Evening everyone, just looking for a little advice if anyone with experience can help at all?

[bobs-boutique]

Hello there

Just looking for a little help from someone with more experience please.

I sold a hot tub which is just coming up to the 30 day period and they have requested a return as the goods are faulty or claim to be.

They do not have the original packaging to send the goods back to me so do I still need to accept the return or can I refuse it on these grounds?

Any help or advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Rob

[tobiasd4]

I suggest you accept return & issue returns label.

You are clearly an unregistered business seller, so upgrade before you get reported to ebay & HMRC,

this is likely what buyer will do as you are denying them thier consumer rights.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/selling-policies/business-seller-policy?id=4710

[rusticrye]

I'm afraid you don't have a legal leg to stand on, as you're trading illegally on a private account. Consumer law states that a buyer can request a full refund from an illegally-trading seller for any reason at all, for up to 1 full year and 30 days, and the trader has to pay their return costs too if they want the item back. And it can be returned in any condition whatosever. In other words, your customers can use you as a free hire shop. The law doesn't reward those who break it.

Anyone who makes, grows, refurbishes, or buys in (new or used) items to sell, is a business and must be registered as such. Not only an Ebay requirement but the law. Private accounts are ONLY for those selling off their old no-longer-wanted possessions from wardrobe and attic. That clearly isn't you. For confirmation, go to Ebay's Seller Centre (link at foot of any page). For full information, go to the government's website.

And note that there is no such thing as a 'hobby seller' in this country, and how much or how little you sell or make is totally irrelevant.

 I would advise you to upgrade your account from private to business (takes seconds) as a matter of urgency, before you find yourself in deep doodoo with Ebay (for defrauding them of listing fees) and Trading Standards (for breaching consumer law and denying buyers their legal rights). Most buyers are savvy these days, and your particular buyer may be one of them and may already have reported you.

@bobs-boutique 

[m25jet]

Unfortunately if you refuse to issue to refund then when the buyer gets the opportunity to escalate the case to eBay all he/she would have to do would be to ask eBay to step in and review the case and eBay would automatically refund the buyer in full and your selling account would be hit with a defect.  Therefore, reply to the buyer via the case stating that you will refund his/her money in full, providinng that they return the item to you in exactly the same condition that it was in when you posted it, then issue an eBay returns label sufficient to cover the entire cost of the return postage.

If you do this then you may be able to make the buyer panic, and cause him/her to think "Dammit - I don't have the box that the item came in - what am I going to do now?"  If the buyer gets flustered then there's a chance that he/she may back down and decide not to return the item.  If that does indeed happen then you simply take the line of "No return, no refund."  You would not have to pay for the returns label if the buyer never used it, and eBay would be able to put a trace on the tracking number on the label to see whether or not the label had indeed been used, so it would be difficult for the seller to make allegations that he/she had used the label to return the item to you if the label had never even been used.

In the event that the buyer does use the returns label and you get the item back again then refund the buyer's money via eBay, citing "The Buyer And I Have Agreed To Cancel This Transaction" as the reason why.  However, make sure that you report the buyer for abusing the eBay Money Back Guarantee if he/she states that the item is faulty and it turns out not to be.  It may well be a change of mind on the buyer's part, in which case he/she should have just owned up and requested a refund specifically for that reason, but if the buyer is trying to abuse the eBay Money Back Guarantee then the more reports that eBay receive from various sellers about the buyer's behaviour the more chance there is that somebody at eBay will flag up the buyer's account as one to watch for potential abuse of the Money Back Guarantee.  If the buyer does indeed get found guilty of this at some point in the future then he/she may well find that his/her use of the Money Back Guarantee is restricted, or in extreme cases of repeat offending, the buyer may be chucked off of eBay altogether.