Buyer has lied about not receiving item

RFW

Randal wrote: »

I appreciate all that, but this all happened in November last year, and the item cost £30 with the p&p, which is not an insignificant amount of money.


So my belief is that if the buyer had genuinely not received the item, and had inadvertently left positive feedback indicating that they had received the item, they would have made a claim after contacting me in mid-December.



We are now nearly 3 months after I sent the item, and 2 months after I wrote back saying that they had already left feedback, and it appears that no claim was submitted by the buyer.


Ordinarily I would just refund them and claim back from the Post Office, but the fact that they had left feedback and then tried to say that they hadn't received the item did appear to be a bit strange.

It's always possible that they just confused sellers, rather than anything else. If they'd bought a similar item later and searched in their history it could lead them to contacting the wrong seller.

mogwai

MysteryMe wrote: »

People tend to respond in kind and if the OP displayed the same kind of attitude with the buyer as they have on this thread then it is hardly surprising the buyer has given them short shrift.

Sorry I am the OP and your statement is ridiculous. The buyer has since left negative feedback as well as kept the item - not surprising I was given short shrift because I sent an item a few days late (he received it a week after winning the bid). I presume this is how you would act and justify it too.

I have a problem with a lot of the responses on this thread because it was just a chance for people to exercise their holier than thou attitude. If I had wanted a telling off about my tardiness on eBay I would have gone to my mother.

My OP was quite clearly about the buyer sending me a message telling me they would claim item not received the day after I sent the item. I wanted to know if eBay would consider this when settling the case. End of query.

Simply letting me know they didn't want the item or leaving me neg feedback would have been the decent thing to do if annoyed about the late item.

I was mistaken about the 3 weeks thing as that's how it was done before and it's been a while since I sold on eBay. Still, no reason to keep the item, claim a refund and leave negative feedback.

Ebay need to do more to protect the seller as reading around here and eBay forums it seems sellers are getting scammed and quite blatantly at times too. Receiving an item a few days late is not justification to steal an item.

sorry but too many nit pickers on this thread, not much useful input re the query. Thank you to the people who did offer insight or advice.

graspthenettle

RainbowDrops wrote: »

It depends though, as someone else mentioned, you can send items tracked from My Hermes for £2.78 - which is pretty much the same price as a second class standard royal mail parcel.

Indeed, and they're not so prissy about their sizes either. Plus for an extra 20p you can get them to come and pick it up. Ideal if you're feeling poorly.

patman99

And for those who claim non-delivery and win their INR case, when they have got the item, there is always the 'Small Claims Court'.

Abbafan1972

janb5 wrote: »

I would also suggest that you send items the next day which is much more acceptable to most buyers.

I think you're all being really heartless to the OP. They explained that their little one had chicken pox and couldn't go out. Unfortunately sometimes life gets in the way. If the seller had emailed me and said they couldn't get the post office, I would have cut them a bit of slack at least!

theonlywayisup

Abbafan1972 wrote: »

I think you're all being really heartless to the OP. They explained that their little one had chicken pox and couldn't go out. Unfortunately sometimes life gets in the way. If the seller had emailed me and said they couldn't get the post office, I would have cut them a bit of slack at least!

Not heartless.

He didn't email. The buyer queried where the item was according to the OP, only then did he explain why it was late.

Contains_Mild_Peril

The OP is asking for advice on what to do now, not what they should have done in the first place.

Hermes may be useful for tracking future items but if the listing says postage is via Royal Mail you can't (or shouldn't) use a different courier without prior agreement from the buyer (also, Hermes was suggested as an alternative to 2nd class postage, but if a seller offers 2nd class then posts late then presumably they would upgrade to 1st class at their own expense).

If the buyer considered late postage unacceptable they should have asked to cancel the purchase when the seller said they hadn't posted it yet, instead of waiting till it was posted then declaring their intention to claim a refund. Unfortunately the only way the seller will get their money back now is to claim from Royal Mail, which is a bit unfair if RM have in fact delivered the item.

Mogwai, you can try reporting the buyer to eBay: this won't get you your money back and it's unlikely anyone will look at the case in enough detail to ascertain whether the buyer has done anything wrong, but if the same buyer attracts multiple complaints eBay may eventually take note.

As someone mentioned above, some buyers are oblivious to the difference between private and business sellers on eBay, and eBay encourages buyers to expect businesslike service from all, so if you're not able to offer next-day postage and may occasionally have delays because life happens, it may be worth mentioning this in any future listings. The eBay selling form is quite misleading: if you select a 3-day dispatch time a little flag appears with the words "If you select a longer dispatch time, please note that buyers will be notified of the longer dispatch time when they view your item", which implies that buyers will see a flag or some kind of special warning, but they don't: the dispatch and estimated delivery times are just listed as normal.