Item Delivered to buyers front door but buyer said they have not revcied & eBay ruled in their favor

[sabrebf]

I sold an item, posted through Yodel. In Yodels tracking it shows a picture that the package was delivered to the buyer's front door (the buyer confirmed it was his door in ebay chat). However, the buyer is saying he did not receive the item. Obviously going by the information I have the parcel was delivered I even have a signature on delivery by Yodel. However, the buyer brought the case to eBay & eBay ruled in his favour & I now have to refund him the full amount despite the fact there is proof of delivery. 

[sabrebf]

1. Yes delivered to the address in the order details (the buyer even admitted this)

2. Online tracking says delivered on both eBay and Yodel

3. And I was never given any valid proof of non delivery. That was all on the buyers end. 

[sabrebf]

As far as I can tell the only proof of non delivery Yodel has was the buyer saying they hadn’t received the item. 

[4_bathrooms]

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@sabrebf wrote:

3. And I was never given any valid proof of non delivery. That was all on the buyers end. 

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In eBay's reply it states: "I have attached the screen shot of their response with this email for your reference"

I'm just curious what Yodel's response (allegedly) was.

Also, does that screenshot look like an official Yodel response with a company header, logo and business details? 

[4_bathrooms]

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@sabrebf wrote:

As far as I can tell the only proof of non delivery Yodel has was the buyer saying they hadn’t received the item. 

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So, Yodel's response was the recipient making a claim that they had not received the item?

Although the case is closed is there a link at the bottom to appeal the decision made by eBay? You will need to go into the case to see it.

[sabrebf]

I have not seen any proof of non delivery in any form. Not in a eBay chat, Yodel chat or via an email 

[4_bathrooms]

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@sabrebf wrote:

I have not seen any proof of non delivery in any form. Not in a eBay chat, Yodel chat or via an email 

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So what exactly was shown in the screenshot mentioned in eBay's reply? eBay stated it was "valid proof of non delivery from Yodel where they have confirmed the item was not delivered to their address and it has been lost in transit instead."

Can you post the screenshot here? Don't post it if it contains personal information such as your name, your buyer's name, your buyer's address etc. unless you're able to obfuscate (i.e. blank out) any personal details.

[sabrebf]

There's nothing attached & I have never seen proof of non delivery 

[4_bathrooms]

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@sabrebf wrote:

There's nothing attached & I have never seen proof of non delivery 

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Is there a link at the bottom of the case to appeal eBay's decision?

[dch2112011]

The only time an INR case can be overturned or found in the buyer's favour when there is proof of delivery to the address on the order is when the carrier confirms  that ;

The item was not delivered to the address  or the tracking was incorrect and the item has not been delivered.

This is what ebay have stated,  

It is also why you received YODEL £20 compensation 

As you state if you had paid for the insurance to the value of the item then you would have received  the full £200 back

Yodel to pay any compensation would need to accept that the item was not delivered or delivered incorrectly - they do not compensate if they believe it was delivered correctly undamaged.

The lesson as you correctly mention is to make sure your items are insured in transit or risk only reciving the basic level of compensation.

It is unfortunate losing your money but that is what insurance is for - the buyer quite rightly should suffer no financial loss  in this situation

A thought for those who keep quoting rights and laws is to read through the ebay user agreement and the couriers terms and conditions which you agree to when using their services and therefore supercede any rights that are legally in place where you and the buyer  deal direct without specific  terms agreed

[cabletie555]

You need to use properly insured shipping, it could also have been delivered but arrived broken and you would still need to refund the buyer then claim on the insurance. Interparcel and Parcel2Go offer additional insurance on the services they offer, and Royal Mail have different limits for different services. These particular companies are quite helpful if you do ever need to make a claim I have found.

[cabletie555]

A very important point occurred to me thinking about this issue.  You are a victim of a theft, suffering a significant financial loss, so you should report this to the police at the earliest opportunity. There may be little chance of your item being recovered but long odds are better than none, and it also increases the likelihood of justice being done and future instances like this being prevented.

I would also extend my sympathies to you, this must be a very unpleasant event and while it is easy to say in hindsight what could have been done differently, there are many pitfalls in life which we all may encounter from time to time.

[insidethe93]

dch2112011 wrote: the ebay user agreement and the couriers terms and conditions which you agree to when using their services and therefore supercede any rights that are legally in place where you and the buyer deal direct without specific terms agreed.

Below I refer to business firms generally; I am not referring to eBay, nor to anyone on eBay. nor any specific courier. I'm merely correcting a common mistake that a firm's T&Cs can supersede the law. I googled as best I could to check things before posting.

I believe dch2112011 is confusing what's legally permissible and what happens in practice.

A buyer-seller contract can't by law include terms that reduce or eliminate statutory consumer rights, and a buyer doesn't forfeit these rights by agreeing/signing the contract and indeed the buyer retains full legal consumer protection even if they've been led to think they don't. It is against the law for a business to try to remove or restrict these statutory rights in any contract terms, notices, or communications with consumers including verbally (firms with a phone or chat helpline, take note).

Statutory rights include that goods be of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose, as described, and rights to return for a refund (depending on time legally entitled to insist on a full cash refund, no deductions for p&p, no requirment to return in the packaging, no need to be fobbed off by a credit note or goods in exchange. Sometimes consumers are led to believe that, say, a 30-day window for returns/refund window is the statutory one but it isn't (various times depending on stage, longest is 6 years - the copious details can be googled).

Statutory rights are automatically considered part of every consumer contract for goods or services and so don't need to be explicitly written in a contract.

