Ebay Resolutions Help

debtfreeby2013

hi all,

I have never had this happen to me before so was hoping to get some advice.

I sold an item for about £50 at the end of September and sent the item on the 2nd October as a standard parcel with Royal Mail. The buyer contacted me on Monday (8th October) to let me know that the item has not arrived, as the expected delivery date was 5th-9th October I replied and asked him to let me know if he had not received the item by close of business on the 9th. I did not hear from him yesterday but this afternoon I had an email from Ebay to say that a case had been opened against me for the following reasons:

- Buyer has not received the item (fine)
- Buyer paid on the 28th September (fine)
- Buyer has contacted you through Ebay messages
- You have not responded to the buyer (lie!)
- You have not been willing to work with the buyer to resolve the issue (lie!)

If I do not 'resolve the situation' by the 18th the buyer will be automatically refunded but, as I can't request a refund from Royal Mail for 2 weeks (the 16th October) I can't see how I could possibly resolve this by the 18th.

I have responded to the message asking the buyer to close the case as I have always co-operated and replied to messages but is there anything else I can do? To be honest, it was such a massive item I can't see how it could possibly have got lost and what if I question that the item has even got lost?! How useful are Royal Mail when finding parcels that are sent standard delivery? Can they ever find them because I sold the item for more than I had paid for it (as I had bought it wholesale) so I'm going to be out of pocket on this, surely, that's if I can even find the receipt............

So angry and confused and lots of other emotions right now........:):(

Taadaa

The buyer probably won't close the case on your advice because they will have no further recourse and they don't know for sure you will refund. You should refund ans ode the case, then use the refund as the basis of your claim with RM..although l'm not sure of the max compensation amount for standard parcels. It might be £46 as it is for packets. So you might end up slightly out of pocket.

Taadaa

Oh. Call their parcel collection office with their ask and ask if it's there, maybe they didn't get a card from the postie.

NeverEnough

As far as ebay is concerned you as the seller are 100% responsible for ensuring delivery of the item sold to the buyer..........however unfair it may seem (and the system is heavily stacked against the seller) you should have been more communicative with the buyer perhaps, asked them to wait a few more days and offering to refund in full.

It is not the buyer's problem that Royal Mail will only process a lost item after X weeks, it is yours and yours alone - you need to refund the buyer and then make your claim from Royal Mail after that, why should the buyer have to wait for your refund from Royal Mail, in any case??

As you did not use a fully Tracked Service, hopefully you obtained proof of posting or you will be unable to make the claim. For items of that value or above , you should really use a fully tracked service as that covers you better as well. Some couriers offer cheap fully tracked services and will collect from you at home. Royal Mail will only cover a loss of this nature for around £30, can't remember exact figure now, but it is on their website.

You should NOT be asking a buyer to close a case - that could be viewed as intimidation- and also would take away all rights of the buyer if they did so, and the parcel failed to turn up, as they cannot reopen a case once it is closed. They have not received their item, your responses have not been very adequate, it would seem, and they have taken up the option of opening an Item Not Received case against you, as they are fully entitled to do. You should have taken much more care over your responses to the buyer, or your ebay career will be very shortlived indeed. You are also very mistaken about buyers rights and who is responsible for losses before the buyer receives an item.

I would be very angry if a seller expected me to wait till Royal Mail processed their refund between now and never, and I was menaced by the seller demanding I close a Dispute about the Item not arriving when the Item Had Not Arrived!!!!

Try to enter a damage limitation exercise and refund the buyer right away together with a well-worded apology. If ebay force the refund, you will be sanctioned and possibly lose selling rights of have your account closed with any remotely negative further issues on your account.

theonlywayisup

You may be out of pocket, that is hardly the buyers fault.

Refund them and send an apology for Royal Mail's failure.

soolin

As usual I agree with theonlywayisup.

I would apologise to the buyer both for expecting them to wait so long, and secondly for expecting them to close the case against you.

As the other posts suggest, chase this up yourself with the delivery office local to your buyer, but realistically you need to be refunding as soon as possible and certainly well before the date on which the case closes against you.

soolin

Incidentally as for your loss, you can claim using your proof of postage after 15 working days. You have the standard £46 of cover. I am unsure if you are a business or private seller, as you appear to be selling as a business- but either way they will pay out the ebay sale price as that is lower, up the the £46 limit.

debtfreeby2013

soolin wrote: »

Incidentally as for your loss, you can claim using your proof of postage after 15 working days. You have the standard £46 of cover. I am unsure if you are a business or private seller, as you appear to be selling as a business- but either way they will pay out the ebay sale price as that is lower, up the the £46 limit.

Thanks everyone for your replies, I am a private seller not a business.

I understand that it is not their fault, but I feel a bit miffed that I have always replied to the buyer and I paraphrased here but my message on monday was sincerely apologetic etc and I even offered to send them proof of postage and said if the item had not arrived and he let me know we could resolve it (alright, I didn't specifically mention the word refund but I figured that it was implied). I'm just a bit miffed that they have opened a case against me stating that I have failed to contact them etc.

I'll get on with the Royal Mail thing and will refund the buyer (as I fully intended to do anyway).

Contains_Mild_Peril

Sadly, eBay nowadays encourages impatience from buyers. Opening a case for non-receipt during the expected delivery date window is, at best, premature, and misrepresenting the facts to eBay is not reasonable behaviour; but asking the buyer to close the case would be crazy. They'd be extremely unlikely to do so as this would leave them unprotected, and the only thing likely to be accomplished would be to increase the risk of bad feedback. Grovelling to unreasonable customers is unfortunately part of the modern eBay seller's job.

Crowqueen

Contains_Mild_Peril wrote: »

Sadly, eBay nowadays encourages impatience from buyers. Opening a case for non-receipt during the expected delivery date window is, at best, premature, and misrepresenting the facts to eBay is not reasonable behaviour; but asking the buyer to close the case would be crazy. They'd be extremely unlikely to do so as this would leave them unprotected, and the only thing likely to be accomplished would be to increase the risk of bad feedback. Grovelling to unreasonable customers is unfortunately part of the modern eBay seller's job.

You can't open a case during the expected delivery date window, at least not in eBay.

And I'm not sure about being patient. If you had paid for something, and it had not yet turned up two weeks later - I'm not sure you would be very patient about it, particularly something of that kind of value.

Arrogantly demanding buyers show patience severely misunderstands the situation. OP could have handled it a bit better but if a seller told me to wait nearly three weeks (15 working days) without either money or item they would find themselves at the wrong end of a case.

I am usually quite patient, but not when £50+ of my money is at stake. Nor do I expect other people to be similarly patient.

Contains_Mild_Peril

Crowqueen wrote: »

You can't open a case during the expected delivery date window, at least not in eBay.

My mistake, but even sending a "Where's my item?" message during the expected delivery window then opening a case within a couple of days of it is impatient behaviour in my view.

And I'm not sure about being patient. If you had paid for something, and it had not yet turned up two weeks later - I'm not sure you would be very patient about it, particularly something of that kind of value.

Actually I would, if I'd bought it from a private seller who answered my queries promptly and politely and showed no signs of being difficult. I wouldn't be happy, but I know how rubbish Royal Mail is and I've had things turn up late many times. I certainly wouldn't open a case so soon unless I had real cause for alarm (e.g. a wilfully unhelpful seller or an unresponsive one with a sudden deterioration in feedback).

Arrogantly demanding buyers show patience severely misunderstands the situation.

When did anyone here "arrogantly demand" patience from buyers? I certainly didn't. I don't necessarily expect patience, competence, manners or even honesty from eBay buyers - but I do appreciate those qualities.