No Refund But Service Not Provided

Joshhall16

So this is an area I have no idea about and am hoping someone could help.

In an attempt to make some easy money in my free time I trawled ebay to find areas of the market that were fairly untouched, and probably my area of specialty,software/services. I have recently started my own business so any funds made would have just gone to advertising and other expenses to help get my name known. Its very difficult at the moment.

Anyway, I found that one area of the market lacking saturation were iphone icloud unlocks (this isnt meant for phones that are marked as lost or stolen - but my first mistake was not including that in the description of the ebay listing). I sold one for £45 and then started the process on a website called "appleiphoneunlock". Please forgive my naivity for thinking that the £19.99 fee initially is all it would cost. After the first payment they wanted another £30 as a premium fee. I didnt want the hassle of refunding the buyer on ebay so just paid the extra £5 and deleted the ebay listing to prevent further sales.

A £5 loss is bearable, not ideal but saves any hassle. So 5 days after the £49.99 payment i recieve another email saying the imei i requested the unlock for is marked as lost/stolen and they will not be refunding me, however I can pay for the "premium service" which is an extra £50 (they were kind enough to give me a discount :beer: its usually 99.99).

Where do I stand on this? I know i am going to have to refund the ebay buyer, and even if I dont I will lose the case, but is my money lost with appleiphoneunlock too?

All help is appreciated, please dont slew me. I work 40 hours a week on apprentice minimum wage, that is enough to drive anyone to desperation let me tell you.

Joshhall16

Another thing to note is I left a review on trustpilot, 100% honest and true and they have had it reported and removed. Under what guidelines? An honest review is an honest review.

The_Rainmaker

I'm confused.

Joshhall16

Paid for service, they couldnt provide service for said price. Denied refund but offered to continue with service for more money.

Where do I stand in these circumstances

Lomast

This is a business to business transaction so no consumer rights. Also where is the company you used based as that would determine the jurisdiction that applied to the contract

Joshhall16

I didnt purchase via my company, I just paid online as a regular consumer. Nor was it a business transaction from the buyer on ebay. Just a private sell technically

vuvuzela

Joshhall16 wrote: »

I didnt purchase via my company, I just paid online as a regular consumer. Nor was it a business transaction from the buyer on ebay. Just a private sell technically

Unfortunately technically you weren't a regular customer, you were a re-seller, so it is a business to business transaction.

Joshhall16

Okay, so say I was buying the unlock for my own phone, what would be the steps forward then?

This company is by no means caught in the middle, thousands of other people like myself have been caught up in it. Take one look at their trustpilot. Hundreds of fake reviews and all the bad ones flagged. Seems fishy. I dont even care about the profit anymore. I just dont want to be down 2 full days work when i struggle enough with money as it is

oldernonethewiser

What do the T&C of the company you used say in respect of a refund?

eddddy

Joshhall16 wrote: »

Paid for service, they couldnt provide service for said price. Denied refund but offered to continue with service for more money.

Where do I stand in these circumstances

You entered into a contract with appleiphoneunlock.

From their website, it looks like the terms of that contract include:

15. BARRED HANDSETS (LOST AND STOLEN, BLACKLISTED, CONTRACT ISSUES, BAD ESN)
15.1 If a handset is reported lost or stolen (or abused), it may well be 'Blacklisted' (also known as 'Blocked' or 'Barred'), preventing it from ever being used again in the UK on any of the major networks. It is not possible to find out if a 'SIM Locked' or 'SP Locked' handset has been 'Blacklisted' from any particular network or all major networks without first performing the 'unlock' procedure using our services. Therefore, if we undertake an unlock and you find out the phone is in fact logged as lost, stolen or abused, we cannot then refund your payment. We will undertake the job you request but cannot legally make a 'blacklisted' handset work again.

Link: https://appleiphoneunlock.uk/terms-and-conditions

So you don't seem to have any basis for getting a refund.


(Perhaps there's a chance if they didn't bring those T&Cs to your attention during the ordering process. But most websites would say something like "This order is subject to our T&Cs", or maybe even ask you to tick a box to say you've read the T&Cs.)

Joshhall16

When I purchased i selected the phone model and imei, then entered my email, where I was then redirected to a payment processer called nochex I think.

They took payment instantly, when I had the email that I needed the second payment, I clicked the link in my email, which took me to a page saying £30 to be paid, click here to pay, which I did and no tick box for T&Cs or any kind of acknowledgement of them.

I just retraced my steps without paying using a fake imei number to get to checkout, and the only T&Cs I accepted during that process was the purchase of emoney from nochex ltd.