Customers Courier Damaged Item, what are my rights?

ninanoonanarna

Hi guys. I recently auctioned an amp on ebay. With it being a heavy item (25kg) I stated on the listing that the item was cash on collection but if the buyer wanted to send a courier they could but we would not be held liable for any damage that may occur in transit. The buyer was fine with this.
They arranged for a courier through Parcels2go and they came to collect the package from my work. The day after we got an message from the customer saying that the box had got ripped and that the amp was damaged. they told us that the packaging was inadequate but I don't believe this as the amp was in a box and wrapped in foam sheeting. We sent out a similar item packaged exactly the same way the day before and that arrived with that customer perfeclty fine! The customer told us that as they had used an insured service they were going to try claim the money back from the couriers. We told them that we stated that no liability would be accepted in the event of transit damage, but would be more than happy to send them anything they needed to try and help a claim along. We heard nothing else from anyone so we assumed that they had sorted it out on their end.
Last week whilst I was on holiday yodel attempted to deliver the parcel back to my work. I was not there but one of my work collegues refused to sign for the parcel as the box was smashed to bits, so that is now sat in a depot because I don't know what to do with it.
This morning the customer put a refund request through on ebay. I don't really want to give them a refund as the amp worked perfectly fine when it left here. And we cannot claim for the damage that occurred in transit as we didn't arrange the courier!
Do we have any rights? What can we do?

TonyMMM

This needs to be moved to the ebay board - but it is never a good idea to allow a buyer to arrange a courier for this exact reason. What you should have done was charge the extra in postage and arrange the courier yourself (if you wanted to send it).... you now have a complete mess, and as you realise, no way of claiming against the courier yourself.

They presumably have submitted a "not as described" case which they will almost certainly win and get their refund..

InsideInsurance

I had something somewhat similar but in my case they said it arrived safetly and just "didnt work".

When they attempted to return it however I refused delivery as the box was bashed to hell.

They initially put in a claim with eBay which they won by saying they had returned it. I rose a dispute saying it was damaged in transit back to us. eBay upheld the dispute and instructed the buyer to claim off his courier and the matter was finally closed. The buyer did try to dispute the dispute but was told that wasnt possible.

theonlywayisup

I replied to your other post on this subject.

You have no hope of claiming from the carrier as you didn't contract them.

Ebay will force the refund.

Yours is exactly the scenario that shows why you should not allow a buyer to arrange a carrier.