It breaks my heart that I have to post this but I need to warn other people. Here follows the nightmare I have had buying my first Tape Deck. After a long long time of collecting Walkmans it was finally time to get myself a good Tape Deck, mainly for recording tape for my portable devices. After a lot of time looking for that 'master' deck which is not a Nakamitchi (due to "Nak Gap"), I set myself on the A&D GX-9100. The 100V JDM variant of the Akai GX-95 Mk II. I searched for a few weeks and ultimately found a listing on eEbay from "shop-japan-ayame", with the device listed as "For Parts or Not Working". However, the listing contained a lot of extra information such as: Operation confirmed, the device is functioning however the door does not close and needs to be repaired. I looked this up and noted that it was a common issue in these devices. One I could likely repair myself. After checking the photos, I bought the item. Here's where of course the problems start. First, they used FedEx for the international shipment, and FedEx charged me $94 separately just for them to handle the customs invoice, this was on top of the customs cost... Ok this is my responsibility but I still wish they had not used FedEx because any other courier would not have charged a separate $94 unavoidable fee. This $94 was almost 65% of the entire separate GST I had to pay... Second, I got the item and externally there was some extra damage not displayed in the photos. Nothing major, but also clearly not representative of the images on the listing. Yes the door does not close at all, but using the manual I bypassed the closing detection mechanism after inserting a tape and it was immediate there was something wrong with the motor. The tape does not turn and there is a bad sound coming from the device. Plus the door seemed to be missing some components to make it close. So it was more than just 'broken'. I had the device inspected by a professional who has 40+ years of professionally fixing Tape Decks and scores of them in his own collection which he imports and sells. He tells me the following: "You have bought the biggest piece of junk I have maybe ever seen. Internally this device is completely screwed and has been opened and butchered by a total moron. There is so much humidity that it's like it has been left in a greenhouse in Japan. Every component on the inside is rusted, the caps are blown and rusted, there is liquid damage, the motor is destroyed because someone has been trying to force it to play with the door tapped shut and the belts are all broken. Two of the gears are completely chewed. The automatic mechanism for opening and closing the door via button has been ripped out and the gasket for closing the door is missing. The hinge on the door is almost broken after which the door will not just hang open but literally fall off the device. I have never seen such a bad attempt at a repair job and is my professional opinion that despite how fine it looks on the outside. It should be used as a paperweight, maybe a donor or thrown straight into the bin. I am sorry." When we discussed if there was any chance to repair it, he said there could be more wrong with it that he didn't find based on how negligent the previous person was. He showed me the photos and I confirmed myself that the device had been brutally abused. We discussed that it would cost a donor machine and a minimum in $600 of labour to fix. Instead I paid $245.50 for postage and the inspection fee and I have the paperweight back at my home. I contacted the seller with the information and asked for a mutual resolution. They offered me a refund of 3.82% of the price I paid, not including the postage, taxes and FedEx fee... aka and insult to injury. Their response was extremely defensive, uncaring and they already replied as they were pre-preparing for PayPal dispute. I explained eBay's policy, and I have been buying here for years. You cannot say that operation and functions are confirmed in the listing description if they actually are not. They withdrew tiny refund offer and told me to pound sand. I left a negative review that 100% complied with eBay's policy on fair reviews but within 48 hours they contacted eBay and had it removed. I am down over $1000 dollars and weeks worth of screwing around. This is by far my worst experience. In a similar case when I bought my Panasonic RQ-S80 and the received condition was nothing like it was described. I worked with the seller to get half my money back beacuse it had a slew of issues. I then spent ALL that money and about 6 literal months of time getting it repaired. It now functions like it should have for the price I paid. Very rarely have I ever sought some kind of 'justice' for something received in far worse condition than I got it, but ALWAYS the seller has been negotiable and both of us have left without bad feelings. But not this time. This guy was totally ruthless. Obviously I have some blame to take here myself. Firstly, I should have bought a 9100EV. Secondly, I shouldn't have paid so much for this device. Thirdly, (and most importantly) I should never have used eBay. I learned my lesson. But I recommend if you see this shop selling anything. FORGET IT.
