Undelivered item bought on Ebay

hicnar

Hello,

My situation is pretty common I guess.

I bought an item on ebay and payed £375 for it (Paypal).

It was sent with "signed for" delivery, but never delivered. I emailed the company that sold it to me only to learn the tracking id and the name of the person that signed for it (it obviously was not my name, neither a name of any person that lived in the whole block of flats where I lived at that time) and basically they redirected me to the courier company. I also contacted police but was told that there's nothing they can do about it.

At that time I knew very little about my rights as a customer.
I've recently returned to that subject after more than 4 years since I learnt that actually something can be done about it.

I contacted adviceguide.org.uk and was told that the seller is responsible for the delivery of goods and that I should send the company a letter referring to Supply of Goods Act 1973 in it and ask for a refund.

Not sure if this is my case, since I understand that this act applies to hire purchase agreements and I doubt ebay transactions fall into the hire purchase agreements definition.

I have the Paypal confirmation of payment (name of the company, ebay item id, sum of money payed, date of transaction etc), also I have emails I received from the company with the name of the courier company and the parcel tracking number. The company still exists and their address is public, so they can be contacted.
Also at that time I lived in a shared flat and if needed my former roommates can confirm exactly what I'm saying here in this post.


Any help will be appreciated!

TKPeters

This is from 4yrs ago?? Why haven't done anything about it? Did you or the seller put a claim in with the courier co?

If more recent [last 45 days] you can submit a Item Not Received claim with eBay / Paypal & if you can prove the person who signed for it is not you, you can get you money back.

richto

I don't think Paypal would help here:

"If the Payment Recipient presents evidence that they delivered the goods to your address, PayPal may find in favour of the seller even if you did not receive the goods"

I have won plenty of cases by providing tracking with a signature when the signature didnt match the buyers exact name.

velissaria

That was a lot of money! Because I had a bad experience with ebay and a non-delivered item as well, I've been doing some research online and one UK website suggested people can contact the Citizens' Advice Bureau for reporting it and for legal advice. If the company is UK based, this is a plus. But the fact that's been 4 years since is a minus. If you have time, try it, but don't have high hopes. It's not worth reporting it with Ebay or Paypal anymore, because they both have a 45 days rule for opening a Resolution Case. Don't let any seller persuade you to delay your complaints again (my bad experience).

RFW

The only possible chance here would be to take the seller to small claims court, I'd imagine the judge would ask why you've waited four years and probably throw it out, especially if the seller has proof of delivery (even if that was false).

Another possibility would be if you paid via credit card, the credit card company would be jointly liable with the seller. The problem is that the seller has proof of delivery from the courier.

Four years on, the only hope is if any of the courier company, the seller or the credit card company are feeling generous and want to give you the money back as a matter of goodwill.