Address not recognised by Royal Mail

Birdy12

I have a little query, hope you can advise.

Buyer won an item from me, I sent out, received proof of postage. Item never arrived, refund given, neutral feedback received.

Put claim in with Royal Mail, received letter from them yesterday saying they will be unable to refund me as they do not recognise the address I sent the item to as a 'valid' one.

The address definitely matches what's on PayPal and, judging by their feedback count, they've received many other items.

Shall I just chalk this one up to experience? It wasn't a great deal of money but feel like I've lost out. Anyone else come across this before?

Cheers, Birdy.

theonlywayisup

Birdy12 wrote: »

I have a little query, hope you can advise.

Buyer won an item from me, I sent out, received proof of postage. Item never arrived, refund given, neutral feedback received.

Put claim in with Royal Mail, received letter from them yesterday saying they will be unable to refund me as they do not recognise the address I sent the item to as a 'valid' one.

The address definitely matches what's on PayPal and, judging by their feedback count, they've received many other items.

Shall I just chalk this one up to experience? It wasn't a great deal of money but feel like I've lost out. Anyone else come across this before?

Cheers, Birdy.

Paypal isn't the authority on addresses and nor are your buyers, most seem incapable of knowing their own postal address. There is an address finder on the RM database, if the address isn't on that RM won't consider it valid and, as you have found out, they won't pay.

soolin

We had this exact question on a thread a couple of weeks ago- it is something that RM will not budge from.

ballisticbrian

I once had a guy tell me there was nothing wrong with his address even though there was no flat number in his block, the road name was wrong and another part was misspelt, another part was missing.
He told me it was ok because 100's of other eBay sales had gone through no problem.
After arguing, he reluctantly told me he'd updated his address and somehow expected me to see that without it showing on the original order.
Then finally had to get the last word in to tell me his address was just fine in the first place.

bxboards

I find a large amount of addresses are mis-spelled or wrong in some way - many of them are entered in all lower case.

I had an address the other day was has 'manfeld' in it, it should have been Mansfield!

I am now just refunding garbled addresses with reason: 'buyer requested delivery to unconfirmed address' in the cancellation request, as you need to be psychic to guess where some people live seemingly, along with a message saying the address was wrong. A couple of people have corrected them, and re-paid with Paypal. A few others seem happy to continue to wallow in their own ignorance however.

How a large proportion of this country have become illiterate and have no idea of how to write an address is a continuing source of befuddlement to me!

Victoria_Meldrew

Birdy12 wrote: »

I have a little query, hope you can advise.

Buyer won an item from me, I sent out, received proof of postage. Item never arrived, refund given, neutral feedback received.

Put claim in with Royal Mail, received letter from them yesterday saying they will be unable to refund me as they do not recognise the address I sent the item to as a 'valid' one.

The address definitely matches what's on PayPal and, judging by their feedback count, they've received many other items.

Shall I just chalk this one up to experience? It wasn't a great deal of money but feel like I've lost out. Anyone else come across this before?

Cheers, Birdy.

Exact same thing happened to me a couple of weeks ago so I now check every address on Royal Mail Postcode checker. Seems very unfair that Paypal side with the buyer even though their address is wrong on their Paypal account. (Could be the same person I sold to).

thebestnameshavegone

Every time Ebay send out one of the periodic Seller Updates I cross my fingers that they've sorted out the address issue. It never happens - why either Ebay or Paypal can't have the 'pop your postcode in and select from a drop down list of addresses' system is completely beyond me.


Re-typing garbled lower case only addresses does my head in, and with more people using phones (rather than a laptop with proper keyboard) to make their purchases it's probably going to get worse.

mimi1234

Victoria_Meldrew wrote: »

Exact same thing happened to me a couple of weeks ago so I now check every address on Royal Mail Postcode checker. Seems very unfair that Paypal side with the buyer even though their address is wrong on their Paypal account. (Could be the same person I sold to).

Wowsers. That must be time consuming if you are a business seller. Do all other sellers do this too? I remember sending something signed for a few months back and the man at the post office said that address didn't exist which totally threw me.

This_Year

Victoria_Meldrew wrote: »

Exact same thing happened to me a couple of weeks ago so I now check every address on Royal Mail Postcode checker.

mimi1234 wrote: »

Wowsers. That must be time consuming if you are a business seller. Do all other sellers do this too? I remember sending something signed for a few months back and the man at the post office said that address didn't exist which totally threw me.

I check if it doesn't look right. For example I had one with an address in Edinburgh but a Norwich postcode. Or if it's spelled wrong etc. Don't check every one it's just if I'm writing it out and I think "Eh?"

cathypainter

Has happened to me a couple of times, neither Ebay or PayPal can confirm an address.

Like 'This Year' has said, check them when they come through and if they don't look correct then either contact the buyer or refund and say why.

The general public are idiots, and literature is falling by the wayside!

soolin

cathypainter wrote: »

Has happened to me a couple of times, neither Ebay or PayPal can confirm an address.

Like 'This Year' has said, check them when they come through and if they don't look correct then either contact the buyer or refund and say why.

The general public are idiots, and literature is falling by the wayside!

I think you might mean literacy