Buyer was on holiday when courier tried to deliver, item has been returned to me

[gazzie007]

Hi there

Had an item returned to me (the seller) as the courier company had tried twice to deliver the item to my buyer without success. I've contacted the buyer who said he was on holiday at the time and is suggesting it is my fault this has happened due to a small delay in me sending out the parcel. I had advised the buyer of a couple of days delay beforehand and this was due to my preffered courier companys price had gone up since I did a quote and now the cost to post was more than i had charged the buyer for. Not wanting to ask him to pay more (or for me to have cover the extra) I used a cheaper courier company. It took me a couple of days to arrange this change, i explained all this to the buyer and at no point though did the buyer advise me that he was going to be away within a few days and therefore there could be an issue with the item not being delivered. 

The buyer wants the item resending but who is going to pay another £6/7 for this, me or the buyer? I feel it would be unfair for me to have to pay for postage again and i believe the buyer should pay.

I would be happy to refund him if he requires this but minus the P&P charge.

What would be likely outcome here?

I'm only a small private seller, I.ve never  been in this situation before.

Any advise would be greatly appreciated

[**peaseblossom**]

Well, you did delay the expected dispatch date and use a different courier to the one on the listing.   The bottom line is if the buyer opens a "not received" case with ebay they would get a full refund inc postage.   If you didn't do that willingly ebay would step in to enforce the refund and that could harm your account.

[gazzie007]

Hi and thanks for the reply. From my limited experience, ebay seems always to side with the buyer rather than the seller. Yes granted i did delay it but not on purpose. i use RM for 95% of what i sell as its small stuff, for the larger items (as this was) i use couriers as they are cheaper then RM. I had a bad experience with Hermes and have been using UPS since. I had a rough quote from them and factored than into my P&P charge, however when the item sold i got re-quoted at a higher price and looked elsewhere for a courier as so i (or my buyer) didn't have to pay more. The item sold Sunday afternoon, i would have posted with UPS on the Monday or Tuesday (i have a dispatch time of 3 working days) but with sorting out an alternative courier i didnt manage to post till Thursday morning. I work full time so sometimes its difficult to get to PO's or courier drop of points etc in my working day. I was completely transparent with the buyer on all this and kept him informed but he really should have said a delay may cause an issue as he's going on holiday and i would have worked around and with him. To just expect me to resend out of my own pocket is well a bit of a cheek to be honest.

[**peaseblossom**]

You're right, eBay do tend to side with buyers but they and most buyers would regard the issues you had as your problem, not theirs.