Distance Selling Regulations - Missing Returned Goods

bris

DSR is pretty clear in this matter, so if you are going to do it by the book then you must refund within 30 days of receiving the right to cancel. Proof of posting is not proof of delivery so the customer has not taken the reasonable care of the goods required, and is still liable for them. You would win if you were to take it to a small claims court.
The customer is being unreasonable with you here and clearly thinks he knows the law. What he fails to realise is he does not have the required proof to show the goods are back in your posession.

Uncertain

bris wrote: »

What he fails to realise is he does not have the required proof to show the goods are back in your posession.

But he probably has enough to make a claim against the post office or whatever carrier he used for a lost item.

bris

Yes he does, up to £46. But this doesn,t help the OP, the buyer is being unreasonable and stubborn over this and want's his refund regardless.
The law say's he must refund, not many would, but the law is the law so the only recourse the OP has is a small claims action.

I would write the customer a letter stating that any refund would immediatly be challenged by a small claims court as the customer has failed to take reasonable care of the goods by allowing them to be lost. Point out the cost that are involved in this, that will be passed to them and ask the to make a claim against the post office to avoid this. Any reasonable person would just submit a claim against the PO but something tell me this person is not new to getting his money back under DSR and keeping the items.

Uncertain

trills wrote: »

As an aside, obviously from a business point of view, we will have try to reclaim the cost of this lost parcel from Royal Mail, which requires Original proof of posting, e.g. Post Office receipt (certificate recipient of posting)

You have no claim against the post office in this instance.

You may well have a claim against the customer but he is the one with a claim against the post office as he bought the service from them.

What would constitute proof that they have sent the item back? (Or for example, not sent an empty envelope /different item of similar weight etc.) Can we as a retailer request this proof?

This is virtually impossible to prove. If the customer has a PO receipt and if a weight is shown or is at least consistent with the postage price paid, then that is about as much as you can do. To be fair this works both ways.

People often get excited about sending letters recorded delivery. Although this proves something was sent and delivered it doesn't prove what it was.

The normal legal presumption in the UK is that mail is delivered. Generally speaking you would need to show a history of postal problems at your end or questionable behaviour on the part of a sender to get a court to deviate from this normal assumption for civil purposes.

molerat

Was the customer given written details of the return policy re who pays for the return and not just a link to a web page ?

Uncertain

molerat wrote: »

Was the customer given written details of the return policy re who pays for the return and not just a link to a web page ?

Sadly that doesn't matter in this case. The customer has rejected it under the DSR and is therefor entitled to a refund. The supplier MIGHT have a claim against him for failing to keep the item safe. However the customer seems to have some sort of "proof" that he has posted it back at his own expense.

raineshoe

Oh dear. I hate the DSR's at times. I had a customer pull a fast one. Rang trading standards and said I knew he was pulling a fast one and they said I still had to refund him regardless. They are so weighted in favour of the customer. Leaves retailers well out of pocket at times. I now don't allow this person to purchase from us anymore.

jonnyd281

trills wrote: »

They have now provided a scan of a receipt, and claim that they do not have to provide a physical copy, and will only do so if we provide a special delivery envelope to do so, which I don't think is very reasonable at all. The receipt only has a hand written address on it, which only shows the street name and post code, and not our business name, or address (i.e. unit, business park etc).

I'm just looking at my receipt for an item I returned SD, it's entirely printed including the postcode and "building name or number", nothing on it is hand written.

terra_ferma

raineshoe wrote: »

Oh dear. I hate the DSR's at times. I had a customer pull a fast one. Rang trading standards and said I knew he was pulling a fast one and they said I still had to refund him regardless. They are so weighted in favour of the customer. Leaves retailers well out of pocket at times. I now don't allow this person to purchase from us anymore.

just out of curiosity, how did you know they were pulling a fast one, proof or just assumption?

terra_ferma

jonnyd281 wrote: »

I'm just looking at my receipt for an item I returned SD, it's entirely printed including the postcode and "building name or number", nothing on it is hand written.

I had receipts with handwritten codes (sometimes they would just tell me to write it myself), for example if you tell them you need a receipt after they have processed the item (which if someone is not used to sending lots of stuff is easy to do)