Gents, I bought this ultrasonic cleaner off of eBay and it worked great until...it quit.  I reported the problem to the seller, they tried in broken English to troubleshoot it, no dice.  They asked me to send it to the UK and then they would send a replacement.  I pointed out that would cost more than I spent on the damn thing, they then paid for a shipping label from VA to CA.  I shipped it, waited over a month before contacting them, contacted them, was told to wait a few days, and did.  Contacted them again, they told me they would send me a new one but asked for $20 for shipping.  I paid it, waited about a week, asked for an updated, was told it would be a few more days.  I requested a refund.  They offered $30 (I paid $60 for this thing), I counteroffered with $40, no response.  Wait another week, asked for an update and threatened to dispute the transaction with eBay/Paypal.  One more assurance that the money was on the way (they did not specify an amount).  Now, a week later, here I am.

Best way to resolve this and to get my money back?

open dispute

Dispute it with paypal, that is what the protection is for.

How long did it "work"?   1 month, 5 years?

Maybe just buy another one if you were happy with it.  Shit wears out.  Cheaper to buy new than fix old sometimes.

ETA: If it's under warranty, go to the manufacturer, quit dealing with the seller who probably only made a few bucks off it anyway, and is going into negative numbers dealing with returns, shipping, refunds, etc.

It worked less than a month.  They've been drawing this out for over 3 months.

seems like there trying to keep you on the back burner until  time lapses where you can not dispute.


I think you have 180 days now via paypal so dispute that shit!   ask for your 20$ shipping charge back too

I think you're right.  I can't dispute it online with PayPal, have to call them when they open.  I did get my $20 back but nothing else.

What was your use cycle? Once a week for 20 minutes? 24/7 from the time you got it until the time it died?

I bought an ultrasonic cleaner a couple of years ago...the idea was I'd use it to clean off AR BCGs and pistol parts while I tackled the stuff that was too big to fit into the basket. After a year of using it...it turned out I could still clean things faster and better manually. All that it really saved me was some patches and rags, and a little bit of elbow grease And yeah, I could set it to clean and then take off for an hour and come back and the part would be mostly clean for me...but, the hard gunk was still hard gunk to get off.

Works great for cleaning brass though...having said that, even if I do use it to clean brass, I still throw the brass into a tumbler of crushed walnut shells afterwards anyway to give them a nice sheen. So again...it's not buying me too too much.

Either ultrasonic cleaners are a gimmick, or mine's shitty

A few years ago I bought something from the UK and it turned out to be a dud.

I pointed out that between the pair of us, we'd spend $300.

$150 for moving a piece of junk to the UK for him to put on the scrap pile, and $150 to send me another one.

I offered to send him $150 to cover the shipping. I felt (and still feel) it is the gentleman's way of doing business.

Enter shit house luck.

A couple months later someone offered me $200 for the busted unit to use as an office decoration.

I put $150 of it in my pocket to offset the shipping cost and sent him the remaining $50 for his trouble.

You have to be honest and you have to be fair. I felt this was both and you could have knocked the UK seller over with a feather when he got the $50 PayPal.  

We were BOTH happy with the way the deal worked out.

Make sure you have all the messages between you and them saved, open a case through eBay. As gay as eBay can be at times, they are really good at handling stuff like this and there's a good chance you'll have your money back within a few days.

Nothing real heavy on use.  I am still getting ready for reloading so I just test cleaned stuff like eyeglasses, BCG, etc.  It worked great.

File claim with credit card company that is linked to your Paypal. Get money back. Done.

Right now, I've opened a dispute/case.  The seller has 10 days to respond.  If they don't, I automatically get the money back on the 11th day.  I'm looking forward to providing copies of our correspondence as it's all laid out in black and white.

If you spend some money ultra sonic cleaners can work great, just not the cheap bargain models.

PayPal found in my favor, money refunded.  Got a much better and larger ultrasonic from Amazon and spent $7 on a three year warranty on it.  It is much nicer than the old one that failed and I've already cleaned a lot with it.


<edit> The above cleaner was $90 when I bought it a week ago.  WTF.

This is the way you do it.  I've seen claims made 540 days after the transaction when the account is backed by a CC.