Returns

Flyonthewall

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head wrote: »

No, not at all. If someone buys a bouncy castle and claims it's not as described because they wanted to buy a trampoline that doesn't mean the trader must accept their claim and cover their costs.

The goods must actually be faulty, not as described, etc, not just on the buyers say so.

That example is hardly the same thing. The buyer clearly bought the wrong thing, that's completely different to buying the right thing and the weight or quality not being as expected.

A lot of companies pay for return postage to get the item back rather than refunding any postage costs if the item turns out to be not as described.

In this case ebay would agree it's not as described and the law backs up the buyers right to return postage when an item is not as described. If it's not as the buyer expected based on their interpretation of the listing then to them it's not as described.

http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/regulation/consumer-rights-act

"Product quality As with the Sale of Goods Act, under the Consumer Rights Act all products must be of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose and as described.
The rules also include digital content in this definition. So all products - whether physical or digital - must meet the following standards:

• Satisfactory quality Goods shouldn't be faulty or damaged when you receive them. You should ask what a reasonable person would consider satisfactory for the goods in question? For example, bargain bucket products won’t be held to as high standards as luxury goods.
• Fit for purpose The goods should be fit for the purpose they are supplied for, as well as any specific purpose you made known to the retailer before you agreed to buy the goods. "

They could argue that the product quality is not satisfactory for what it is. They could also argue it's not fit for purpose based on quality.


"30-day right to reject
Under the Consumer Rights Act you have a legal to reject goods that are unsatisfactory quality, unfit for purpose or not as described and get a full refund - as long as you do this quickly. "


"Your rights if an item is faulty
It doesn't matter whether you bought your goods before or after 1 October 2015 - in the first six months from when you buy something, the onus is on the seller to prove it was of satisfactory quality when you received it.
It's not for you to prove that the item was not of satisfactory quality in order to get it repaired or replaced during the first six months after purchase."


http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/problem/what-do-i-do-if-i-have-a-faulty-product


Based on this, the buyer has a right to a full refund as part of their return reason for not as described was the quality and the seller would have to prove the quality is satisfactory. Not as described means return postage should be paid.


I can't find anything that suggests the seller can refuse paying return postage because they don't believe the buyer. They would have to prove that the buyer was wrong afterwards upon checking the item. The buyer should not out of pocket for not as described and therefore are well within their right to ask for postage to be paid to return rather than hoping to be paid it after.


The law very much appears to be in the favour of the buyer in such claims.


If you can find otherwise feel free to share.

Happydays_56

It's all about interpretation of the law. I can argue the pictures and description are exactly what the buyer rec'd. They lied when they said it was not the weight stated in the listing as I did not give a weight. This could have been avoided if they had asked me what the weight was prior to purchase.

I will now weigh any similar items in the future so lesson learnt there.

I have no problem giving a refund but I still think they go exactly what they purchased so it was a change of mind after they realised it wasn't the weight they expected

If it had been they would have been paying a lot more of course

Anyway we're just going round in circles here, Ebay will side with the buyer so I have no option

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

It would entirely depend on whether the OP sells a widget for a specific use or the buyer has purchased a generic widget expecting it to be for a specific use. No different to bouncy castle really, you can jump up and down on both of them but they serve a different purpose.

The onus is on the seller to disprove the buyers claim, that doesn't mean the buyer has carte blanche to say the goods don't confirm to the contract and simply have money handed at them.

Without knowing what the goods are it's hard (and probably pointless) to speculate further on the OP but the statement that "The law says if a customer claims an item is not as described then a business seller must pay return postage." is incorrect due to the highlighted part in your follow up post "the onus is on the seller to prove it was of satisfactory quality when you received it".

If it is proven the goods do indeed conform to the contract then the buyer has no claim, but the seller may for any costs they have suffered.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Happydays_56 wrote: »

It's all about interpretation of the law. I can argue the pictures and description are exactly what the buyer rec'd. They lied when they said it was not the weight stated in the listing as I did not give a weight. This could have been avoided if they had asked me what the weight was prior to purchase.

I will now weigh any similar items in the future so lesson learnt there.

