Postage - peeved

Spoonie_Turtle

Bought an item from a business last Thursday from eBay.  The listing said free 3-day postage via RM48, which I knew might be optimistic and I could have done with it arriving ASAP so paid extra for RM24, thinking if they despatched on Friday it should probably arrive by Saturday, or Monday at the latest.  (I assumed a quick dispatch was possible because they're a business, I wouldn't have expected it from a private seller.)

It arrived today (Thursday), via RM48.  The tracking number was generated on Monday and the item entered Royal Mail's system yesterday (Wednesday).
So while I'm quite miffed it took an entire week and not because of any Royal Mail delays, what really galls is I specifically paid extra for a postage service they didn't use. - that is the main point and what I will be contacting them about.

I will of course contact the seller but my question particularly to sellers on here is, what do you think would be a reasonable outcome for this?  Postage refund? 
It wasn't an awful lot of money but it's the principle, and if they're doing this to everyone who pays extra for faster postage then that would be a scam.

Thanks for any thoughts.

Edited to make main point clear, sorry for the surrounding ramble.

Cloth_of_Gold

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Bought an item from a business last Thursday from eBay.  The listing said free 3-day postage via RM48, which I knew might be optimistic and I could have done with it arriving ASAP so paid extra for RM24, thinking if they despatched on Friday it should probably arrive by Saturday, or Monday at the latest.  (I assumed a quick dispatch was possible because they're a business, I wouldn't have expected it from a private seller.)

It arrived today (Thursday), via RM48.  The tracking number was generated on Monday and the item entered Royal Mail's system yesterday (Wednesday).
So while I'm quite miffed it took an entire week and not because of any Royal Mail delays, what really galls is I specifically paid extra for a postage service they didn't use.

I will of course contact the seller but my question particularly to sellers on here is, what do you think would be a reasonable outcome for this?  Postage refund? 
It wasn't an awful lot of money but it's the principle, and if they're doing this to everyone who pays extra for faster postage then that would be a scam.

Thanks for any thoughts.

In mid February I sent two items (one a card and the other a small parcel) on the same day to a friend by RM 24, by 1pm, which cost over £17. The tracking showed an attempted delivery the next day around 12.30 but there was no attempted delivery (I won't bore you with a lot of detail of how I know there was no attempt to deliver, but there wasn't). I am entitled to my money back and so complained. 

I have been going back and forth with RM, with them asking me for info they already have or I have already told them, all wrapped up in profuse apologies, promises to make changes and such nonsense. It has been going on for over 6 weeks now and the latest email from RM tells me to contact the sender for a refund, so they want me to contact myself and ask me to refund myself! The whole complaints process is a waste of time and I shall now be asking for a deadlock letter so that I can go the the Independent Postal Redress Scheme. Whether that will get me anywhere I don't know.

BlueonBlue

Try your luck but RM24 or RM48 are not 24 hour and/or 48 hour services .
Dont ask why ...its how it is .
If you wanted next day you would have to pay even more .

elsien

BlueonBlue said:

Try your luck but RM24 or RM48 are not 24 hour and/or 48 hour services .
Dont ask why ...its how it is .
If you wanted next day you would have to pay even more .

That’s missing the point though that the seller has accepted extra money for the faster RM24 service, but then still used the cheaper slower option. 

Martyn_H

BlueonBlue said:

Try your luck but RM24 or RM48 are not 24 hour and/or 48 hour services .
Dont ask why ...its how it is .
If you wanted next day you would have to pay even more .

They were when I worked for RM but that was six years ago.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Bought an item from a business last Thursday from eBay.  The listing said free 3-day postage via RM48, which I knew might be optimistic and I could have done with it arriving ASAP so paid extra for RM24, thinking if they despatched on Friday it should probably arrive by Saturday, or Monday at the latest.  (I assumed a quick dispatch was possible because they're a business, I wouldn't have expected it from a private seller.)

It arrived today (Thursday), via RM48.  The tracking number was generated on Monday and the item entered Royal Mail's system yesterday (Wednesday).
So while I'm quite miffed it took an entire week and not because of any Royal Mail delays, what really galls is I specifically paid extra for a postage service they didn't use. - that is the main point and what I will be contacting them about.

I will of course contact the seller but my question particularly to sellers on here is, what do you think would be a reasonable outcome for this?  Postage refund? 
It wasn't an awful lot of money but it's the principle, and if they're doing this to everyone who pays extra for faster postage then that would be a scam.

Thanks for any thoughts.

Edited to make main point clear, sorry for the surrounding ramble.

Really they should refund the extra you paid, I guess you could claim SNAD, in fact you can claim SNAD if any purchase arrives after the ETA

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

The item arrived after the latest estimated delivery date

Covered: The return is treated as if the item didn't match the listing.

To get the Premium Service badge on your listing you need to offer an express service for under a tenner, depending upon how orders are processed, or how busy a smaller eBay seller may be, it can be easy to miss a buyer has paid for an express service. 

If you was my buyer I'd say sorry profusely and offer either a refund of the full postage fee or a return at my expense. 

Cloth_of_Gold said:

In mid February I sent two items (one a card and the other a small parcel) on the same day to a friend by RM 24, by 1pm, which cost over £17

Sounds like Special Delivery Rather than RM24 / RMT24 and usually Royal Mail are good at refunding the fee if SD is late, probably you have is the attempted delivery scan and sadly RM CS isn't great.

jon81uk

You didn't get what you paid for, which is express delivery so tell the seller and eBay that. At minimum they should refund the extra postage charge.

pfpf

BlueonBlue said:

Try your luck but RM24 or RM48 are not 24 hour and/or 48 hour services .
Dont ask why ...its how it is .
If you wanted next day you would have to pay even more .

did you read the post?

p00hsticks

Martyn_H said:

BlueonBlue said:

Try your luck but RM24 or RM48 are not 24 hour and/or 48 hour services .
Dont ask why ...its how it is .
If you wanted next day you would have to pay even more .

They were when I worked for RM but that was six years ago.

Nowadays it's just 'we aim to deliver within ...' not 'we commit to deliver within.....'
But as the OP points out, RM did actually meet their aim here.
It's an issue with the sender, not the courier they are quite rightly complaining about.

soolin

Ignoring some of the points that don't seem to relate to the original post....

Firstly it's always worth checking the seller's despatch time, this is a common issue where an upgraded service is used but the seller still has say a 3 day despatch on - so for example even using a next day delivery would mean a delay potentially or 4 or more days. The service used should be taken into account based on the sellers despatch time as well. I still vary between a 2 and a 3 day despatch even on my business account.

Secondly, I admit I have also missed an upgrade before- it's not so easy now if seller prints from ebay as that defaults to the service chosen by the buyer (usually!), if business is using an RM business account though they may not have noticed.

Thirdly, I think it entirely reasonable to ask seller to refund the difference between the service you paid for and the service you received - that should be an absolute given - when a buyer has contacted me in the past I have been mortified to realise I used the wrong service and have refunded the difference immediately without the buyer even needing to ask.

Spoonie_Turtle

Thanks guys, and it's especially helpful to hear it's easy to miss postage upgrades.  I wouldn't have been anything but polite anyway but hearing it may have been a genuine mistake takes some of the annoyance away!