I have to say it's been a very frustrating couple of weeks, mainly down to being let down by suppliers and an ebay scammer making my life far more difficult than it needed to be.
The Ducati Multistrada 1000DS continues to tie up time and money like it's going out of fashion, I still can't find a rear footpeg hanger for the Triumph TT600 and one of the new fork seals I fitted to my Thundercat is leaking as bad as the old one.
I had ordered a new sprag clutch for the Ducati, the only one I could find that wasn't an arm and a leg price wise was in ebay, I made an offer, which the seller accepted and waited patiently for it to arrive. Trouble is, it never did arrive. A week after purchase I contacted the seller to ask if he had the tracking number, he responded immediately offering me a full refund, which I found odd. I told him I didn't want the refund and that the part was what I wanted, hence exchanging money for the part in the first place. Anyway, 5 days later, still no sign of it so asked for the refund, which I got immediately. I'm pretty sure he never sent it, I suspect somebody decided the offer price was too low after all and that they would just sell it to somebody else for more money later. I have now had to order one which is coming from Latvia and will take about 10 more days to get here.
The other part I need to complete the job is the washer that caused all the trouble in the first place - part number 061950065. You can buy them from Ducati but for some odd reason they only sell them in packs of 10. They are not dear, at the time of writing this they were about £6.60. the postage and packing doubles that and then you have 9 washers you neither need nor want. Why these suppliers are charging 6 or 7 quid for an item that costs 1.86 to post I do not know. I understand it takes somebody time to pick and pack them but it's taking the mickey a bit. Eventually I found one on ebay that was for sale at a fiver with post so I just bought that one. Meanwhile the half stripped bike is still blocking the back door to he workshop, which means I can't get the Thundercat back in to look a the leaky fork seal. Deep joy.
This brings me on to the ebay scammer - one of many that thinks it's fair game to get stuff for free at the expense of a small business. This particular scammer seemed to understand ebay rules very well and was clearly quite well practised at doing what he does. He was also quite adept at leaving negative feedbacks for anybody that didn't give in to his scamming, with 5 out of his last 6 feedbacks all being negatives. Anyway, he bought a radiator, not an expensive one, it was about 35 quid. He gets it then next day claims that it was leaking and sends a blurred photo that didn't really show anything. He then goes on to explain how I have caused him to have to spend 18 quid a day to get to work by bus, how he is a full time carer for a terminally ill cancer patient - all the usual stuff. So, I knew there was nothing wrong with the radiator but I offered to send him a replacement first class so he would get it next day. Then he claims he already bought one so doesn't need another and that it's all fine now with no leaks so what he must have immediately is a full refund. I replied that I was very glad that he wouldn't have to pay the 18 quid a day for the bus after all. Liars often have bad memories.
So, it came back, or rather something came back, it sure as hell wasn't the one I had sent out. It actually looked far newer apart from the plastic surround that had been heated and cut with a hacksaw - big clue here. The other big clue was that the security mark I had applied was nowhere to be seen. I contacted him again and asked if he had sent me the wrong one by mistake, he replied that the radiator now looked different because he had cleaned and repainted it. This was good because he had then admitted in writing to having worked on it and changed the condition of it, that left him in the cold as far as distance selling law is concerned. The fact is though, he sent back something different to what he received, he had clearly swapped the plastic surround from his radiator for the one from the one we sent and he wanted us to pick up the bill for it. The damage to the surround was clearly from where he couldn't get a screw out and he had damaged it beyond repair. I have reported it to Action Fraud, the report has been forwarded to ebay so now we have to wait and see what happens. I hope it's another serial scammer out of the picture, people like that have done untold harm to small businesses like mine.
On the plus side I have been spending a lot of time working on my mate Malcolm's incredible car collection. The current job is a clutch change on a 1967 Mustang done as a Terlingua Racing Team tribute. It's got all he right mods on it, sounds like thunder and looks the business. More details on that in my last post.
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