My 2 cents, tried to be as objective as possible and perhaps this won't be popular.
Marius story is questionable.. taking off the buckle after raising a dispute, damaging the screw and pulling at the strap causing damage are all items he's openly admitted to on the other thread (link:
https://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.p...ing-strap-trap ). A lot of his posts attempt to talk around the issues rather than address them, and frankly I wouldn't have enough trust to do business with him.
That said...
I suspect the strap 33JS got back was the original one, albeit in worse condition. The lighting has clearly played a big role in making the pictures look quite different, but a close look reveals they appear to be the same stitch for stitch, crack for crack, imperfect misalignment in the stitching is 1 for 1 etc. This may not be visible normally, but if you zoom in to the images it's almost like a fingerprint with the thread positioning etc. Feel free to critique my work, perhaps I missed something, but it seems highly likely to me that it's the same strap in both the before and after shot that 33JS posted. Pay particular attention to the bottom right hand corner of the strap and the right hand side of the top keeper.
I also don't think 33JS is attempting any wrongdoing here. There would be no point raising a thread during the dispute process if he was actually attempting to conduct a scam, why would he be angry at all if he was knowingly behind it? Conjecture of course, but I can't see that happening.
Every single photo Marius took of the strap looking bad has a little white spec on the screw attached to the strap on the far side. Every single photo in the original listing has that same little white spec on the same screw, but on the near side. So every single photo Marius has shared occurred after he messed about with the buckle, therefore they all become totally useless as evidence of anything really other than that Marius change the buckle (which he has admitted).
My best assessment with a bit of conjecture is this:
1) 33JS listed a strap, used as advertised but it certainly appears to be in good shape.
2) Marius received the strap and for whatever reason decided he didn't want it either due to the condition or perhaps due to his messing around with it. In any event we know he messed about with it, changed the buckle, pulled at it and generally degraded the condition - pretty unacceptable in my book. By the looks of it this quite starkly degraded the condition, but I can't say with any authority whether the condition was originally worse than advertised or not.
3) Marius began a dispute to return the item. 33JS objected to that dispute as he didn't recognise the condition of the strap as similar to the one he sent. Therefore he assumed a strap swap had occurred. However per the above images, I suspect it was the original strap returned in some fashion, just worse for wear after it's brief stay with Marius.
4) 33JS objected to this. Marius took offence at the claim of the strap being swapped (where technically I believe he was correct), and fixated on that rather than recognising the consequence of his own actions in damaging that strap before returning it. The posts in the other thread also lead me to believe this mindset is prevalent.
So basically I suspect Marius didn't gain from this, in that he returned the actual strap he received and ended up neutral at the end of it. I think he was incredibly callous with the product for unknown reasons, before changing his mind about it and using the aggravated damage as justification for return.
I suspect no dishonesty from 33JS. Whilst I disagree that a different strap was returned, I can understand why he may of thought that. Frankly no sensible person would deem that an acceptable return, so eBay has screwed him over by siding with the buyer on a 'not as described' case as the do in pretty much all circumstances.
Right, now I've offended everyone, off to bed
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Originally Posted by Hooshabak
love it.
