Buyer refused package now what

[v.starpin]

Hello!!

I'm in a right Pickle!!!

Buyer purchased a few items from me I'm sent them in a cardboard box perfectly packaged and sent via evri. 

Buyer had messaged complaining delivery was taking too long (it was the 3rd day of dispatch).

I explained to please allow that it's the weekend and bank holiday but it should be there very soon.

The buyer has just messaged me in broken English that she has refused my package that it was very damaged. 

She sent a screenshot of the tracker that showing someone holding the box. The box is crushed in the corner put not ripped. 

I asked her if she had opened it to check if the items are intact. She said she didn't get that far she told the courier she doesn't want it. 

I said he shouldn't have done that, she should have accepted to check what's damaged. If there are damaged items then you open up a case with ebay and I will refund or replace. She basically said no the courier will send it back. I explained that almost never happens and it covers both our backs doing exactly what I've just said. 

I've advised her she needs to now open a case because I don't know what else to do 😕 

She saying no she wants a refund.

Can somebody help! I just don't know what to do. That's a lot of money I'm going to lose if the courier doesn't send it back. I tried saying to the buyer that nobody has paid for its return so its just going to be sat there in the depot.

Surely this is grossly unfair if this goes in her favour.

Help!

[*vyolla*]

Is there a return address on the package? If so, it should come back to you.

If the tracking shows that the buyer refused to accept the package then they are not covered by eBay's Money Back Guarantee and if they open an eBay item not received claim it should be found in your favour. You can then refund when you receive your item back.

However, you should be aware that if they paid with a debit or credit card they will win a not received chargeback via their card provider. 

[*vyolla*]

I'm putting this is a separate message field for clarity.

At the moment you are trading incorrectly on a private account when you should be trading on a business account. It's in your own interest to get this right.

A private seller is one who is just selling off their own personal items such as clothes from their wardrobe, bits from their loft/garage etc.

A Business seller is someone who buys or makes items to sell on.  They need to be registered as a business to meet the requirements of UK law. They need to declare income to HMRC once they reach £1,000 worth of sales (eBay will be providing HMRC with your details anyway so it's vital to keep correct accounts for your tax return). You can obviously offset more expenses as a business seller, but can't offset any at all as a private one.  

To correctly register as a business seller simply go to your Personal Information in your account and to the right of Account Type, which will be showing as 'Individual'  you'll see an Edit option.

https://accountsettings.ebay.co.uk/profile

This doesn't affect your feedback profile or any current listings, it merely upgrades your account so that you're legally compliant. 

If you're also selling your own items, just open another eBay account (you can have more than one).

eBay will pass on data to HMRC automatically if you're selling 30 or more items a year OR have total earnings over the equivalent of £1,740. eBay will automatically share this information with HMRC by 31 January 2025 – the first lot of data-sharing will cover the 2023/24 tax year.

This eBay guidance page explains what's being reported and when:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/account/regulatory/uk-digital-sales-reporting?id=5454&st=3&pos=1&query=U...

[dancewithadingo]

Good Afternoon V-Star

That's ridiculous, what a silly woman. You have done everything right. Just keep insisting that she must open a case through eBay,which will show that delivery was attempted and means that initially you will win.

That said she may then go to her funding source and raise a 'charge back case', which could prove problematical as they will find in her favour.  

You have my sympathy for this situation when it is not of your doing. Words fail me.

Good luck.

[m25jet]

In addition to what has already been said, send your buyer an e-mail via eBay Messages stating that you will refund her money in full as soon as you get the item back again.  Once you end up getting the item back refund the buyer's money in full, citing "Buyer Changed His/Her Mind" as the reason why.

In the event that the buyer opens an Item Not As Described case against you in the meantime then as others have already said you should win the case.  The buyer voided her protection under the eBay Money Back Guarantee by refusing to accept delivery of the item, but if necessary remind eBay of this and direct their attention to the buyer's messages where she says that she refused to accept delivery of the item.  That should clinch eBay's decision to close the case in your favour when they see the message where the buyer said that she refused to accept the item.

