Won item, courier sent item back, who pays for redelivery?

thriftymanc

I won a large item on eBay and paid instantly. Seller said they'd tell me when the item was sent out. Two weeks later (this was a custom made item and supposed to take two weeks to make) I email the seller and ask them to let me know the courier's phone number and tracking number when they send the item, so that I can ring the courier (this is as I'm out at work during the week and wanted to let the courier know before they tried to deliver it, so that I could arrange for them to come first thing in the morning before I go to work).

Seller replied and says "Oh I sent it a week ago, ring them straight away or they'll send it back".

I phone the depot at my end, they say they tried to deliver it and no one was in. I said they didn't leave a card (I live in an apartment block where you need access to the building to leave a card, and every single other courier I've experienced - Interparcel, Parcelforce, DHL, UPS etc - have all sent me a card in the post. After all, I'm hardly the only person in the world who lives in an apartment block and works during regular courier hours!). I mentioned this to the courier and they said "oh it's not our policy, you should have been in". They only tried delivering the once as well and then sent it straight back. I called the sender's depot and they said it had already been sent back to the seller.

I wasn't in when the courier tried to deliver.
The courier didn't bother to send me a redelivery card and sent the parcel back the same day.
The seller didn't notify me when the parcel was sent like they said they would.

Who pays for redelivery? Me, the seller, or does the courier resend for free?

slowen

Don't think the courier will re-deliver for free unless you complain and say their was no correspondance left to say you had a failed delivery and have a parcel sitting at a depot. If that fails it down to you and the seller but their is nothing to say the seller has to pay up

MarkyMarkD

You can't demand that any courier firm delivers at precisely the time you want, either. If you need something delivering, you should expect to have to wait in for it not tell them what to deliver when IMHO.

RFW

If I was the seller I'd be really cheesed off, but it is the seller's responsibility to get the item to you. From your description you haven't done anything wrong and it isn't really your problem. The seller should be able to get money back from courier or free redelivery. Your contract is exclusively with the seller, his contract is with the courier, therefore its his problem, not yours.

As a silly example if I used XYZ Couriers whose policy is to deliver all parcels at 4am on Saturdays, if no answer within 3 seconds they return to sender, whose fault would it be if you weren't able to accept?

I recently sent a parcel by Parcelforce to an incorrect address (provided by buyer), I still considered it my fault as I hadn't double checked. The buyer did offer to pay for repostage but I declined their offer (hey I'm a nice guy, plus its good business!).

Hintza

Lack of comms is the problem here, you need to keep things friendly and explain to buyer yoour situation and tha you really need to know which day it is coming and to give them a phone number for courier to call you if a problem.

As said previously this really is the sellers problem but the buyer also has some responsibility to you both should maybe give a little if necessary. As a seller I would probably moan like hell (to myself) but resend the item.

But it really annoys me because I always tell buyers on what day to expect a delivery and if i feel it necessary I give them the tracking number which at least means they can contact courier and hopefully make personal arrangements.

mishkanorman

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

You can't demand that any courier firm delivers at precisely the time you want, either. If you need something delivering, you should expect to have to wait in for it not tell them what to deliver when IMHO.

eh ? so they should just give up work and sit at home waiting for god knows how long ?

The seller didnt even give them a day it was to be delivered, thats just unreasonable !!

mishka

aeuerby

mishkanorman wrote: »

eh ? so they should just give up work and sit at home waiting for god knows how long ?

The seller didnt even give them a day it was to be delivered, thats just unreasonable !!

mishka

I was going to say the same mishka.
The seller was supposed to tell the buyer when the item was sent. They didn't.
How long was the buyer supposed to stay at home on the off chance somewone may try and deliver something? Rediculous.
I do wish people would read problems properly before offering "advice";)

windswept

As a seller I always forward tracking info to my customers on the day it's picked up and I even ask them if they want delivery on a particular day when they order.
If the OP had requested notification, then they reasonably expected to receive it BEFORE a failed delivery. It seems like joint fault lies with the seller and the courier.

