light in the box ebay id- litbinthebox Ebay Return Scam - no replacement, no refund, out of pocket $430 ShenZhen Bao’an

Purchased a car stereo from ebay seller litbinthebox in november 2013. Supposed to have 1 year warranty as per item description.

Was very happy with it for about 2 months, knew ebay feedback period would expire in around a month so i went ahead and left positive feedback as one would.

After those 2 months, unit became faulty, and screen wouldnt turn on but the sound was still working.

Messaged seller over ebay for post sales support - no response. 

Went via lightinthebox.com presales chat to get in contact-had to threaten bad feedback via a secondary item purchase. They passed the message onto their ebay department before they started to respond. After much to and fro and waiting for the manufacturers engineer for tech support which came out to be no response at all after 2 weeks. Had to continually chase up. Eventually seller agreed to RMA for warranty return for replacement. 

Sent unit back, costed me $80 to ship overseas back to China. Unit itself was valued at about $350. They confirmed received and I was told it was sent back to manufacturer for replacement. Another 2 weeks passed, and again, no update. They offered a refund. 

Fed up with all the jumping through hoops and fighting to get it replaced, decided to agree to refund as it should be easier. 

No response from then on.

So to conclude-I have no car stereo, no replacement, no refund. Out of pocket for a total of $430.

Tried buying another cheap item from them to warn other ebayers not to get scammed, and my ebay id is blocked from buying from them now, but it wouldnt stop me from buying from another account. I regret giving them this information early but im sharing it with you now to help keep ebay sellers honest. 

I suggest if, you ever need a warranty claim, before contacting seller to purchase a cheap item first, then use that for feedback purposes on the more important item (giving the item id), as ebay is the worst for feedback on 1-2year warranties due to their system only allowing feedback in the first 1-2 months for that transaction, after which you lose the ability to give feedback.