was anything wrong with cranks, says I must have damaged them when fitting them. All I've done is fit a BB by hand into crank. According to him they were listed as For parts or not working so I knew before I bid that they weren't OK. He can't have it both ways by describing the important parts of cranks, tapers and pedal threads, as fine and OK and the cranks as decent square taper cranks.
He has told me he has no intention of giving a refund and from his replies it's obvious he thinks he has worded the auction in such a way that he can say I knew that cranks were defective before I bid. He shouldn't have described that tapers were fine if that was his plan. Maybe that's why he mentioned the missing chain-ring bolt.
I checked the crank on a new BB in LBS shop to confirm there's nothing wrong with the BB that I used to test crank.

Anyway PayPal/eBay want you to try and settle it between ourselves before they get involved after 10 days. He hasn't replied to me since Wednesday, the Resolution Centre sends you emails saying you have to respond to the last reply you get.

It sounds very much like he was trying to have it both ways - imply they were really OK, yet cover himself when the buyer realised they were toast - and forgot to edit out the bit about the threads being "fine". :roll: