Can I ask for a partial refund on an ebay purchase?

[Zero999]

My question is can I ask for a partial refund? on what grounds?

Of course you can ask for a partial refund but whether it's reasonable or not is another thing?

[joeqsmith]

If that's all that was wrong with it, not a bad find. 

If you ever buy the S-parameter test set for it, let me know. I have some questions about it.

Thanks, still have to run some performance tests on it, If I spot the S-parameter test at a nice price I'll definitively go for it.

I have used mine with a coupler and was going to write some software for it to do some basic calculations but never got around to it.  The test set is connected with a serial port.   There are some notes in the service manual about the command set.   The 3589A is expecting something from the test set to ID it.  If I could have sorted this out, I was hoping to then use some of the built in math with a standard coupler. 

[TopLoser]

As a matter of interest, assuming you're purchasing on behalf of a company, how do you deal with reclaiming the VAT on GSP items? I just get a separate Pitney Bowes bill, but it's not a VAT invoice.

I've posted on here a number of times about Pitney Bowes being thieves and pretending they collect VAT on behalf of HMC&E. In the T&C of the GSP it states that it's for use by private individuals and not commercial buyers. They probably ship all the stuff labelled up as 'tractor parts' and pay non of the money they collect to HMC&E at all.

I got pissed off trying to get a proper VAT invoice off them and I spoke to the VAT helpline about it. They seemed bemused by the whole situation I described and couldn't help.

So now I just estimate the split between shipping and VAT from the Pitney Bowes bill, if I ever get a VAT inspection I'll fight it out with the inspector.

[mmagin]

Personally, I have asked for a partial refund when the packing was obviously bad and the item was damaged but I wanted to repair it rather than returning it.  This was when it was clearly incompetent packing (for example, my HP 6002A was shipped just in a box, basically nothing around it -- surprisingly all it needed was a new power switch and binding posts).