Finally, I am happy to say that I have bought an A&D GX-Z7100EV for less than even half the cost of the 9100. Firstly, the device has been fully and professionally restored over a period of weeks. Everyting from caps, belts and capstans replaced to degreasing, painting and polishing, alignment and even the source reference calibrated. Practically everything that could be done, was done. The device had one owner only and never moved. Externally it is in immaculate condition, comes with the remote control and official manual. Of course the door works too. Over the Z9100 I lose basically nothing; just the giant copper baseplate and copper internal lining, plus the separate voltage transformers. But I gain all the other benefits from the Z9100EV. The 210 bias (double the Z9100), higher frequency response, 10dB higher SNR, independent head adjustment and so on. I got Z9100EV sound for a lot less price. Here's a comparison from a professional, note that this is the Z7100LTD which has 'lower' specs than the Z7100EV. Sonically they are the same.
We've seen similar sales over here, locally. In my opinion, a large portion of the good stuff has been claimed, now the pickers are finding the stuff that was stacked away for maybe I'll get to it reasons. I can still find great equipment but now I expect issues with online sale stuff.
My main issue here is with the insult-to-injury behaviour from this seller. Normally I have in the past been able to expect extremely good service from Japanese. However, in this case the seller spared no expense spamming me politely asking for positive feedback before the item was even delivered. However, after I sent the first message showed utter disinterest in a suitable resolution, providing a 'take-it-or-leave-it' offer of $30 which was less than 4% of the price paid. I've raised the issue now to eBay for a claim, giving the seller one last chance to offer a partial refund. After which I'll raise it to eBay and if necessary all the way to a chargeback through my card. Normally I would write the experience off as a loss, but I also know that companies which act in such manner will just get away with it until someone does something. In the future if other buyers have issues and report issues it could at least lead to some kind of internal investigation on eBay or PayPal's side and them hopefully ending business with such a person being "high risk". If the seller can at least cover the inspection, shipping and tax I paid on this item I can consider the case closed. Even at that point the item wasn't worth a fraction of what I paid and is hardly even suitable for parts.
Do you have contacted ebay ? I made good experiences with talk with ebay, when items are not as described. They gave a full refund of price and shipment. By the way, i bought my TEAC V6030S in Japan, without any problems.
Sorry to hear of your terrible experience buying ex Japan from an eBay seller. There are many problems associated with these Japan listings including multiple listings of the same item from different sellers. It seems many of these sellers are often commission agents and the actual item is in a warehouse somewhere in Japan. Overall I have had good experiences buying from Japanese sellers. I've bought a few MD Walkman and got what I paid for without any major dramas. On a couple of occasions when the item did not match the description as was the case for an Onkyo HiMD component recorder, MD-105FX, only available in Japan, the seller gave a full refund and told me I could keep the defective unit for spares. Similar experience for a defective TDK MA-RC90 metal frame cassette with damaged tape. Clearly not tested before listing and a full refund issued promptly. Like you I bought an expensive Pioneer CT-F1000 deck in the US to make my Walkman cassettes. Fortunately it only needed belts and repair to a cracked take up spool plastic shaft and is fully operational. I usually make my type IV recordings on a Walkman Professional WM-D6 which had a full rebuild a few years ago and makes the best recordings of all my cassette devices for some reason. I play these on the CT-F1000 when I want to really rattle some windows
I got my money back. However, not without a huge fight and without the seller causing eBay to think that I either damaged the item in return or defrauded them. In the end I sent the item back and the seller printed a shipping label for me (which is mandatory if the buyer bought from eBay.com.au), however the seller listed the item price as $60 US dollars. Of course it was listed well over $1000 when he sold it to me, and then re-listed for over $1500. Clearly he listed the value as nothing so he didn't have to pay any taxes back, he had printed the label with the value as basically nothing. Fraud #2 (Fraud #1 was sending me an item that didn't have the wooden side panels and a whole bunch of undescribed issues). Here's how I packaged it: When he got it back, he claimed I had broken the door. He uploaded a photo of the door frame removed on the table. I had taken photos showing that the door was sent back completely fine before posting, here is just one example: Futhermore, he complained all the side screws were missing. Yet he sold me the device that way and it was part of the reason I wanted to send it back. Plus just for starters it didn't come with the mahogany/whatever panels it should have come with in the listing photos. That's fraud #3. I claimed what I had said before. 