When refunding the money if you select the option "Buyer Changed His/Her Mind" as the reason why then you shouldn't end up with a defect on your account; however, if something goes wrong and you do then contact eBay Customer Service and appeal the defect, stating that the buyer refused to accept the item when the postman delivered it.  You can also ask eBay Customer Service to remove any negative feedback should the buyer leave you bad feedback in relation to the transaction.  Just remind eBay that given the fact that your customer refused to accept the item, thus voiding her Buyer Protection, her negative feedback should not be allowed to remain, and neither should the defect on your account.  If eBay agree and remove the negative feedback then the defect resulting from the bad feedback will also be removed as well, in which case nothing that the buyer has said or done in relation to this transaction will have any adverse effects on your account.

Finally, if you have not already done so by the time you read this response,  add the buyer's User ID to your Blocked Bidders List so that she cannot purchase anything else from you in the future and cause you any further aggravation.

[cobwebcottage]

'Surely this is grossly unfair if this goes in her favour.'

Life is unfair. Especially for the business sellers who are selling the same products you are listing and under cutting them.

If you were correctly registered as a business seller and accepted returns, (the law) maybe the situation would have been different. 

[sml192]

'If eBay agree and remove the negative feedback then the defect resulting from the bad feedback will also be removed as well'

Negative feedback does not result in a transaction defect.   There was a short period a few years ago when this was, the case but it was quickly dropped.  

[rjwilmsi]

When a buyer can see that the parcel on arrival is clearly damaged, then I think it is reasonable that they refuse the item. If you read the terms and conditions of some couriers closely, they state that the recipient must inspect the item on receipt for damage before accepting it, otherwise courier won't accept damage claim (of course in reality it is often impossible to do that because the courier dumps the parcel and runs away before recipient even has hands on the parcel).

Per eBay policy it is not in the buyer's best interest to refuse the item, because in theory refusing an item voids their buyer protections. However, you have to be reasonable and pragmatic here. If the item has been damaged in transit then it is not the buyer's fault. The buyer deserves a refund (or replacement). If you refuse to refund the buyer via eBay then they will simply go to their card provider and get a refund, which will cost you more. So it is in your best interests to keep the refund on eBay and work with the buyer.

What do you do now: you wait for the courier to return the item to you. I am assuming you did include a returns address - if you didn't get in contact with the courier now. Once you have the item back, refund the buyer in full. Then see if you can raise a damage claim with the courier - bear in mind that Evri have low compensation and exclude lots of items from cover. So, are all your items covered, and did you purchase extra insurance as needed?

In my experience, Evri do tend to handle parcels roughly (all the couriers do to a certain extent but as a recipient I have more problems with Evri - last item to arrive with Evri was a PC and the frame was bent - seller's listing photos didn't show that so it was shipping damage even though seller did use a fair amount of bubble wrap. But it was a weak box and padding was only bubble wrap, which is insufficient for heavier items). So if using Evri my view is you need to double box everything: item + padding, box, more padding, outer box. If items are fragile then triple box - I'm serious.

If you sent the item via Packlink with Evri then good luck getting anything out of them at all. Their customer service is close to non-existent. If items have value I would advise using a better courier (Royal Mail, DPD, ParcelForce) and buying labels direct.

[dacha-lolly]

Hi, just saw this message. Not sure someone will see this but hey. Let's say I'm the buyer and i refused the item because the item arrived passed the date and the seller refused returns + wouldn't respond to messages about it and i didn't know 1) refusing voided my rights 2)that eBay could force a buyer to accept a return. The item wasn't returned becusse the return address was not on the parcel. I didn't know that. I told eBay what exactly happened . Am I entitled a refund then? 
and if not from eBay, does PayPal work like a credit card and am I entitled a refund with them as the card provider will say that the funds were taken by PayPal so PayPal had to deal with it not the credit card provider . Thanks 

[papso22]

If you refuse delivery you void ebay buyer protection.   You may still have protection from PayPal or any other funding source though. 

