Ebay purchase never arrived due to duplicate tracking number - How to claim?

nikmondo

[Deleted User] said:

I had a similar issue recently. item was sent by DPD, DPD delivered to the wrong address, had pictures and everything, the problem was the person in the picture was not me, and it wasn't my front door either.

tracking said delivered as well, so I raised a dispute with eBay and it got rejected immediately, I was told later by eBay customer services that this happens because the system detects that item was marked as delivered and the system rejects your dispute automatically.

after calling DPD, DPD went back and collected the item, to be redelivered to me, and this showed in the tracking, after all they couldn't find my address somehow, and it was sent back to seller, but seller refused to refund and ignored me. 

then I appealed eBay's decision and got my refund, you can appeal the decision made by eBay through them, but I had to wait 30 days.

 

Royal Mail have sent posties to both addresses to investigate and there's nothing at either address connected to me. I guess you had proof of the item being sent back to the seller which helped you get a refund but unfortunately i don't have that luxury!

Correct but that 30 days are ticking away fast. I think the only thing i'm hoping for is the final written Royal Mail response via email where they admit it's their fault and hopefully ebay will accept that. Royal Mail verbally told me on the phone that the investigation is complete and have admitted fault...but it can take 10 days for the email to arrive.

nikmondo

savergrant said:

When the item was reported as 'out for delivery' did it say the delivery office which was arranging delivery?
Your case is much stronger if it isn't your local one.
Theoretically when a sender uploads a tracking number to ebay, ebay should be able to check the delivery address matches but they don't seem to.

Yes both deliveries mention my local sorting office in Basildon, Essex unfortunately.

nikmondo

Okell said:

Did you not ask the RM customer services guy to explain how 2 different parcels could be issued with the same tracking number?

I mean is it something that could never happen, or is it something that could happen accidentally, or would someone (eg the seller) have to take deliberate action to do this?

At the moment your story sounds a little unlikely, so you really need to get some explanation from RM as to what has happened to support your story.

I presume the seller is a private individual and not a business?

I did, to be honest the manager at the sorting office didn't really seem to confident on knowing how this was possible....i almost gave him the idea about it being a scam to which he said the sender may have photoshopped the tracking number somehow?

Hopefully the investigation email i waiting for from RM will explain what has happened.

The are a private seller, correct.

nikmondo

swingaloo said:

How did the seller get the postage? Was it Simple Delivery on Ebay?

Did the seller perhaps print the same label twice and manually change the address in order to scam you. That's an expensive item to be buying on Ebay. What type of postage did you pay for? The seller should have charged for postage with adequate insurance cover.

It does say "ebay delivery" so i'm guessing it's simple delivery.

And yes, this is what i'd love to know but according to RM the insurance cover is just £75.

nikmondo

robatwork said:

If you remove all the "RM says this, seller says that, ebay says the other" from your story you have this. You paid £750 to someone for something, and you haven't received it.

You can sue them for it. Even a LBA (letter before action) may well be enough to get a refund. You can go through the money claim procedure https://www.moneyclaims.service.gov.uk/make-claim and as you have their name and address, send them (via post and email) the letter or your moneyclaim ready to roll. 

Then claim.

Unfortunately i don't have their address which is a bit of a problem. I doubt ebay would give it to me either to be honest.

nikmondo

born_again said:

robatwork said:

If you remove all the "RM says this, seller says that, ebay says the other" from your story you have this. You paid £750 to someone for something, and you haven't received it.

You can sue them for it. Even a LBA (letter before action) may well be enough to get a refund. You can go through the money claim procedure https://www.moneyclaims.service.gov.uk/make-claim and as you have their name and address, send them (via post and email) the letter or your moneyclaim ready to roll. 

Then claim.

Possible hacked account?
With seller selling same item to several people?

Given duplicated tracking no's. Ebay should be taking more interest in this.

Can OP confirm what item was?

The item was a mobile phone.

nikmondo

sonearandyetsofa said:

In your shoes, the first thing I would do is try to hunt down the sellers' details. If they are selling as a business, you can find their name, address, email address and phone number on their eBay shop page, and at the bottom of the item page. 

Go to the tracking information page that showed you the photo of the package "delivered" and save a screenshot of it or photograph it on your phone. Do the same for the other package if you have two (I wasn't sure from your description there). If the tracking page shows the location of the delivery on a map or with coordinates, take a photo or screenshot of those too. Then take a photo of the outside of your home, and a screenshot/photo of google maps showing your address location. If there's no map on the tracking info you can screenshot/photo the outside of your property on google streetview to show evidence that your parcel wasn't delivered there.

If you have the seller's phone number, I would try calling them. If not, or if you can't get through or they cut you off, send a message. Inform them that you have not received the package, you have proof that it has not been delivered to your address, and that you'd prefer to resolve the matter amicably before you have to take further action. 

If you don't get anywhere with that, report them to Action Fraud. This won't do anything but it will generate a crime reference number. Contact eBay over the phone about your appeal, stating that the seller has committed fraud, you've reported them to the police, you have a crime reference number and proof that the item was never delivered. Keep calm but remind them that they're facilitating a crime/allowing this guy to defraud you. They should provide you with a web address to upload the information to an appeal. Give them all the stuff you've gathered above to prove that the parcel never got to you and that you've reported it as a crime.

If you have the sellers' address details, you can proceed by sending them a letter before action. Basically similar to the message you sent them, but give them a deadline by which you expect a response and state that you'll be taking legal action against them if they do not respond within this timeframe and that the cost of any further action you have to take will be added to the amount you're claiming from them.

At this point you will likely be waiting for a response from eBay or the seller. If you don't have the sellers' information, you're unlikely to be able to get anywhere with a court claim, but it's up to you to decide whether it's worth risking another £50 loss (about that anyway) or not. If it's a true scam, eBay is more likely to respond than the seller is, and they should refund you. If the seller is just trying it on, they should get alarmed and might refund. 

After all that, your next step is unfortunately issuing a money claim online. I've never had to go that far with an eBay claim though, usually by the time you have a crime reference number they become much more helpful.

This looks to be some fantastic advice.

You can't believe how stressful it is to contact ebay and basically have them not believe my story and try brush me off especially when I've already shown them evidence. 

Unfortuntately they are private sellers so their address and tel number are not visible but I shall take the rest of your advice and will fight this all the way. Would Paypal be more helpful than ebay do you think?

I think I need to wait for Royal Mails email once they've finished their investigation and then i'll have office written proof that the item wasn't delivered to my address. 

nikmondo

I just want to say thank you to all the comments so far. You've given me some ideas which I wasn't aware of and I won't give up until i'm completely out of ideas.

savergrant

Can you confirm that it is definitely the same tracking number you checked twice, and that the seller hasn't uploaded a different tracking number between you checking? Also is there any overlap, such as the second parcel being in-transit while the first was out for delivery? If there was you should have seen that when the first parcel was expected.

savergrant

nikmondo said:

swingaloo said:

How did the seller get the postage? Was it Simple Delivery on Ebay?

Did the seller perhaps print the same label twice and manually change the address in order to scam you. That's an expensive item to be buying on Ebay. What type of postage did you pay for? The seller should have charged for postage with adequate insurance cover.

It does say "ebay delivery" so i'm guessing it's simple delivery.

And yes, this is what i'd love to know but according to RM the insurance cover is just £75.

Unfortunately even with simple delivery sellers have a way to avoid using the eBay label and use their own label instead (although they may not be refunded the ebay label cost). Again ebay should be aware that this is a scammer's charter and they should be checking the delivery address before accepting a tracking number.