Refunding a buyer for item not received

THEFIZZ

Hi,i sent an item and the buyer has not received it,do i refund the price of the item including posatge or the price for the actual item? TIA

soolin

Refund the lot and then use your certificate of posting to reclaim your losses from the RM.

POSSETTE

always get proof of postage so you can claim it all back.I have fell into this before.I even had someone say something hadnt arrived,and when i said i have proof receipt to follow it up, all of a sudden it was delivered early evening 2 hours after email saying it hadnt turned up.Not many people have an early evening delivery do they!!??

benedictadams

Before you refund say that you obtained proof of posting

Its amazing the amount of items "not recieved" which suddenly arrive once i tell a winning bidder that i obtained proof of posting

biglad

sorry to jump on thread but surely proof of posting doesnt prove it has been delivered?

or am i being stupid

Sarah-Jane_2

biglad wrote: »

sorry to jump on thread but surely proof of posting doesnt prove it has been delivered?

or am i being stupid

No, you're right, proof of postage would mean nothing if the buyer claimed for item not received. The item should be sent by a method which gets a signature on delivery

biglad

thanks for that

got a little confused why people suddenly say item is not lost when seller says proof of postage was obtained

Sarah-Jane_2

Me too!

Unless it's recorded, special or a courier delivery you can't really proove anything.

firespire

biglad wrote: »

got a little confused why people suddenly say item is not lost when seller says proof of postage was obtained

Because the buyer may have received item and then lie to get a refund. benedictadams has experience of telling the buyer that have proof of postage and will be taking it up the the post-office and then supposedly the lying buyer gets scared that they will be found out as a fraud and they admit it was received.

digerati

THEFIZZ wrote: »

Hi,i sent an item and the buyer has not received it,do i refund the price of the item including posatge or the price for the actual item?

It's in your best interest to not refund a buyer until you have made a claim with Royal Mail for non-delivery and received compensation. Royal Mail will contact the buyer and ask them to sign a statuatory declaration stating they didn't get the item. Then Royal Mail will usually compensate the sender for the missing item (subject to statuatory limits).

It's surprising how often missing or lost items will suddenly 'arrive' or 'turn up' when Royal Mail start getting involved...

soolin

digerati wrote: »

It's in your best interest to not refund a buyer until you have made a claim with Royal Mail for non-delivery and received compensation. Royal Mail will contact the buyer and ask them to sign a statuatory declaration stating they didn't get the item. Then Royal Mail will usually compensate the sender for the missing item (subject to statuatory limits).

It's surprising how often missing or lost items will suddenly 'arrive' or 'turn up' when Royal Mail start getting involved...

The problem is of course that paypal will refund the buyer regardless of how quickly the RM pay out. The RM won't allow a claim to be started until 15 working days..usually 3 weeks, and can then take an additional 3 weeks or so to pay out which is getting close to exceeding the chargeback period for paypal. I can't imagine buyers waiting that long to get a refund, and all that will happen is that the seller will lose a chargeback and probably get negative feedback to boot.

At least refunding promptly, through gritted teeth if necessary usually results in positive feedback and no buyer complaints.