Legal letter from French seller

noitsnotme

If this does end up in front of a court, English or French, I’d be surprised if the eBay “do what you want with it” statement would stand up as a defence.  It was not eBay’s place to make that decision. The French seller could very well win and that would leave the OP with having to then attempt suing eBay over the bad advice.

If it was me I’d want to know a few things so I could make a decision on the next move.  Does this come under French or English law?  How easy would it be for a win for the seller in a French court to make the OP pay up.  How easy would it be for the French seller to start action in an English court?  The answers to those would determine if I’d just ignore or start looking for legal advice.

Robbhp

We had been trying for 5 weeks to get it returned , in all honesty I had lost all interest after this time in continuing to try. They had been given ample time with eBay closing and then reopening the case 3 times I believe .

This was a damaged item and a considerable amount of stressed, a ruined birthday present that should have been a suprise. Which effectively turned in to a ......! 

After a bit of research when he was non responsive it turns out they had a very checkered feedback history on both Amazon and eBay. Really wish my partner had seen this early as the whole thing could have been avoided. 

After the decision from eBay we held on to it for a number of weeks and then gifted it to a family friend that had helped us out on a number of occasions. He is a bit of a handy man and seemingly can fix anything , we gave him it with the understanding that it may not work . 

Please also understand it's not like it was free we couldn't claim back our Vat and duty which was close on £250. All respect for the seller at this stage had broken down as he had given us incorrect information and point blank ignoring us. 

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

What was the item OP? 

noitsnotme

Robbhp said:

We had been trying for 5 weeks to get it returned , in all honesty I had lost all interest after this time in continuing to try. They had been given ample time with eBay closing and then reopening the case 3 times I believe .

This was a damaged item and a considerable amount of stressed, a ruined birthday present that should have been a suprise. Which effectively turned in to a ......! 

After a bit of research when he was non responsive it turns out they had a very checkered feedback history on both Amazon and eBay. Really wish my partner had seen this early as the whole thing could have been avoided. 

After the decision from eBay we held on to it for a number of weeks and then gifted it to a family friend that had helped us out on a number of occasions. He is a bit of a handy man and seemingly can fix anything , we gave him it with the understanding that it may not work . 

Please also understand it's not like it was free we couldn't claim back our Vat and duty which was close on £250. All respect for the seller at this stage had broken down as he had given us incorrect information and point blank ignoring us. 

Whilst all of this was stressful for you, it’s mostly going to be irrelevant if it ends up in front of a court.  If that happens and you lose, they will take in to account it was damaged so are unlikely to award the seller the full value, but you might be ordered to either return the item (at the sellers cost) or pay the seller some level of compensation.

Please note my use of “if” and “might” because I don’t know for sure.

Right now you need to try and find out what the likelihood is of the seller being able to take legal action in the first place and what chance they have of coming after you for payment if they do win.  Or just ignore them and hope it goes away.

Robbhp

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

What was the item OP? 

I don't really want to say, obviously but you can imagine, there are not many kitchen appliances that run into £1100 .

I only don't want to say as I don't want the vendor being able to connect this thread. It's a well know forum with I guess many eyes.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Robbhp said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

What was the item OP? 

I don't really want to say, obviously but you can imagine, there are not many kitchen appliances that run into £1100 .

I only don't want to say as I don't want the vendor being able to connect this thread. It's a well know forum with I guess many eyes.

Completely understand

I think the best thing you can do is ask your friend where it is, they may have it the garage untouched in which case offering it to the seller for collection shouldn't cause many problems for the friendship. 

If they have got rid of it or have it sitting on their worktop in use then you have to look at the potential claim value, it should be their cost price minus the cost of return minus the value that was lost due to the damage in transit. 

I know there might be less offers with a niche item but have you checked eBay to see the value of 2nd hand or seller refurbished to see how much that condition knocks off the market value? 

I don't think the seller has mitigated (lessened) their losses at all and I think this means the court are much less  likely to award the costs of performing the claims process. 

By this point is there much value for the seller to actually claim? If they are expecting £1100 I think they will be out of luck but as noitsnotme says there may be some value they are due depending upon how the process views the advice given by eBay and the seller's behaviour. 

phillw

noitsnotme said:

If this does end up in front of a court, English or French, I’d be surprised if the eBay “do what you want with it” statement would stand up as a defence.  It was not eBay’s place to make that decision.

That would entirely depend on the contract that the seller entered into with ebay when they listed the item.

It may very well be eBay's place to make that decision.

Though I wouldn't have disposed of it, because even though the seller has acted badly then I don't believe in revenge.

Robbhp

Honestly it was not revenge all we wanted was to return for either a refund or replacement, we had saved for this item for a number of years we just wanted it to be right .

 I would not ship the item as then I was liable for it's arrival and the resulting cost. As he was being so obstructive I knew we would have incredible difficulty recovering these cost. 

We held on to it for a number of weeks after the initial 5 weeks of it being an open case with eBay trying to facilitate its return. How long should I hold on to a damaged item when I am told to dispose of it ? We have had no contact , nothing in over 12 month then all of of a sudden this letter. 

Thank you for all your thoughts it's been really helpful and a good mix of answers too. I can see both side and sit in the middle. I really don't want to ask for the item back off the family friend as this would be incredibly embarrassing even more so if he doesn't have it. Although he was aware of the damage and a bit of the back story as to why it was gifted. 

I will contact eBay and consumer advice , depending how that goes I will then source some legal counsel. 

Once again thank you for your input it's been greatly appreciated and allowed be to digest the bloody letter :-). 

martindow

It must have been a shock to get this letter.

In your position I quite understand the potential embarassment of talking about this to your friend, but i would ask whether he had been able to do anything with it.  If he still has it gathering dust and has not got round to working on it, you could tell him about the letter and know that there is the option of giving the French company a further time period to collect it.

If he's dismantled it and used various pieces in different projects then you know this is not a possible resolution.

JetpackVelociraptor

You're only supposed to be put back into the position you were in before you bought the faulty item, so you should have been left with your refund, and the item should have been collected by the company. In an ideal world you would have contacted the supplier after you received your eBay refund and given them a deadline by which they needed to arrange for collection of their faulty product, and informed them that after that point you would dispose of it. They could then have got back to you to confirm collection arrangements or told you that you could dispose of it as you wish. EBay don't have the legal right to arrange disposal of the seller's goods.

The goods have a value, it's not what you paid but they're worth something, and whatever that something is would theoretically belong to the seller. Given the relatively high value of the fully functional, working item, you're going to struggle to argue that the broken version is completely worthless, particularly when you gave it away to someone as a gift. The fact that they're the sort of handy person who can repair such things doesn't make it any better, because now you're talking about an item that could have been repaired by the seller and sold again for a lower price.  It's not unreasonable that they're seeking to recover the item or remaining value of it from you. The timescale is a bit ridiculous, but not outside the statute of limitations. You could probably argue that what you owe them is the value of the broken item, not what you paid them for a new, working one.

I should add that eBay's returns system is largely geared towards small, postable items where the cost of return postage may well make disposal of the item the cheaper option. The message telling you to do whatever you want with the item is automatic and generic, not suitable for high value purchases like this.

Regarding the £250 duty, I'm pretty sure you can get a refund direct from HMRC. Here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/refunds-and-waivers-on-customs-debt  There's a link on that page to contact HMRC, I would approach them for advice as it's not entirely clear what the deadlines are. This also could be complicated by the fact that you haven't returned or destroyed the faulty item but instead gave it away.