Ebay auction #1715700863

This is the item description from auction #1715700863:

There were several problems with the merchandise that I received from "scratchgolfer!!"

The item is in no way new. The toy arrived partially assembled, clearly played with. Both instruction booklets were badly damaged and one was missing its cover. The IR ports were scuffed, indicating at least a little rough treatment. At least one small part clearly shows bite marks.

More serious than any of that was the number of missing pieces. In a used, complex Lego set, a few missing pins or rubber bands can be excused, but this toy was missing entire subassemblies. Some of the missing pieces are unique to this set and cannot be easily replaced (eg. the white claws). There were far fewer than 442 parts, making it impossible to build two fighters and so useless as a duelling toy.

To add insult to injury, the parts were not particularly clean. Several strands of human and animal (cat?) hair were mixed with the parts along with some indeterminate crumbs. I'm guessing that some of the scuffing and biting happened on a carpet. The picture was saved from the auction and then gamma-corrected to more clearly show the environment. If it had occurred to me to look that closely before I bid, I would have avoided the whole situation.

I usually do avoid sellers with such spotty feedback, but my enthusiasm for Lego is such that I forgot that not everyone is likely to be as careful with it as I am. But you don't have to be a Lego maniac to see that this auction was not as advertised.

To be completely fair, "scratchgolfer!!" responded to my complaints with reasonable remedies in a timely enough fashion. But I see no reason why other ebayers should be unaware of how unsatisfactory the transaction was.