MarkyMarkD

aeuerby wrote: »

I was going to say the same mishka.
The seller was supposed to tell the buyer when the item was sent. They didn't.
How long was the buyer supposed to stay at home on the off chance somewone may try and deliver something? Rediculous.
I do wish people would read problems properly before offering "advice";)

It would help more if you read the whole original post, and read the response in context, before making stupid comments.

The OP said that they expected the courier to contact them prior to delivery so they could insist it was delivered at 8am before they left for work.

It was that element of the OP that I was critiquing.

You can't simply expect that a courier will arrange their distribution route for the convenience of one customer - that was my point.

The courier should still, OBVIOUSLY, have left a card and retained the goods for a reasonable length of time for re-delivery. But that re-delivery would only be likely to be on an agreed day, not "at 8am", as that's too much to expect.

Clearer now?

thriftymanc

Thanks to everyone for the replies.

I'm glad people see where I'm coming from with wanting to know what day the parcel would be delivered. I can't really wait in for days at a time, especially because with my job, if I don't go in then I don't get paid! So I can't afford to take e.g. four days off just on the off chance the parcel might arrive on one of them.

I do realise that I am partly at fault for not being in when the courier came though (even though I didn't know), hence why I made the three 'statements' on myself, the seller and the courier at the end of my first post with what I thought each person could have done wrong in this situation. But to be fair on myself, I wasn't even expecting the parcel to have been sent as the seller said it wouldn't have been ready until the time I sent the email! And to be fair to the seller it's not his fault the courier literally waited all of thirty seconds before sending the parcel straight back to him.

I've contacted the seller and I think we both agree the courier is mainly to blame. I wasn't expecting the parcel to be delivered so I wasn't in, but they didn't send me a card. I don't think this courier can have had much experience of delivering to blocks of flats, their whole rule about not posting me a card was pretty silly when, like I said, other couriers have done. So I suppose, from past experience, I figured that if the seller didn't notify me, I would have got the card anyway.


Just something though:

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

The OP said that they expected the courier to contact them prior to delivery so they could insist it was delivered at 8am before they left for work.

No I didn't. I said the seller should have given me the contact details for the courier, so that I could ring the courier prior to them attempting to deliver it, and then get the courier to come as early on their route as possible. I get things delivered by couriers quite a lot and so far I've not had a single courier fail to agree to this, they've all been quite helpful and usually been happy to come to me early on, or as early as they can, on a specific date so I can organise my hours at work and go in a little later one day if needed.

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

You can't simply expect that a courier will arrange their distribution route for the convenience of one customer - that was my point.

No, but you can always ask, and perhaps because I live in a city centre and they deliver to a lot of businesses near me, if I ring the courier first and explain my situation they're always agreeable as afterall, then they aren't wasting their time by saying "no, we'll come when we know you're not going to be in instead"!

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

re-delivery would only be likely to be on an agreed day, not "at 8am", as that's too much to expect.

You've said that twice now, I never mentioned 8am anywhere, I don't even leave for work at 8am. All I wanted is for the courier to come to me as early on their route as possible which is perfectly reasonable. If they can't do that then I either take unpaid time off work to wait in, or as if they can deliver it somewhere else.


Anyway, I'm waiting to hear back from the seller, with any luck the courier will agree that they should have notified me, and resend it for free - or better still refund the seller so he can use a better courier!

MarkyMarkD

If your supplier used a courier who usually delivers to business addresses, it's perfectly reasonable for the courier to expect someone to be there to accept deliveries.

You may have had luck in the past with couriers being amenable to your timings, but I think that's luck rather than something you should expect.

I don't believe that it's possible, with every courier firm, for the sender to get the delivery driver/delivery depot to contact the recipient, prior to arranging the delivery schedule. They simply don't do that sort of faffing about.

Apologies for the 8am thing but "before I leave for work" is still an imposition on a courier organising a whole day's deliveries whether you live in a city centre (which you hadn't previously mentioned) or not. Who says that the couriers are based in the city centre or indeed anywhere near where you live?