Item thought to be lost, buyer gets refund. Item turns up, buyer now won’t repay…!

[bmwbrunette]

I sent an item via Royal Mail Tracked 48 on the 27th of November. The tracking sat with the same information that it was stuck at a regional hub for over two weeks so the buyer raised a case and I issued a refund.  I then opened a case with RM to recoup my monies. 

The buyer has messaged today to say the item has arrived, and I checked to see and yes the tracking now reflects that.
Obviously RM are going to see that too and not pay the lost item claim (I'd imagine?) so I asked the buyer to pay me again because, well, she now has her item and it's me that will be out of pocket.

She doesn't  want to do that and says RM should refund me because she's lost out as it was late yadayadayada. 

What options are open to me here?

I'm a private seller, I don't wish to be £30 out of pocket and have this buyer get her item for free simply because of the demands on RM's resources at Christmastime!

[rjwilmsi]

Royal Mail will 100% refuse any loss claim because tracking now shows correctly delivered. There is no point in opening a loss claim - if it's already open it will be rejected.

Tracked services don't have a delivery guarantee so RM won't automatically refund postage either. If you submit a complaint they may refund the postage, but it will only be that and probably only as stamps not cheque.

What I do in these circumstances is ask myself what was my net cost: if item sold for £30 then eBay fees were about £4 and postage was £3 say, so net was around £23, I round that down then ask buyer if they would be willing to repay £20 - recognise the inconvenience so don't ask for full repayment. Plus give them the option to send the item back if you pay for the label. Unfortunately though you can't force the buyer to do anything - refund is done and tracking didn't prove delivery at that time so eBay won't get involved.

If the item were more expensive you could consider small claims court etc. but as buyer wasn't originally at fault I'm not sure you would win a case, and for £30 or so it's clearly not worth persuing.

[triple512]

Might be worth ringing CS and explaining the situation or at the very least report the buyer for abusing the system.

Unfortunately you're relying on the buyer being honest once you refund as there's nothing in eBays tools that allow you to reverse the refund, although eBay might be able too, especially if she's admitted via eBay that the item has now been received?

There are a also few cases where eBay will refund out of their own pocket if they've let you down, but only a few.

Failing that, if she sells stuff, buy one of her items and pull the same trick on her 😁 I hope you get a positive outcome.

[simplyessential_uk]

buyer raised a case and I issued a refund.  

Im afraid there is nothing you can do now - you refunded the buyer on your own accord so Ebay can not reverse the refund.  (If you had let the case take its course and Ebay had refunded then you would have a case for reversal ) The tracking has now shown item as received so you can not claim from RM neither does the buyer have to pay you (unless you opened a small claims case outside of ebay which you would have a case for but Ebay will not get involved) 

Im afraid you have learnt an expensive lesson and others posting to call Ebay etc are just wishful thinking and they are not going to refund you.  All the above has happened to me.

[bmwbrunette]

How have I learned an expensive lesson?

We’re warned against leaving it for eBay to resolve a case like this because had it never turned up I’d have lost the postage fees and potentially had other sanctions against my account.

So how is any of this my fault? I did what I was supposed to do!

[triple512]

I was about to ask same. If you're answering to a case and let it time out, not only does buyer get a refund but you lose your fees AND get a defect.

I wonder then had you done that, what happens when the item turns up after the case is closed?

No recourse presumably as tracking is irrelevant once the case is closed.

This must be increasingly common given RMs dreadful performances of late.

[simplyessential_uk]

In my experience Ebay have reversed the refund on appeal if the item has arrived after the buyers refunded.  As Ebay give the refund they can reverse it - If you refund they can not.  Yes it's a risk as you will recieve a defect (which is removed if reversed) but for £30 you have to take that decision whether risk that or not.  Ive had this discussion on another thread and sellers have disagreed, but I have had refunds reversed on appeal.

[triple512]

Ok that makes sense. It's down to whether eBay or the seller offer the refund then.

Like most seller, I refund before it times out to avoid a defect.

I've only had 2 cases where the item has arrived after I've refunded and closed the case.

One I sent a note saying just keep it as was 5 weeks late, the other the buyer kindly offered to pay again as soon as tracking showed delivered.

A lot of our stuff though is low value so don't bother reclaiming from RM, just written off.

[rjwilmsi]

In my experience, if eBay have issued the refund for an INR it's not sure to mean you can get the refund reversed on appeal if tracking later updates to delivered.

eBay told me that my appeal for exactly that was refused because eBay made the correct decision at the time (tracking at the time of decision didn't show delivery), so there was no reason to reverse it - reversal of an eBay decision would need to be because of evidence the decision was incorrect when made. So I now take the view that if no tracking update I need to voluntarily refund within the INR window, otherwise eBay do the refund but keep fees and issue defect. Then if item does later arrive, have to rely on cooperative buyer to recover any money. Not ideal, but  as a buyer if an item was delivered to me weeks late I would not be happy if the platform automatically re-charged me full price after having had a refund.

[vinylscot]

I have to agree with @rjwilmsi above.

I think @simplyessential_uk is possibly just trying to justify their earlier advice, rather than admitting to an error. Their initial advice is quite contrary to that which is almost always offered in circumstances such as this. 

You have "done the right thing", and have been let down by human nature. eBay is almost certainly not going to refund you out of their own pocket, as the correct procedures were followed. It may be worth having one last go at asking the buyer to repay you. You could offer to forego the postage element to try to tempt them.