I have no problem giving a refund but I still think they go exactly what they purchased so it was a change of mind after they realised it wasn't the weight they expected

If it had been they would have been paying a lot more of course

Anyway we're just going round in circles here, Ebay will side with the buyer so I have no option

OP one important thing to note, information such as this needs to go in the item specifics, you can create custom item specifics for anything you want.

eBay aren't good at deciding returns so it may not matter either way but if you received bad feedback and the complaint is detailed in the item specifics CS will remove the feedback, if it's only in the description and/or listing title they won't.

Flyonthewall

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head wrote: »

It would entirely depend on whether the OP sells a widget for a specific use or the buyer has purchased a generic widget expecting it to be for a specific use. No different to bouncy castle really, you can jump up and down on both of them but they serve a different purpose.

It's not the same. If they've bought a bouncy castle instead of a trampoline that's an entirely different item. Nothing suggests that the buyer bought a different item to what they wanted, just that the item wasn't the weight or quality expected.

The issue is not with the purpose.

The onus is on the seller to disprove the buyers claim, that doesn't mean the buyer has carte blanche to say the goods don't confirm to the contract and simply have money handed at them.

Without knowing what the goods are it's hard (and probably pointless) to speculate further on the OP but the statement that "The law says if a customer claims an item is not as described then a business seller must pay return postage." is incorrect due to the highlighted part in your follow up post "the onus is on the seller to prove it was of satisfactory quality when you received it".

If it is proven the goods do indeed conform to the contract then the buyer has no claim, but the seller may for any costs they have suffered.

I'm not going to repeat myself, my previous comment still stands and answers what you've put here.

"The law says if a customer claims an item is not as described then a business seller must pay return postage" is not inncorrect just because the seller can later prove them wrong. They still have to deal with that claim first and follow the law for not as described.

As before, if you can find otherwise feel free to share. Otherwise you're just repeating yourself and not backing up your points with any evidence.

Is it unfair a buyer can just say the item is not as described and get a refund and get the business to pay their return postage? Yes, if the buyer is not genuine. Is there anything in the law to allow companies to refuse a return if they think they're lying or avoid paying return postage to get an item back to find out? No, seems not.

It's rather like innocent until proven guilty. The buyer is believed to be correct and it is dealt with as so unless proven to be lying later on.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

The claim is one of quality and one consideration is the price:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/15/section/9/enacted

The quality of goods is satisfactory if they meet the standard that a reasonable person would consider satisfactory, taking account of—
...
the price or other consideration for the goods (if relevant), and

Basically if you buy Poundland and expect John Lewis that doesn't give you the automatic right to reject.

Taking eBay buyer protection out, if the seller said the price is an indication of quality so no return/refund offered the buyer would have to go to court and the judge would decide on the balance of probability.

If you buy a £3 hammer and it buckles knocking a nail in the wall you could argue the nail should buckle before the hammer and thus the goods are not of satisfactory quality.

If you use the same hammer to knock down a brick wall most would (hopefully) agree a £3 hammer isn't going to cut it.

As an aside if you return something via Amazon and choose "Performance or quality not adequate" they class this as change of mind as do they with "not compatible or not useful for intended purpose" .

Flyonthewall

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head wrote: »

The claim is one of quality and one consideration is the price:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/15/section/9/enacted

The quality of goods is satisfactory if they meet the standard that a reasonable person would consider satisfactory, taking account of—
...
the price or other consideration for the goods (if relevant), and

Basically if you buy Poundland and expect John Lewis that doesn't give you the automatic right to reject.

Taking eBay buyer protection out, if the seller said the price is an indication of quality so no return/refund offered the buyer would have to go to court and the judge would decide on the balance of probability.

If you buy a £3 hammer and it buckles knocking a nail in the wall you could argue the nail should buckle before the hammer and thus the goods are not of satisfactory quality.

If you use the same hammer to knock down a brick wall most would (hopefully) agree a £3 hammer isn't going to cut it.

As an aside if you return something via Amazon and choose "Performance or quality not adequate" they class this as change of mind as do they with "not compatible or not useful for intended purpose" .

Yeah, but how does any seller prove the quality of that specific item is to a satisfactory quality?