24 hours later the seller raised a claim to eBay (I was unable to raise a claim as I was waiting for the seller to refund me and didn't have the option). eBay then said they'd review the claim within 48h. 40h later they said they were extending the case for 5 days to give the seller more time to ""respond"". The 'neutral' way it was worded to me meant they meant giving the seller more time if he wanted to fraduently try to prove I had made more damage. Today I got an email from eBay. "blah blah blah there were concerns that you damaged the item. As a courtesy we are offering a full refund, but in the future you must send the item back in the same condition as you got it". Excuse me what?! Pound sand. This implies that eBay sided with the seller but decided to give me a full refund anyway; I guess due to my spotless track record on eBay or because this was the first time I'd ever decided to raise a claim. At least on the new system that split from PayPal like 7-8 years ago. This will definitely change how I use ebay in the future. This year marks my 15th year using eBay (at least on this account) and thankfully I haven't really ever had a hitch. Utter nonsense situation. I'm still more than $350 out of pocket for import taxes + inspection costs. Really concerning how many negative experiences I have had with Japanese businesses in the last couple of months across various sectors. I can only assume it's a sign of the extremely difficult financial times they are going through. Happy that I got my money back and in light of that, the Z7100EV should was delivered today!
For arguments sake, photos of the damage the item was shipped with that made it utterly worthless to repair courtesy of Jorge the Radio Tradesman
Sometimes it depends on who at eBay initially handles your complaint as to the kind of response and ultimately the nature of the resolution. So I have just sold two Walkman DD's on a "Buy Now" basis. They took over a month to sell but payout came through in 3 days for both. A vast improvement after my complaints about waiting a month for my payout on a WM-D6 Walkman Professional sale seemed to have an impact. If you sell "high value" items, like DD Walkman etc. The payout can be put into "HOLD" and can take a month to process. Still there seems to be an element of randomness in how they respond to complaints and issues raised by buyers. Of course sellers with eBay Stores will get favoured treatment ahead of the millions of ordinary account holders which may in part explain your experience.
Thanks for sharing and sorry for your bad experience. I have often wondered about these listings. But in the end I always use Buyee where firstly they somehow filter out bad sellers and secondly there is a lot more choice of original machines. Once or twice they even saved me from scammers. Of course always risky because the sellers on Yahoo auctions always list things as not working and untested but so far so good. They give you a choice of shipping when available and by the way, shipping options depend on destination country. I think the eBay sellers are trying to pick out Yahoo auctions and resell. So they are an additional layer of resellers. I don’t think they are adding much value on top of the actual buyer agent sites like Zenmarket Buyee and others. Buyee has never caused me any problems.
Buyee.jp is fantastic. I just wish the fees were not so high. Their exchange rates are quite bad and they just raised the fees again. Though the service is fantastic. It's just very expensive if you want to buy lots of smaller little items, it starts to really add up so I have stopped buying the 'standard package' and just paying nothing for that. Otherwise it's another 5 euros per item just for them to supposedly have a look at it.
No service just the minimum fee, also use package consolidation; still the individual domestic shipping fees still apply and it does add up, but this is the price for shopping from the other side of the world, with 100% peace of mind, with people who care about you
In 2022 I bought some Oculus VR glasses from Japan for my son. I paid 196 euros for the product and shipping. When the product arrived in my country (Greece) Fedex asked me for 123 euros to pick up the product from the airport and take it to the tax office. Because I also had to pay import duties of 77 euros, the price of the product came to almost 400 euros, almost what a new one costs in Greece. I contacted FeedEx and they told me that this was their price. I tried not to receive the product and cancel the order but at that stage it was not possible. To cancel the order I had to receive the product and then send it back to Japan, so I had to pay shipping, taxes, FeedEx ... I should mention that I live in Greece and 123 euros is not a small amount
