DSR and Return Postage Costs

dishmachine

Hi,

I'm a business seller on eBay and have sold a kettle to someone. We paid £4.89 to send it via Yodel (Price available to anyone). The buyer has returned it stating it's faulty and so I have to pay the return costs, that's fine.

The buyer has decided to use Royal Mail's most expensive method which insures the item up to £500 (£18 kettle) and now wants me to pay the £11 return postage !

I cannot find any info within the DSR that cover this. Surely I should only refund the necessary return costs.

Anyone have further knowledge on this ?

Thanks

shaun_from_Africa

dishmachine wrote: »

I cannot find any info within the DSR that cover this. Surely I should only refund the necessary return costs.

There is nothing in the DSR's or SOGA relating to this specific problem, but the wording used in the SOGA is basically the same as you state.
The snippet below relates to returning goods for repair or replacement, but I'm sure the same would apply.

(2)If the buyer requires the seller to repair or replace the goods, the seller must

(a)repair or, as the case may be, replace the goods within a reasonable time but without causing significant inconvenience to the buyer;

(b)bear any necessary costs incurred in doing so (including in particular the cost of any labour, materials or postage).

And personally, I don't think that sending an £18 non fragile item by next day Special Delivery was necessary.
If it was me, I would refund what it would cost to send the kettle by Royal Mail standard parcels + maybe a small amount for their costs to get to the Post Office.

dishmachine

Royal Mail is ridiculous for 'Medium Parcels' which is why we don't use them. It would actually cost £8.90 for 1st class (£20 cover) or £10.00 with signature (£50 cover). This is why we use couriers as most are cheaper. As I say, Collect+ costs £4.89 and usually delivers next day.

A seller should not be held to ransom to pay for whatever service buyer chooses. It is their choice if they want to pay for a more expensive (and unnecessary) service.

Hintza

One quick point, the kettle is not being sent back under DDSR, it is being returned under SOGA.

If the kettle is not faulty then you could argue ist should have been sent back under DSR and buyer should cover return costs.

Apart from that I would agree with others, the buyer hasn't mitigated the costs. But I think you need to cover Royal Mail costs (std parcel) as that is reasonable, if you aren't happy with that then you need to see about issuing returns labels in the future.

shaun_from_Africa

The reason why I mentioned refunding for what RM would charge is because using a post office to send goods is what most people would automatically use, especially if they were not used to sending many packages.

Where I live, there is a local post office about 1/2 mile away and the nearest collect+ drop off point is almost 3 miles.
This wouldn't be too much of a problem for me, but not everyone would be able to travel those 3 miles without extra expense or inconvienience.

lovinituk

You also need to consider how important your feedback is to you. If you stand your ground and don't refund what they paid then you should expect a negative feedback and low star scores.

Personally I would stand my ground but then I have high enough feedback for it not make any difference.

dishmachine

This particular buyer lives in a remote part of Scotland and had to get a boat to the post office. I'm not making this up !!

I'll probably end up having to foot the bill for new oars too.....

shaun_from_Africa

In that case, they may well not have had a collect+ location near to them.
Have you done a postcode check to look at this?