Buyer has paid but refuses to collect, its over 6 months

[grabbedit]

I have  a predicament with a buyer who bid and won and item of mine over 6 months ago.  He duly paid for the item.  However, despite my persistent requests for when he was going to collect  I either got no response, or the occassional response that was an excuse why he couldn't collect.  The item was furniture which I had to put in storage for space reasons.  Now. over 6 months later the buyer is asking if he can collect.  After all this time and my chasing I don;t feel obliged to assist him. What rights have I got?

[john1297576 · Accepted solution]

As you have been paid no doubt you are no longer considered to be the owner, but you could ask him to pay the storage fees. There is nothing he can do though Ebay or Paypal as he is well out of time. Even the paypal refund facility is no longer available after 6 months.

[rusticrye]

"What rights have I got?"

If an Unauthorised Account Use claim is opened against you, none whatsoever, as the only thing a payment processor will accept for such a claim is a Proof of Posting receipt proving dispatch to the buyer's registered address. Which you obviously don't have. You would lose the buyer's payment (and the item if the buyer had indeed collected), and be charged a hefty admin fee into the bargain. UAU claims can be made for up to 13 months, as many people only receive their bank and card statements annually.

This why you should never allow a buyer to pay for a collection item with PayPal. Unfortunately, you can't remove the PayPal payment option from your collection only listings, and PayPal no longer refund any part of their fee when you refund a buyer who has paid by this unsafe method. So my advice is to forget about listing collection items on Ebay in future. List them on Gumtree, Ebay's sister site, where you have total control over how you're paid (which should only ever be in cash or by bank transfer, once the buyer has fully examined the item and is happy with it).  Plus, you can leave the ad running till someone has actually turned up, paid, and taken the item away. 

But if you do continue to list them on Ebay, don't wait any longer than 32 days from puchase date before cancelling the transaction ('problem with buyer's address'). After that timeframe, you'll be stuck with Ebay's selling fee.

@grabbedit