Any contract term that tries to exclude or limit statutory rights is unenforceable and has no legal effect. In practice, an individual buyer has little practical option but to accept those illegal terms, if they want to use the firm's offline/online services. But by law, the consumer's entitled to challenge them, and the courts would declare those terms unenforceable (and then in practice the business would be cross and ban the buyer or stomp harder on their parcel).

Regulatory bodies (such as the Competition and Markets Authority [CMA] or local Trading Standards) can also take action against businesses using unfair or unlawful contract terms. But they tend not to get involved unless a consumer approaches them and often not even then.

So much for theory - in real life many consumers don't challenge a firm's illegal T&Cs, either mistakenly thinking the law can be diminished/replaced by a firm's T&Cs or else not wanting the hassle of standing up for their rights - after all, which ordinary individual wouldn't be scared, worried and feel not knowledgeable enough to go to court (quite apart from any up-front costs even if costs are later reimbursed e.g. by order of the court)? If a buyer wants to use a firm, they feel powerless, that they have no choice but to accept the firm's T&Cs.

I believe the law should be tightened up so that just having illegal T&Cs is subject to penalty (as just having them indicates an attempt to illegally enforce them). It shouldn't be left to individual consumers to enforce it. Also, the CMA needs more teeth and to investigate certain large firms automatically regularly and often, not wait to be asked to investigate. Without such measures, we could see the rise of illegal and increasingly bullying T&Cs.

[4_bathrooms]

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@dch2112011 wrote:

The only time an INR case can be overturned or found in the buyer's favour when there is proof of delivery to the address on the order is when the carrier confirms  that ;

The item was not delivered to the address  or the tracking was incorrect and the item has not been delivered.

This is what ebay have stated,  

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This is what eBay states:

The OP met the above requirements yet eBay have apparently failed to follow their own published policy. In the OP's shoes I would file a complaint with the Financial Ombudsman Service stating the facts and providing the above link.

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@dch2112011 wrote:

It is also why you received YODEL £20 compensation 

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This is the part that doesn't make any sense to me. Packlink's basic compensation is £25 whilst Yodel's is £50; I have no idea where that sum has come from. Also, I have no idea how the OP managed to claim compensation as Yodel would have simply stated they have GPS, a picture and a signature so the item was therefore delivered. The OP has stated they have so far received no admission of liability from either Packlink or Yodel so there must be more to this.

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@dch2112011 wrote:

The lesson as you correctly mention is to make sure your items are insured in transit or risk only reciving the basic level of compensation.

It is unfortunate losing your money but that is what insurance is for - the buyer quite rightly should suffer no financial loss  in this situation

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I'm pretty sure most couriers would lose a County Court case for an item they lost - provided the item wasn't on their prohibited or restricted item lists - should a consumer (i.e. a private seller) have been the sender. The Consumer Contracts Regulations state "Every contract to supply a service is to be treated as including a term that the trader must perform the service with reasonable care and skill". A courier who fails to get an item from point A to point B has clearly failed to perform the service with reasonable care and skill; a consumer would also not be expected to self-insure against the courier's own negligence.

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@dch2112011 wrote:

A thought for those who keep quoting rights and laws is to read through the ebay user agreement and the couriers terms and conditions which you agree to when using their services and therefore supercede any rights that are legally in place where you and the buyer  deal direct without specific  terms agreed

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Rubbish. Private sellers are consumers and consumers have statutory consumer rights when entering into contracts with businesses. Neither eBay nor a courier can use their terms and conditions to diminish a consumer's statutory legal rights.

[eastern_standard_time]

"The only time an INR case can be overturned or found in the buyer's favour when there is proof of delivery to the address on the order is when the carrier confirms that ;

The item was not delivered to the address or the tracking was incorrect and the item has not been delivered."

As usual, you are wrong. I have won two such cases where items were stolen from my door step, which is full view of the road. Each time I used the courier's own photo of the item on the step as evidence that it had not been delivered securely.

[pauuk.35za36]

In this instance the op says that the buyer chose the courier - the op must have either set up the options for which courier to choose or be subscribed to simple delivery??

[cabletie555]

I had a situation once where I was selling a caravan gas cooker to be exact. The buyer refused to use the insured shipping service I provided in the listing and insisted I send by some other courier I had never heard of. Now this buyer seemed really crazy to me, he was only saving a small amount. The service he indicated didn't even cater for parcels of the weight of the item, and was not properly insured and I protested and strongly recommended he use the service I had put in the listing. But he insisted and said he used these couriers all the time and was friends with the person who ran the company, it would be fine. So eventually I said OK, but you can book the shipping yourself and you must agree to this sale being conducted on a collection in person basis, I am taking no responsibility once the parcel has left here, which he did via eBay messages, it was recorded in writing. That went ahead, then he later messaged me to complain and say it had arrived broken, and I never refunded him nor was I required to by eBay. So you can get various arrangements even on eBay.

Some delivery companies are more helpful than others I have found, and will pick up the tab out of goodwill even if they don't strictly have to, while others won't even fulfil their legal obligations when it comes to it.

[4_bathrooms]

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@pauuk.35za36 wrote:

In this instance the op says that the buyer chose the courier - the op must have either set up the options for which courier to choose or be subscribed to simple delivery??

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Check the date of their original post...

[4_bathrooms]

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@cabletie555 wrote:

So eventually I said OK, but you can book the shipping yourself and you must agree to this sale being conducted on a collection in person basis, I am taking no responsibility once the parcel has left here, which he did via eBay messages, it was recorded in writing. That went ahead, then he later messaged me to complain and say it had arrived broken, and I never refunded him nor was I required to by eBay. So you can get various arrangements even on eBay.

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The Money Back Guarantee states:

Ergo your buyer lost their MBG protection by arranging their own courier.