[thesmokingrunner]

@dacha-lolly 

I'm not sure if your "Let's say I'm the buyer..." scenario is a hypothetical question or one based on a personal experience - although both would attract broadly similiar answers the latter would be more specific - so I will limit this response to a broad-brush hypothetical case:

- If a buyer refuses delivery of an item they lose eBay's Money Back Guarantee. This means that they cannot claim for Item Not Received because it would have been received had they not refused it.

- Business sellers cannot refuse to accept returns. Private sellers can, but this only relates to 'change of mind' returns. The usual workaround to this is for the buyer to open a 'Not As Described' case with any old reason - the seller must then accept the return.

- [Your comment number 2) - that eBay could force a buyer to accept a return - does not make sense. a buyer cannot accept a return - an item would be returned to a seller, not a buyer. If you mean seller rather than buyer then yes, eBay can force a seller to accept a return. See the point above].

- If the item was refused by the buyer and retained by the courier it would be returned to sender. If there was no return address on the parcel it would be retained by the courier and might be opened in an effort to find the sender's address (Royal Mail do this; I'm not sure about other courier companies). If no address can be found the courier company will dispose of the item, usually by selling off jobs lots of unclaimed items. In any event the buyer is not entitled to a refund because they refused delivery of the parcel in the first place. See the first point above.

- PayPal does work a little like a credit card but the Ts&Cs are slightly different. I doubt you would be entitled to a refund because you refused delivery - that's completely different to an item going missing or arriving damaged. In any event PayPal changed the time limit for claims earlier this year (the end of May, I think) and you now have 30 days (the same as eBay's MBG) in which to lodge a claim. Banks and credit cards have different time limits; you'd need to check them.

Funny, but your post starts with a "let's say..." but ends with "Am I entitled a refund then?" and I get the impression that this is more an "asking for a friend..." post. If you require a specific answer to a particular occurrance it really would help if were a little more specific, but the bottom line is that if a buyer refuses delivery of an item they lose the protection of eBay's MBG and the seller is under no obligation to refund the buyer, regardless of whether or not the item is returned to the seller.

[papso22]

They have posted elsewhere about having refused delivery.

@thesmokingrunner 

[thesmokingrunner]

@papso22  Ahhh, ok. Thanks for that.

With no mention of having posted on the same subject previously, presumably this was posted as a hypothetical scenario in the hope of obtaining a different answer. That went well then...

[shellyhardwick]

PayPal have advised me to refuse delivery of a very large eBay item that I requested cancellation on 2 days before it was dispatched so now I am confused 

[papso22]

Why have you gone to PayPal?  Have you opened a case with them because if you have the ebay money back guarantee no longer applies to you.

[sml192]

You need to provide more details in order for us to advise properly. 

What happened with the cancellation request?

Have you opened a dispute with PayPal and if so for what reason?

PayPal has different terms to eBay and, as already advised,  once you open a dispute with PayPal you won't be able to do anything through eBay. 

[myriad*seller]

if you refuse the parcel you won't get a refund

Do NOT do what Paypal told you

accept the parcel and then open a not as described case and send the item back

Refusing the parcel will mean you wont get a refund at all! You lose ALL buyer protection when you refuse a parcel! 

[shellyhardwick]

Ordered Friday night. No seat height measurements on listing and I assumed standard height. Sat morning son in law checked the full chair height and guesyimated seat height from that. As I am old with dodgy knees and hips it will be too low so requested cancellation day morning. Seller has dispatched today clearly ignoring the cancellation request stating can't be cancelled as has been dispatched. Refund via return says I have to drop this 8 piece garden set with firepit at royal mail which I can't do.I have spoken to PayPal credit to see what my options were, they advised refusing delivery.

[myriad*seller]

You will lose all the money you paid for the item if you refuse delivery

Get your son to take it to post it back to the seller 

[jonat_broad]

A request is just that unfortunately - you can ask, but you don't necessarily get.

You wouldn't have been able to return that via Royal Mail anyway - you would have had to get in touch with the seller I image to arrange a courier return at your expense.

As above - don't refuse the delivery.