Sold PS3 Game - Item returned by Royal Mail

bellola

Hi just after some advice please,

I sold an item a few weeks ago, it was a PS3 game that sold for approx £25. A week later it still hadn't been paid for so I emailed the buyer. Buyer replied saying they still wanted the game but were waiting until they got paid before paying me. I gave them the benefit of the doubt and received payment about 12 days after the item sold. I decided to post by recorded delivery to ensure I knew it had got there safely. I didn't hear anything else for another 10 days or so and assumed it had been received but no feedback was left (didn't think to check recorded delivery barcode!).

Anyway, fast forward to this week when I had the parcel returned to me. It said 'not called for'. So I assumed the buyer hadn't been and collected it so it had been returned to me. I messaged the buyer to let them know I had it back. They have replied today (3 days later) saying sorry they have been working long hours and nights and didn't have chance to collect it. They then asked for it to be sent normal post so they didn't have to pick it up. I'm not sure if I'm being over-cautious but I'm not keen on re-sending it by normal post as they could quite easily claim they didn't get it and I have no comeback. I don't know whether to just send it or message them saying I'm not keen on this idea and will either re-send by recorded delivery or refund them? What would you do in this situation?

Thanks!

Crowqueen

Sounds reasonable to me - buyers who work long hours may not be able to collect from sorting offices without extensive opening hours and RM only hold RD items for a week before sending them back. Post at our end tends to come in the middle of a working day so people who do work will never usually be in to manually sign for things and as a result they won't get what they paid for.

Why might they claim non-receipt? That's pretty much a risk you run with anything you send. Your responsibility to the buyer is to make sure they get their item; if you don't want to deal with this person then refund them but they may leave you bad feedback. I can understand that you're pretty peeved at the buyer taking such a long time to pay you but since they have been reasonably honest with you, and paid when they said they would, I would personally trust them - you can't prove their intention just from that exchange and you open yourself to problems if you refuse to send it. You may feel damned if you do or damned if you don't, but I'd prefer to be damned if I did.

I would also never message a buyer and say to their face that I thought they were a scammer or that you were uneasy with them. That would be a definite neg and poor stars from me. If you didn't want to sell to them in the first place you should have gone through the UPI dispute - it's too late to pull out IMO.

timeportal

this is gonna make it hard now, but I'm on the other side of the fence to crow queen, so you have 2 contradicting answers, sry, but...

they take ages to pay with no response, they then pay but cant get to the post office OR arrange an alternative delivery with their local depot and then expect YOU to re-send at your expense (you've already paid to send it once) and on top of that re-send it in a way that relieves you of all protection offered by paypal.

I would give them 2 options here - send payment to cover reposting via a trackable method or refund their money and cancel the transaction

CouponWoman

spacebabe103 wrote: »

Hi just after some advice please,

I sold an item a few weeks ago, it was a PS3 game that sold for approx £25. A week later it still hadn't been paid for so I emailed the buyer. Buyer replied saying they still wanted the game but were waiting until they got paid before paying me. I gave them the benefit of the doubt and received payment about 12 days after the item sold. I decided to post by recorded delivery to ensure I knew it had got there safely. I didn't hear anything else for another 10 days or so and assumed it had been received but no feedback was left (didn't think to check recorded delivery barcode!).

Anyway, fast forward to this week when I had the parcel returned to me. It said 'not called for'. So I assumed the buyer hadn't been and collected it so it had been returned to me. I messaged the buyer to let them know I had it back. They have replied today (3 days later) saying sorry they have been working long hours and nights and didn't have chance to collect it. They then asked for it to be sent normal post so they didn't have to pick it up. I'm not sure if I'm being over-cautious but I'm not keen on re-sending it by normal post as they could quite easily claim they didn't get it and I have no comeback. I don't know whether to just send it or message them saying I'm not keen on this idea and will either re-send by recorded delivery or refund them? What would you do in this situation?

Thanks!

Sounds suspicious to me. They could have asked the post office to re-deliver on a Saturday or other day when they are off work, or could even have had it re-delivered to them at work.

I have done both of these things and Royal Mail don't charge to re-deliver.

x

No_Eye_Deer

I would resend it. Get proof of posting and claim from Royal Mail if it doesn't arrive. Same risk as every thing else you send unrecorded (which doesn't always get a signature anyway).

boiler_man

I would send recorded or not at all. I would not trust that they wouldn't do a chargeback for non receipt and you would not have a leg to stand on.

iieee

I would send it normal, as No Eye Deer says you can claim back from Royal Mail. When I worked full time it was an absolute pain in the backside having things sent recorded delivery, as the only time I could get to pick them up was early on saturday morning, and it was a long walk (don't drive). Back in the early days I once requested a seller use normal delivery, and even told them they could keep the extra 70p postage, but they declined. I guess they thought I was a scammer. I'm just someone who hate hate hates recorded delivery, and I'm sure I am not alone.

terra_ferma

There is another option that could keep everyone happy, it's Collect Plus, the parcel can be collected from a local shop, normally open seven days a week, till late.

I agree that collecting from a sorting office is not that hard, I would not send without tracking.
CQ has a point though, generally speaking some people choose listings with postage methods that don't need a signature and we had someone posting about it who was very unhappy.

Crowqueen

I don't mind - I'm still at home during the day - but I think casting aspersions on a buyer's honesty with such flimsy proof is unfair on them. Particularly emailing them and telling them that you are refunding them because you don't trust them - that's a bit hard on someone who did actually pay up when they said they would. I've had buyers like that and no problems were encountered. A game would go through a letterbox, and so it's a nuisance having to collect from a sorting office or arranging redelivery for something like that.

I think it's right to be on your guard, but sometimes you can go OTT. If you are looking for excuses not to trust people, you shouldn't be trading online.

terra_ferma

Crowqueen wrote: »

I don't mind - I'm still at home during the day - but I think casting aspersions on a buyer's honesty with such flimsy proof is unfair on them. Particularly emailing them and telling them that you are refunding them because you don't trust them - that's a bit hard on someone who did actually pay up when they said they would. I've had buyers like that and no problems were encountered. A game would go through a letterbox, and so it's a nuisance having to collect from a sorting office or arranging redelivery for something like that.

I think it's right to be on your guard, but sometimes you can go OTT. If you are looking for excuses not to trust people, you shouldn't be trading online.

You have a point, there is too much mistrust on ebay, and it causes most of the problems between buyers and sellers.

On the other hand however, I would say that if you can't be bothered to pick up what you ordered from the sorting office, you should not buy online. There is always a possibility that a sellers uses a signed for service.
It goes both ways.

no-oneknowsme

Isnt there an option to send parcels to a local postoffice for 50p or such like?

I know that my local PO has this service. OP could post the ps3 game again , but this time send it to the buyers local post office and then the buyer could pick it up from there at a time which suits him or he could have some one else collect it for him.

This means that every one would be happy.