returned parcel - buyer not at address

purplebutterfly

A parcel I sent on December 12th was returned to me in today's post marked with a Royal Mail sticker saying "addressee gone away".

The address is correct (just confirmed with buyer) so who is responsible for paying the postage to resend the packet? Me or Royal Mail?

paulofessex

If it was me l would request that the seller pays for re-postage, if they are not willing to l would suggest to them about refunding the payment and cancelling the sale. Why should you be out of pocket, by all means send the buyer the label indicating the return as per marked by Royal Mail so they can try to chase Royal Mail for the costs.

eaglesrjh

did they pay by paypal? was the paypal address different to the ebay one?

withabix

paulofessex wrote: »

If it was me l would request that the seller pays for re-postage, if they are not willing to l would suggest to them about refunding the payment and cancelling the sale. Why should you be out of pocket, by all means send the buyer the label indicating the return as per marked by Royal Mail so they can try to chase Royal Mail for the costs.

Why should the BUYER be liable for chasing up the incompetence of Royal Mail, which was presumably chosen/specified by the SELLER as their method of delivery?

Quite correctly, under eBay rules, the seller remains liable for an item until it is DELIVERED.

purplebutterfly

They paid with a postal order and they are quite new to ebay (only 3 items bought) but they have 100% feedback so far.

I asked them to confirm that the address on their ebay profile is the correct one and they say it has. I don't think they believe that I sent the parcel in the first place, which is fair enough I suppose.

paulofessex

withabix wrote: »

Why should the BUYER be liable for chasing up the incompetence of Royal Mail, which was presumably chosen/specified by the SELLER as their method of delivery?

Quite correctly, under eBay rules, the seller remains liable for an item until it is DELIVERED.

In the same token, why should a seller be out of pocket and chase up Royal Mail, if the parcel is classed as an attempted delivery, then Royal Mail had done the job as best as they possibly could.

If the seller used the correct address with no typo's of course, then in my opinion they should not have to be out of pocket.

OP, l would if possible scan the label/sticker put on the parcel by Royal Mail to send to the buyer just so they can see that delivery was attempted.

withabix

It's not 'utter tosh in this instance'.

It is for the seller to deal with Royal Mail, as the buyer confirmed that the address was correct.

Royal Mail error = seller's problem.