Threatening Debt Collectors for Payment of Non-Delivered Items

boogieboa

I ordered £862.30 worth of audio equipment from Bax Music in March 2021. However, a delivery arrived a few days later with the most expensive items missing. At first, the company claimed they had sent the complete order out, although the package was too small to contain any other items. Later, they retracted this to say they would investigate the matter. 

Dissatisfied with their response, I decided to open a dispute with PayPal. After a week or two, PayPal issued a refund of £663.00 in my favour. I then ordered the undelivered items from a different supplier and went on with my life. 

However, seven months later, I’m being threatened by Bax Music with a debt collection agency to pay for goods I have never received. I contacted PayPal again, who told me to ignore them, but I still keep getting these threatening emails. Finally, today I am told they have handed the case to a debt collector who will contact me.

What should I do? 

kayleighali

What was the outcome of their investigation?

boogieboa

I never heard a thing from them again until these threatening emails. According to PayPal, they didn't respond to them about the dispute either.

HeinzVarieties

boogieboa said:

I ordered £862.30 worth of audio equipment from Bax Music in March 2021. However, a delivery arrived a few days later with the most expensive items missing. At first, the company claimed they had sent the complete order out, although the package was too small to contain any other items. Later, they retracted this to say they would investigate the matter. 

Dissatisfied with their response, I decided to open a dispute with PayPal. After a week or two, PayPal issued a refund of £663.00 in my favour. I then ordered the undelivered items from a different supplier and went on with my life. 

However, seven months later, I’m being threatened by Bax Music with a debt collection agency to pay for goods I have never received. I contacted PayPal again, who told me to ignore them, but I still keep getting these threatening emails. Finally, today I am told they have handed the case to a debt collector who will contact me.

What should I do? 

You could email them to reiterate that the goods were not received but other than that there is nothing you can do. The ball is in their court as you have your money back.  Debt collectors can be safely ignored.  If you end up being served court papers you'll need to do something.

Jenni_D

A debt collector can do absolutely nothing unless there is a court order to back them up - all they can do is send threatograms. Without that they have no more powers than any other member of public. If they try to enter your property or seize goods outside your property then they are trespassing with intent to commit theft, so you call the police.

boogieboa

I've emailed them several times to say if they sent out a second parcel, as they claim, it never came, wasn't delivered to my home, and I never signed for it. I've lost my temper and told them to do whatever the hell they need to, but these messages are disconcerting. 

born_again

This is where disputes where payment providers refund as company do not respond cause problems.

As the company have now had the money taken back by PayPal, but feel that they have delivered the items. So they take  legal steps to get the money back.

You will have to try to resolve with the company or enjoy your day in court when it gets there. 👍

Several other thread on this subject if you search back a couple of months.

Jenni_D

Do you have a record of who delivered the correctly-delivered items and when?

Has the seller provided any evidence of having sent the remaining goods? Have they provided a delivery note showing what was sent, when, via whom and to what address? Do they have any form of proof of delivery?

Things to think about should they deign to raise a court claim as you'd use this in your defence.

boogieboa

I have an invoice for the goods I ordered from a different retailer after receiving a refund from PayPal.

Bax Music has provided no evidence that the remaining goods were ever sent and certainly no proof of delivery to my address. Instead, they simply say, 'according to our records, you have at least one unpaid invoice with Bax-shop.co.uk that is now overdue.' It's BS, really!

Thanks for your advice.

Jenni_D

What evidence do you have for the goods that were correctly delivered? (I mean paper/electronic [e.g. email] evidence, rather than the goods physically being there). I ask as this would be part of your defence (should it get that far) - such as:

* The Defendant denies the claim in its entirety.
* The Defendant ordered ABCD goods from the Claimant on XX date. Goods ABC were delivered on YY date by ZZ delivery company/method. Goods D were missing.
* The Defendant advised the Claimant regarding the missing goods D. Claimant advised that all goods were delivered, but subsequently agreed on YY date that goods D were not shipped and would send a separate shipment.
* Goods D never arrived with the Defendant and the Claimant ignored all communications by the Defendant, so the Defendant raised a Paypal claim for the value of the missing goods. The Claimant ignored communications from Paypal so Paypal found in the Defendant's favour and refunded the claimed amount.
* The Claimant claims that goods D were shipped but has offered no evidence at all during the pre-action stage to show they attempted delivery, so the Defendant avers that the Claimant has never attempted to deliver goods D and thus the Claimant's claim is without merit.
* The Defendant avers that as goods ABC were correctly delivered then on the balance of probabilities any attempted delivery of goods D would have been successful, thus the Claimant has never tried to deliver goods D; their claim of having done so was probably an administrative error which the Claimant is attempting to coerce the Defendant into paying for.

boogieboa

I took pictures of the delivery and sent them to the seller at the time. Frankly, PayPal opened a dispute giving them ample time to respond, which they did not, and the case was settled in my favour.

A refund was made for the undelivered portion of the order, and the case closed. However, if the seller has proof of a subsequent package delivered to my address, let them sue me.

Thanks again for your responses.