Gumtree !!!!-up made - advice required

Contains_Mild_Peril

It's still possible the phone is merely delayed in the post. You could try pointing out to the customer that Royal Mail doesn't consider items officially lost until 15 working days (normally 3 weeks) after dispatch, and promise a full refund if it's still missing after that time, but ask them to wait until then in case it turns up. You could then try contacting RM's sorting offices local to you and your customer and ask them if they can find what's happened to the parcel. Blocking the phone at this stage may be premature.
Unfortunately if it does not arrive (or more to the point, you have no evidence that it's arrived) you do owe the customer a full refund, which will leave you out of pocket. I'm sorry you've had to learn this lesson the hard way. Put yourself in the customer's position: if you paid for something and did not receive it, would you be satisified with a partial refund? I wouldn't.

bris

It's a civil matter so the police won't get involved. You are now stuck in the do you believe him or not scenario. If it goes to court the buyer would win, but as it's your own fault, you should give him a full refund and learn from the mistake.

porto_bello

TerryandGaby wrote: »

I've tried to explain to the buyer that neither of us have done anything underhand and that we should perhaps agree that, for example, I refund half but he's not having any of it. He was also getting a bit abusive with his messages this morning. I will probably wait and see what the Police have to say, at the end of the day I haven't purposely done anything wrong so we'll see I guess.

Imagine you bought something from Amazon for £190 and it never arrived, would you happily accept Amazon's offer of paying half-price for having received nothing? Of course not.

To be honest, to propose that the buyer pays 50% of the cost of the seller's mistake looks extremely dodgy to me and makes the situation look worse.

From the position of the buyer, the police, or a casual observer, most would conclude that you were trying a scam. I suggest you cut your losses early and just refund everything to the buyer - since you're going to have to at some point anyway.

TerryandGaby

porto_bello wrote: »

Imagine you bought something from Amazon for £190 and it never arrived, would you happily accept Amazon's offer of paying half-price for having received nothing? Of course not.

To be honest, to propose that the buyer pays 50% of the cost of the seller's mistake looks extremely dodgy to me and makes the situation look worse.

From the position of the buyer, the police, or a casual observer, most would conclude that you were trying a scam. I suggest you cut your losses early and just refund everything to the buyer - since you're going to have to at some point anyway.

The difference being that I am not a multi-national company and need the money or I wouldn't have sold the phone in the first place. No difference to the buyer I know but to me it is (and I know now the answer is send it recorded, but I can't change the past).If most would conclude that having given my name, address, bank account numbers & wanted it to be collected that I am trying a scam then I'm not. I'm sorry you think I'm trying a scam, I'm not. I also wouldn't have called my local station advising them of something that hasn't even been reported if I had.

Anyway, I didn't post to have an argument, just to get peoples views and I appreciate the majority of them. By the way, I went past at least two shops today who will unblock phones that have been blocked. There's also a shop in Birmingham that has a sign in the window saying "we buy blocked phones". Perhaps not on the high streets, but that kind of thing goes on everywhere.

Mindless_Clone

TerryandGaby wrote: »

The difference being that I am not a multi-national company...

No, and that makes the transaction look even more suspicious to the buyer. And frankly, trying to justify why you don't feel you should refund in full isn't helping you look any less than one here either.

End of the day it was your balls up to not send it with the appropriate protection, insurance and tracking. The buyer should NOT be even one little penny out of pocket for that. The only morally and legally correct thing to do would be to refund the money in full. You can make some kind of claim through Royal Mail and, best case scenario is you might get £46 but, hey, better that naff all that your buyer currently has.

It was a silly, stupid mistake, as you said and I appreciate you did not do this deliberately but, at the moment you're looking like a scammer to everyone else's perspective. Your buyer will soon loose patience and will progress it. It may not be a criminal offence but is he/she chooses to they can report you for fraud (which is what this looks like to them) and you end up with a visit from the boys in blue anyway. Or they could issue recovery procedures /legal action against you. Either way, it's almost certainly inevitable that you will end up paying this money back somehow and better it be voluntarily than via a CCJ and a wrecked credit rating. The buyer has all your details so it's not going to be hard for them to issue proceedings against you.

While I know it's galling knowing that some scroat has seen the parcel, realised what's in it and had away with your nice phone. And I know you say it's easy to have a phone unblocked, but I would still have the phone blocked, and I would report the item stolen yourself. Although it won't be investigated, it may well flag up on a system that the phone is stolen if they try and do anything with it anyway. At least you've done what you can.

ess0two

TerryandGaby wrote: »

The difference being that I am not a multi-national company and need the money or I wouldn't have sold the phone in the first place. No difference to the buyer I know but to me it is (and I know now the answer is send it recorded, but I can't change the past).If most would conclude that having given my name, address, bank account numbers & wanted it to be collected that I am trying a scam then I'm not. I'm sorry you think I'm trying a scam, I'm not. I also wouldn't have called my local station advising them of something that hasn't even been reported if I had.

Anyway, I didn't post to have an argument, just to get peoples views and I appreciate the majority of them. By the way, I went past at least two shops today who will unblock phones that have been blocked. There's also a shop in Birmingham that has a sign in the window saying "we buy blocked phones". Perhaps not on the high streets, but that kind of thing goes on everywhere.

Bit of a difference between buying blocked fones and unblocking fones.

TerryandGaby

ess0two wrote: »

Bit of a difference between buying blocked fones and unblocking fones.

£15 on a nearby market to have an IMEI number changed (how the Police haven't shut them down goodness knows)

newbutold

As previously said by someone else, the police will deem this a civil matter.

The buyers only option (other than sending the heavies around!) to get his money back, would be to take you to the small claims court. I have no doubt the court would rule in his favour.

So it basically boils down to whether or not you want to wait & see if he takes you to court or do the (morally) right thing & refund him.

He could well be a scammer taking advantage of the fact you didn't send the phone special delivery, which is why I would get the phone blocked after any refund.

I get the impression you just want people to tell you to keep the money or refund half as you were not strictly at fault, however the buyer isn't either so I don't think you are going to get the answers you want to hear.

Good luck.

melliott1963

TerryandGaby wrote: »

The difference being that I am not a multi-national company and need the money.

Sorry, but I have to agree with others. You must refund the money in full.

It makes no difference that you need the money. Maybe the buyer is a young kid who's been saving up his paper round money for years to buy himself a phone - imagine how you would feel if you were him?

It's an expensive mistake to make, but that's life I'm afraid, and hopfully you've now learnt from it.

custardy

TerryandGaby wrote: »

The difference being that I am not a multi-national company and need the money or I wouldn't have sold the phone in the first place. No difference to the buyer I know but to me it is (and I know now the answer is send it recorded, but I can't change the past).If most would conclude that having given my name, address, bank account numbers & wanted it to be collected that I am trying a scam then I'm not. I'm sorry you think I'm trying a scam, I'm not. I also wouldn't have called my local station advising them of something that hasn't even been reported if I had.

Anyway, I didn't post to have an argument, just to get peoples views and I appreciate the majority of them. By the way, I went past at least two shops today who will unblock phones that have been blocked. There's also a shop in Birmingham that has a sign in the window saying "we buy blocked phones". Perhaps not on the high streets, but that kind of thing goes on everywhere.

No,the answer was to send it Special Delivery