Do I legally have to Refund a seller??

soolin

dizzyrascal wrote: »

And my point is that ebay have got everybody running for the hills and refunding when they don't have to when the truth is that the law will often protect them (even if ebay thinks it is the law).
This has made ebay a buyers paradise. Most private sellers end up thinking that they have to act like a shop and accept returns/refunds etc!!
Many buyers know this and end up using ebay like a shop!! It is not a shop and the same rules do not apply.
Once you put the word "USED" in to any advert then everything changes.
As you say, unless it was described as "Perfect working order" then the buyer has no where to go.

The word 'used' does not change very much at all.

RFW

soolin wrote: »

The word 'used' does not change very much at all.

Quite. I'm amazed anyone would still think that was all you needed to sell anything you liked.

Ebay can set the rules for buyers and sellers as they like, if they go above and beyond the law then that is ok. Buyers on Ebay often don't know if they are dealing with a business or private seller, so there should be extra protection.

If you want to sell on classified ads in a newspaper or Gumtree or to a bloke in a pub the rules and law may differ.

If I sell a "Used working TV" the law if that is not working is little difference to selling a new TV.

Not much of this applies to the OP who asked if he had to refund a buyer.

As I said earlier it seems unlikely that the OP would need to refund but it would depend on how the item was sold and originally described.

sham63

We had the case of the caravan a year or so ago - 'sold as seen', cash on collection. The buyer took the seller to court and won because he subsequently discovered damp in the caravan.

In the OPs case, it's just one of the machine's (many?) functions that does not work, so the buyer would need to have the machine inspected and a report written to present to the court.

So in principle the buyer could pursue this - not sure what the court would make of it though!

antrobus

pulliptears wrote: »

I think we'd have to agree to disagree on this one as we don't know how the OP described the machine.

That said this site is designed to make people aware of rights and when things like this occur and people post "Sold as seen!" and "Buyer Beware!" etc it's only fair to point out that there are avenues you can explore to obtain refunds.

In this case as I say if the ad said "Full Working Order" and was found not to be within days of the sale I personally think they would win the claim. How long do you sit in someones home trying out goods? An hour? Two hours? Depending on the complexity of the machine thats not unheard of. Buyer could argue that they didn't have time to check all features and based their purchase on the advert.

The onus was on the seller to spend those 2+ hours checking the features worked before advertising it as full working order.

Expression such as "Sold as seen!" and "Buyer Beware!" are more in the way of colloquialisms rather than legal principles. On the reasonable assumption that the OP is not in the business of selling 2nd sewing machines, then the legal requirement is that the goods will correspond with the description.

And as you correctly point out, without knowing how exactly the goods were described in terms of either the original advert or what was said during the sales process, it would be difficult to say one way or another.

dizzyrascal

The Latin for ‘buyer beware’ is 'caveat emptor’. This is a maxim (principle) which means that the purchaser of goods must take care to ensure that they are free from defects of quality, fitness, or title. In other words, all the risk is borne by the purchaser and not by the seller. If the goods turn out to be defective, the purchaser has no remedy against the seller.

It is particularly relevant in property transactions, where the seller is legally obliged not to mislead the buyer, but other than that the onus is on the buyer to satisfy himself that the property is in the condition he wants.

Also
this became an off ebay transaction so ebay rules do not apply here.

pulliptears

sham63 wrote: »

We had the case of the caravan a year or so ago - 'sold as seen', cash on collection. The buyer took the seller to court and won because he subsequently discovered damp in the caravan.

In the OPs case, it's just one of the machine's (many?) functions that does not work, so the buyer would need to have the machine inspected and a report written to present to the court.

So in principle the buyer could pursue this - not sure what the court would make of it though!

I guess it's dependent on costs as well, for a £5k caravan its worth going to court for, a £50 sewing machine is probably not. I suppose it would depend on how much of a point the buyer wanted to prove and how much spare cash they had to throw at a case (reports, SD Letters, hearing costs etc) I suspect buyer doesn't have unending funds or they would probably have purchased a new machine.

I suspect any reasonable judge would treat it fairly, if something has been misdescribed in a sale does it matter if its a £5k caravan or a £50 sewing machine. I think the usual outcome for cases brought under that particular law is for the consumer to be returned to the position they were in before the sale so OP could be forced to refund, I imagine court costs can be added as well.

FWIW I suspect you'll hear no more from your buyer, maybe a bit of bluster in the form of a letter before action, but if this function really isn't working and you did sell it as fully working I do feel you really should refund your buyer.
OP, lets see the wording of the original ad.

DapperDan_2

I used to sell a lot on eBay but gave up a couple of years ago now. Sadly, the balance has swung so far against sellers and the fees have been ratcheted up so high, it just isn't worth it anymore.

pulliptears

DapperDan wrote: »

I used to sell a lot on eBay but gave up a couple of years ago now. Sadly, the balance has swung so far against sellers and the fees have been ratcheted up so high, it just isn't worth it anymore.

If the seller describes their goods accurately and fairly then he has nothing to worry about though does he?

DapperDan_2

pulliptears wrote: »

If the seller describes their goods accurately and fairly then he has nothing to worry about though does he?

Well, you would hope so wouldn't you? My experience stretches back over several years: I started selling in 2003, just before eBay became the monster (in more than one sense of the word!) that it is now.

It's been in the last couple of years that I have noticed the tide turning. It used to be that when a buyer raised a dispute, eBay would actually bother to consider it. More recently it has felt like they just side automatically with the buyer. Perhaps as a result, I noticed more and more buyers raising disputes. Most buyers are fine, of course - but the number of timewasters and p***takers has gone right up. I'm sure that the new rule from eBay that sellers couldn't leave negative feedback from buyers had NOTHING to do with it.

And don't get me started on Paypal!

soolin

Such a shame that buyers have rights under UK law!

Seriously a lot of the changes have been due to legalities, sellers can no longer just refuse to pay up for missing parcels, or when they send a misdecribed item or the wrong thing entirely. Even though I am primarily a seller I still buy enough to welcome the shift towards buying safely and without risking your cash.