Shocking service

On the 4th of April 2026, I responded to an online advert from Sound Select for a 'demo/open box' electric chainsaw, 'Ryobi CS2000' and purchased the item the same day for R490. As they wanted more than R300 for postage, I organized for it to be picked up by The Courier Guy, at the cost of R175. When the item arrived, it was packed in an oversized box; the original box was badly damaged, oil soaked and filthy. The chainsaw was filthy and lacked a guide-bar. The accompanying product manual was also oil-soaked and thus rendered useless. I tried to negotiate with Sound Select, even at managerial level. An apology was reluctantly offered – if I sent back the item, they would refund me the product price, but not the courier cost that I had paid. As they would have had to refund me and pay the return postage, I made them a proposition that I would keep the machine, if they would at least refund me my courier cost to partially compensate for the missing guide-bar. They refused and I decided to keep the machine (since I had already gone to the trouble of cleaning it) and ordered the guide-bar from a different company. When my package arrived, I tried to fit the guide-bar and chain, but then realized that more parts of the machine were missing. So I had to order those too from Ryobi, costing me another approximately R200. In total, the machine costs me R1 227 so far. I could have purchased a new machine for less. I was pretty disgusted with my dealings with Sound Select.