Buyer inspected item in person, then made payment. Now wants to return item they have broken.

[alicelouise5678]

Hello,

We're having a real headache at the moment. We recently sold an item to a buyer who was invited to pay on collection AFTER inspecting the item and confirmung they are happy with it. They wanted to pay cash, but we insisted on Paypal for security and due to covid-19 safety.

They buyer called his wife to confirm all was good with the item after inspection and the payment was made, so we released the item.

The buyer then send us photos of a badly damaged item that they have broken whilst trying to assemble. We provided instructions as well as advice at pick up.

They are claiming that they did not receive the item as expected - even though they inspected it prior to payment. It's clear they have brutalised it whilst trying to asemble. Their incompetence is not our fault.

However, in good faith we offered a partial refund to help them move on and they rejected.

Ebay are saying we have to accept the return before we can do anything abou t it. The problem is they have taken the item across the country and it would cost us upwards of £100 to have it couriered over.

Is there any advice on what we can / should do? We're super stressed as we're in the middle of house move ourselves and have two very young kids so arranging anything is challenging, let alone a courier to pick up goods that have been damaged by the buyer.

Please help.

[*knight-rider*]

Not sure how you can mess up putting a bed together to that degree, but either way, accepting paypal on this has put you in the preverbial corner, because they now have the upper hand, so for future reference, always ask for cash on collection, though in this instance, i`m sure we all appreciate why you did this time.

My advice is that if the cheapest quote you can get to have a courier bring it back, would it be worth asking the buyer if they`d accept £100 refund to help fixing it?  i appreciate it`s not your fault they`ve done what they`ve done, but look at it like this, if it`s returned, your down £100 postage AND you end up with a pile of junk that unless you can repair, will be no good to anyone. if you refund the buyer £100, you`ll still be up £200 and won`t have to deal with fixing the thing and re-selling it, assuming you can 🙂

The above aside for a minute, i`d certainly try and fight your corner as much as possible, because it`s clear that they were happy with it on inspection and collection, so it`s obvious (or should be) that it was`nt sold that way and needs to be pointed out to Ebay or paypal. Worth a try but the above suggestion is worth a thought should you not win any dispute issue.

[alicelouise5678]

Hi - thanks for your response. We did try exactly this. We initially offered £50 in good faith, and then £100 when we found out the quote - the buyer is a horrible piece of work and is trying to deny they broke it despite message records clearly stating they had damaged it whilst trying to assemble.

I am so sure the damaged it in transit as her husband was not strapping things into his van and he told me he had to lug it upstairs when he got home. He actually said he was more worried about how he was going to get it upstairs. He's obviously done some damage that might have been made worse by a brutal assembly attempt. It's also possible that he tried to assemble it alone despite the instructions suggesting it requires two people as it stands on stilts and the weight of it can cause damage if there isn't another person to support it whilst bolts are tightened.

It's completely infuriating and I'm now looking at a civil case for damage to property as I cannot accept both the buyer and ebay's incompetence in relation to this. They buyer is rogue, for sure, but ebay are also responsible for complete lack of care to the seller in this instance and one of them, if not both need to be held accountable.

[Anonymous]

wish i had a million, then i would fund your case, the whole matter stinks and anyone with a single brain cell can see the buyer is at fault.