Item not received after buyer inputted wrong address. what should i do?

chompie

Hi, this is a new one to me.
I recently sold something to a buyer (low price item £6 with £3 post)
I sent it through eBay (to the address they gave me) shipping 2nd class small parcel.  After about 10 days i get a message from the buyer saying.

"Sorry, but when i went to complete the purchase of this item, my address Auto-corrected to the wrong address.
The item is being returned to you, can you please send it to me when you receive it."

OK i thought, a bit strange but took it on face value.
So i replied, yes, that is fine however, i would need you to change your address on your eBay account and pay for the re-delivery.

He agreed that was fine and we left it at that.

Anyway another ten days has passed and i have received nothing from RM so cannot forward the item.

Now i have received an item not received claim from the Buyer where he states he wanted the item but "Contacted seller already. Have had no response since. Now just want refund. "

I responded to this message saying "I have still not received this item back. If you would like a refund once i have received the item all i can offer you is the item price, as i paid £2.99 to send to the wrong address by no fault of my own. "

Now since i sent that message about 4 days ago i have had no response but the claim end date is tomorrow.

should i wait it out or will he just end it and get a full refund? or should i give a partial refund minus the £2.99 i had to pay for postage.

Anyone had an instance like this before?

olgadapolga

chompie said:

Hi, this is a new one to me.
I recently sold something to a buyer (low price item £6 with £3 post)
I sent it through eBay (to the address they gave me) shipping 2nd class small parcel.  After about 10 days i get a message from the buyer saying.

"Sorry, but when i went to complete the purchase of this item, my address Auto-corrected to the wrong address.
The item is being returned to you, can you please send it to me when you receive it."

OK i thought, a bit strange but took it on face value.
So i replied, yes, that is fine however, i would need you to change your address on your eBay account and pay for the re-delivery.

He agreed that was fine and we left it at that.

Anyway another ten days has passed and i have received nothing from RM so cannot forward the item.

Now i have received an item not received claim from the Buyer where he states he wanted the item but "Contacted seller already. Have had no response since. Now just want refund. "

I responded to this message saying "I have still not received this item back. If you would like a refund once i have received the item all i can offer you is the item price, as i paid £2.99 to send to the wrong address by no fault of my own. "

Now since i sent that message about 4 days ago i have had no response but the claim end date is tomorrow.

should i wait it out or will he just end it and get a full refund? or should i give a partial refund minus the £2.99 i had to pay for postage.

Anyone had an instance like this before?

The short story is, if you cannot provide tracking information that indicates delivery to the address given by the buyer (wrong or otherwise) you will lose the case if/when the buyer escalates it to eBay.

You won't win this one so, if I was in your position, I would just refund and move on.

If you plan on refunding, you need to do so before the buyer is able to escalate it  to eBay, otherwise you'll get a nice little "defect" on your account which may affect your sales going forward.

If you've got proof of posting from Royal Mail then you can possibly claim from them for the loss of your item, if it's not returned to you.

chompie

Like i said, the postage was paid for via eBay and there is tracking that says it couldn't be delivered due to incomplete or incorrect address.

eBay have provided me this address so there is no way i will accept a defect or loss of money.
What i don't want is to not only lose the money for the post but then find the item is not returned (it should be as the address is on the label.

chompie

Also there was no Warning that you usually get when there is an issue with the Address.

olgadapolga

chompie said:

Like i said, the postage was paid for via eBay and there is tracking that says it couldn't be delivered due to incomplete or incorrect address.

eBay have provided me this address so there is no way i will accept a defect or loss of money.
What i don't want is to not only lose the money for the post but then find the item is not returned (it should be as the address is on the label.

As far as I'm aware, the "eBay provided address" is entered by the buyer. eBay don't check it at all, they don't even require a buyer to enter the postcode first and then select the address according to the postcode. For the postage labels, eBay just copy the information across, be it correct or incorrect. Personally, I check every address provided as buyers do get things wrong, often when they've just moved house.

soolin

If it doesn’t show as delivered with the eBay delivery confirmation you will lose the INR, but as they have admitted the address was wrong I’d phone eBay on this occasion.

You need the case closed in your favour , if you allow it to go to escalation you will lose, your fu ds will be returned and you won’t get your FVFs back either. You also get a seller warning. You need to get this dealt with, if there’s any chance, before it escalates.

FFHillbilly

is £9 worth the hassle? to sort it out you will need to call eBay, and if you get through to one of the foreign ones who just seem to read off a script there's a very small chance they will even understand what you are telling them, let alone be able to sort it out

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/ebay-money-back-guarantee-policy/ebay-money-back-guarantee-policy?id=4210#specialcoverage-inr

Exclusions and special coverage when the buyer doesn't receive an item

The buyer provided an invalid or incorrect address at checkout

Not covered

The problem is getting eBay to acknowledge this, worth a chat with eBay, for £9 they might simply cover the refund to keep everyone happy.