The buyer's not going to say I paid £1 for this and I expect it to be the same quality as the £100 item that does the same thing. They're just going to complain of poor quality and want to return. No seller can force a buyer to tell them more and even if they do it's the buyers opinion not fact. Even a £1 item has an expected level of quality.

Even if as a whole the items sold all meet the expected quality that's not to say the buyers item does. It could just that one item out of thousands that failed to meet the standard.

If they're taking it back in store the item can be inspected. Online it has to be returned first.

They can't refuse to refund just because they think the price justifies it. It's entirely the sellers opinion and it takes away the consumers rights.

"Your legal rights: When you buy goods from a business, in law you have a number of rights as a consumer. These include the right to claim a refund, replacement, repair and/or compensation where the goods are faulty or misdescribed."

"Can I limit my liability to a customer? Consumers' legal rights cannot be taken away or restricted, and any attempt by a trader to do so by reference to an exclusion clause or similar notice is void and therefore unenforceable.
Under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 it is also a criminal offence to mislead a consumer about his legal rights.
The following are examples of statements that are likely to mislead consumers about their rights:

• no refunds given
• goods can only be exchanged
• only credit notes will be given against faulty goods
• sold as seen

Even the statement 'No refunds except where goods are faulty' would be illegal, as there are a number of cases where a consumer can claim a refund on goods that are not faulty (such as misdescribed goods)."

https://www.businesscompanion.info/en/quick-guides/goods/returns-policies (link from https://www.gov.uk/accepting-returns-and-giving-refunds)

A buyer has the right to claim a refund. A seller cannot take that away because they feel the quality is up to standard for the price.

You say about the buyer taking them to court to get a refund, but as the above says any attempt to restrict the law (i.e. saying no refund) is not enforceable. I can't imagine any judge looking favourably on the business for refusing to refund, especially as no other options or attempt to right the situation would be made in that case.

It would also still be up to the seller to prove to the Judge that the item is, in fact, the quality a buyer should expect. They could maybe prove the others are, but the buyer doesn't have them and it's going to be impossible to prove the buyers item is without seeing it which they won't get to do beforehand without a return.

It would also be very very stupid of any business to let it get to that stage because regardless of what they think they cannot possibly know for certain that that specific item is up to standard. All they're doing is refusing to follow the law.

So all that leads back to it being a claim for item not as described, the law saying postage must be paid for that return reason and the seller being unable to do anything other than treat it as that and follow the law and take action afterwards if the buyer is lying.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Of course a business can't say "no refunds" but what you've quoted is not in the context of this discussion which is about disputing a buyers claim.

It doesn't mean a trader can never decline a refund otherwise any claim would be valid even if the buyer complained they couldn't fly in to space on a toy rocket!

Having a valid reason to decline a rejection is not restricting the law.

RFW

I'm with Flyonthewall. The law pretty much (not legal speak!) says that the seller should pay the return if buyer says it's faulty or not as described. If it turns out it is fine then in theory the seller can ask for the buyer to pay the postage back.

It's easier just to say you pay for return postage, that may increase sales to cancel out the negatives of occasionally paying postage twice. Most of the time if I get a return request I issue a refund and tell them to keep it. I'm averaging £5 items so can afford to do that occasionally.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

RFW wrote: »

I'm with Flyonthewall. The law pretty much (not legal speak!) says that the seller should pay the return if buyer says it's faulty or not as described. If it turns out it is fine then in theory the seller can ask for the buyer to pay the postage back.

It's easier just to say you pay for return postage, that may increase sales to cancel out the negatives of occasionally paying postage twice. Most of the time if I get a return request I issue a refund and tell them to keep it. I'm averaging £5 items so can afford to do that occasionally.

What's your selling ID, some free stuff would be nice

I do agree it's healthy not to be too bothered by these things and if you have a complaint you know is genuine then a easy resolve is the best way forward.

A few questions can usually indicate whether a claim is honest or not and losing the odd £2.99 in return or fiver for the goods to a fussy buyer who is really just changing their mind should be looked as an overall yearly cost rather than a one off loss on a cheap item.

But I can't agree with Flys you have to accept any claim stance nor that if a retailer acted reasonably and could present a reasoned case (rightly or wrongly) that a court would take a dim view just because the retailer didn't simply hand money over no questions asked.