ebay - restock fee!!!

marc29

Any help advice would be welcome. i ordered a pair of shoes from seller on ebay. they arrived today and are not comfy or as nice as the picture made out. i got incontact with the seller to send back for refund. i then got an automated response saying where to send them and that there is a restock fee off £5.00 this works out at 33% of the price of the shoes. they did not say there was a restock fee in the terms and conditions
are they correct / fair to do this?
thanks in advance for any help

Tea3

If they are a business seller and you contacted them within 7 days of receipt of the shoes then they have to issue a full refund of all money you paid them under Sale of Goods Act and Distance Trading Regulations.

If they are a private seller they can try this on however if you paid by paypal simply return the shoes by a signed for method (recorded is cheapest but mark on parcel it must be signed for) and then if seller does not give you a full refund you can open a claim through paypal for not as described - so long as you can prove you returned the item to the seller with signed for confirmation (or online proof they rejected parcel in some cases) then paypal should give you a full refund of what you paid.

Both of these exclude your return postage costs as these are only refundable if the seller was a business seller and the items were faulty (would need to be proven).

Hope this helps

injustice-gene

Hi Marc29,

I'm no expert on such matters, but I'm a big eBayer with many years experience of buying and selling on the site.

The fact that the shoes aren't as comfy as they looked is immaterial, however if the picture was misleading then this would grounds for complaint.

It is very unusual for a seller to demand this extra payment without prior advertising - although many sellers will not reimburse postage costs. I would strongly suggest that you consult with both eBay and Paypal (presumably you paid by Paypal) as I'm pretty sure that this is probably the equivalent to an unwarranted demand and against eBay policy.

Failing all of this... leave them a Negative Feedback (as this will do them more harm) and then put the shoes back up for auction.

The_Pedant

and Distance Trading Regulations

Unless the shoes were a 'buy it now purchase' then the Distance selling regulations do not apply. Auctions are specifically excluded from this legislation ('buy it now' sales are not classed as auctions in the scope of the act).

Unfortunately, 'not as comfy or as nice as the picture made out' may well not be a sufficient claim to return the goods under the sale of good act, unless there are clear differences between the goods shown/described and those you have purchased. If there is grounds to return under the SOGA, then the seller is providing the ability to return goods (beyond what they are obliged to), by charging a restocking fee.

If there are clear differences between the picture/description and what you have received you may well have suitable grounds to return the goods.