At what point should I write off a dispute with a retailer as a lost cause?

[grampi 10+ year member]

I recently purchased a new Alpine 9887 from an online retailer that was defective. When I contacted them about it, they told me to send the HU back to them and they would replace it. According to UPS tracking info, the seller received the bad HU over a week ago, but they still haven't shipped the replacement HU. I have sent them several emails over the past several days, but they are not responding. I can't call them because they don't list a phone number. I reported them to both the ebay and Paypal resolutions departments, and I actually received an email from ebay saying that they put a restriction on the seller's ebay account however, I still have not been contacted by the seller. I'm starting to get the feeling that this business is crooked and/or is going out of business and I will never see my HU, or my $300+ again. Are there any other avenues I can use to go after this business, or is this a lost cause? In the meantime, I've had an ugly hole in my dash with no tunes for weeks, which is getting very old. Where do I go from here?

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[JimJ 5,000+ posts]

I used these guys: http://www.ic3.gov/ when I had a dispute over a returned preamp I bought from a hi-fi shop in Seattle, their $750 check bounced...got a call back two weeks later from an agent saying he had spoken to the owner, less than a week later I got a certified cashier's check //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

It's the government, so don't expect much...but...it's not going to cost anything to try.

 

[grampi 10+ year member]

Just for chits and grins I Googled the names this company uses (they have several) and I was able to find one with a phone number that had the same name which was located in the same state, but had a different address. I called them and asked if they were affiliated with the True Value Electronics store that's listed on ebay and the guy said (in a heavy middle-eastern accent, which they all seem to have) no, but then right away he asked why. I told him I purchased a CD player from them that was defective, had returned it for a replacement, but I have not heard back from the business in a long time after emailing them several times. He then all of a sudden comes up with a phone number and tells me to ask for Nick. I call the number and ask for Nick and the guy asks why (again, with a heavy middle-eastern accent), and I give him my name and explained my situation. Right away he recognized my name and said they haven't sent out the new HU because they are out of stock. He said they are getting more in next week and he will be shipping a new HU then. He also said he will email me the tracking number when it ships. He didn't ask me anything about my reporting him to the resolution departments and I didn't ask him why they weren't answering my emails, but it appears they are still in business and I will give them one last chance in case he was telling me the truth. But if I don't receive a tracking number fairly early next week, I will become the biggest pain in the a$$ they've ever had.....now that I've got their phone number!