Has a seller ever 'won' a dispute?

alisoncar

Hi,

my understanding of the above is that the contract to deliver the goods lies between the seller and the courier. As I did not pay the courier directly to have the items delivered they did not talk to me at all and yes you are correct Paypal will not want to know either.

In one of the instances that has happened to me, the seller's advert said they'd be posting using RM yet they sent via a courier which I was never informed about. I use couriers myself but always make sure I'm in when they are supposed to deliver and if any issues I take it up with the courier companies myself.

However, if a seller sends something using a courier and the courier decides to abandon the item without giving it to me and forging my signature then my understanding is that it is the seller who should be suing the courier, not me as I did not have a contract in place with them but I did have one with the seller.

Perhaps some legal expert here might shed light on the above

MyOnlyPost

Again I am no expert but the contract between seller and courier has been completed and the courier has a signature to prove it. Because the seller can "prove" the goods have been delivered then the contract between buyer and seller has also been completed. I really don't know where the buyer can turn from there as it is surely impossible to prove you haven't received it when all the available evidence says you have. I suspect that the buyer's first recourse would be against the seller but I doubt a court would find in the buyers favour when it is the buyers word against physical evidence. The one thing I do know from experience of a similar situation is that whether the buyer were to take the seller or the courier to court, either could make a case saying it is the other party that is responsible and it could in all likelihood be thrown out.

Looking at this the other way round it is far more common for a buyer to scribble something illegible on a delivery pad / screen and then claim they haven't received it and that's not their signature.

RFW

alisoncar wrote: »

With the above, what would you as a seller do if the courier forged the signature and marked as "delivered" and then left the parcel outside?

Has happened to me a few times, two items were not found anywhere so presumably either someone has stolen them or the courier has not dropped them off at all and pretended to do so (I would want to believe that the latter is highly unprobable) - of course Paypal did not want to know as the item tracked as "delivered" and I ended up with massive losses.

This has now happened to me at least 3 times with different couriers, the latest being when the signatory was "Porch" being where the courier claimed to have left it. The couriers tend to pay out on claims for this.
I haven't had any that were unable to sort out, but I could envisage a case where the buyer claimed non receipt and parcel was signed for and the courier would not settle. There could be several reasons why there was no parcel and I have thought that it would probably be a matter for the police as there could be theft/identity fraud involved. In this case despite the contract being between the courier and the seller it would unusually be the buyer who would have to sort it out, in my experience Ebay do not find in favour of the buyer if there is a signature of some kind.