[*knight-rider*]

`You could offer to forego the postage element to try to tempt them.`

Or offer it for say £20 instead of £30 because of the delay, make them feel their getting something out of it.

You know the saying, `50% of something is better than 100% of nothing` 🙂

[bennotbill]

I've done the same. Item was lost for more than a week so I had to refund. A week later item was found and delivered. My item was £26 so I asked the buyer for £20 and they were happy to pay that through PayPal.

It turned out what had happened was a temp couldn't handle the job and just jacked it in. All the parcels they had left was just dumped in a corner of the depot. I expect that sort of thing happens a lot at this time of year.

[tranceenthusiast]

Jumping on here because I currently have an item sent last Friday via tracked 48, it's been sat in Swansea mc since Sat no movement...

If we as sellers do the right thing. Should it not be the case that EBay does the right thing by us and compensate us for our losses? eBay is after all making billions off the back of other peoples sales. It's techno feudalism we pay to sell on their " land ". It seems like they don't protect us if a seller is unscrupulous or when a delivery service fails to deliver on time? That's not something we as sellers have done wrong. We did everything correctly our end. What happens next is out of our hands.

With all the years and amount they make, why doesn't ebay start it's own in house delivery service? That's a retorical question btw... 

[tranceenthusiast]

Op,

What was the outcome in the end? Did you just write it off? 

[bmwbrunette]

Hi so it ended up a partial win for me in the end because the buyer obviously developed a bit of a conscience!
I ended up getting a 55% refund which I accepted because a half of something is better than a whole load of nothing & all that.

This only occurred because they messaged out of the blue saying “send your PayPal request, here’s how much I’ll pay” Other than that I’d have lost it all because when the Royal Mail enquiry result came through they said they weren’t liable for any costs because the item had been delivered.

I wrote back to RM to seek at least a refund of some/all of the postage paid given it was so late… alas I never heard anything back, ever.

I didn’t have to pay the fees as I’d responded initially within the window allotted, not that that did me much good initially!

Sadly It was a painful lesson in a sea of straightforward sales and just goes to show how quickly you can be dropped from a great height when selling & trying to do absolutely everything right!

[tranceenthusiast]

Thanks for the update, My item still hasn't moved out of Swansea mc. So I'm assuming guy will contact today for a refund, which I could do without at the moment.. 

Glad you at least got something, not ideal though. If the person has admitted they now have the item they should pay the full amount back shouldn't they? 

I think EBay needs to change policy to account for the extra time RM require for compensation requests. 

I don't buy into the whole painful lesson stuff. It should not happen, we as sellers have done the right thing. We've kept our side of the argument. Items not as described should be refunded by a the seller. But items lost by delivery service that's completely out of our hands? This should be refunded by the billion dollar corporation that continues to profit from millions of users globally. 

I understand that this is a convenient / easy platform for selling your second hand items. But there should never be scenarios like this. The system is to open to abuse and clauses that leave good / legitimate sellers out of pocket. 

[bmwbrunette]

I couldn’t agree more!

I guess the precedent in bigger cases where these situations have gone to court is that the contract is between the seller and the courier.
It’s the seller who pays for and organises the postage, thus it’s the seller who has to raise the complaints & seek compensation.

That’s fine if the seller is a huge company but not so idea when it’s a private individual just looking to offload some stuff and make a penny or two from a clear out.

You’re absolutely right that the buyer should’ve paid the full amount back, or sent the item back to me.
She had this belief though that as it was a Christmas gift that didn’t arrive in time, her whole reason for buying it was scuppered.
Thus she felt aggrieved she was out of pocket with no item to show at the time it was needed.

None of that was my fault, but, well, that didn’t seem to matter 😞

I too feel that eBay should help us out here when we’ve played by all the rules but I don’t hold out much hope.

[indigo-island]

Another thing you can try - is to claim for a late delivery from Royal Mail.  I had something a year or so back.  Claimed as lost, but then had a letter with a book of stamps saying had been delivered - but were offering the stamps as significantly delayed.  Since then when I've claimed for lost parcels, I've noticed there is a option - are you claiming for lost or delayed

Not sure really what would class as significantly delayed, but at least it was something back as the buyer ignored all messages.  For me - something was better than nothing.

[tranceenthusiast]

Yeah it wasn't your fault mate, the system here is flawed. I've noticed the buyer who's parcel I have been chasing (tracking showing still stuck in Swansea MC) has just left positive fb, so assume he has it.

They aren't fair to sellers on here. I damaged an item I just sold last night (don't ask me how). I contacted the buyer to ask if he still wanted, no answer so cancelled the order. Rather than simply reversing his payment which has not left his bank, eBay used my seller account putting me into deficit, eating a payment I've been waiting for for days.. Now I have to wait another 3 days for funds from cancelled purchase to hit my account just so I can buy food.. 

It does seem like the site is now really for businesses. I can understand why HMRC is interested. Somone needs to make a new platform for private sellers, no re sellers and business. Just a seller friendly market place for people selling their old gear. I thought that was what eBay was? But it seems not. Sure it's convenient, I've sold items I had in cupboards for 20 years in under a week. But boy is it stupid. Managed payments is just archaic. 

[enz129]

I would look at Royal Mail's website where they have a section on compensation for late delivery. I know Tracked 48 is an estimated time of delivery but being missing for over two weeks would make anyone think the item is lost