eBay: item didn't arrive - sellers refunds keep getting cancelled - a bit complicated!

[Geronimo1]

I bought an item (item A) via eBay auction on 2nd September 2012 to upgrade one I already owned (item B which I was selling also by eBay auction to end on 9th September).

 

The seller informed me that item A had been sent on 3rd September by 24 hour courier and should arrive on 4th or 5th September at the latest. By 6th September item A had not arrived.The seller contacted courier who said that it was at a depot about 30 miles away but when I phoned the depot, they informed me both by phone and e-mail that there was no record of the consignment nor any deliveries due for my address.

 

On 9th September, the auction for my item B (which I was upgrading) ended and I shipped it on 10th September and was then without something I had been using daily up until that point. On 13th September, the seller agreed to refund me on the basis that item A appeared to have been lost and attempted to do so but needed to confirm their PayPal account and asked me to wait until they had received their confirmation deposits. This he had to do twice for some reason.

 

Being assured that I was being refunded and in need of the item I placed a bid on and won another (item C) via eBay to replace mine (item B) as the one I had bought (item A) seemed by all accounts to be lost. The second item (item C) arrived on 15th September. As a safeguard because the seller's PayPal difficulties seemed a bit odd and because I did not want to end up with two items, I opened a case.

 

On 17th September, after several attempts the seller issued a refund by PayPal which had a note on it stating that it was pending until 21st September. On 18th September (15 days after item A was sent - supposedly by 24 hour delivery), a courier arrived with a package which he asked me to sign for on a wrinkled scrap of plain paper which I did as I had been expecting another delivery. When I saw the box, I realised that it was the first item (item A) I bought which was believed lost. I informed the courier that the item should be returned. He said that reason it had not been delivered was that the paperwork had been lost.

 

I informed the seller who was relieved that the item (item A) was being returned to them. They then told me that as they had sent it using a courier through their employer that they wanted me to deny any knowledge of the delivery should their employer phone. This didn't happen but I agreed to it anyway.

 

On 21st September, instead of the payment clearing, the note said, 'Returned'. I spoke to PayPal who told me that this was because the seller's bank refused to release funds. When I informed seller, another refund was issued which said pending until 28th September but today, 28th September this payment has also been returned.

 

I phoned PayPal who referred me to eBay and was told that if I escalated my case (which I have done) they would find against me because the item had arrived even though I had not accepted it despite the fact that the seller is on record as offering me a refund and that the refund has been initiated twice and that the item had been returned to them.

 

I am now £105 down. But what I find additionally frustrating is that if I buy using PayPal, the money is taken from my account the next day whereas if I am being issued a refund it takes a week.

 

But this cannot be right, surely?!

[renegadeimp]

Paypal up to their usual tricks again by the sounds of it.

[Geronimo1]

Well, I appreciate that but is there nothing I can do?

 

The seller has the item and my money.

 

Incidentally, it didn't help that the people I spoke to on the phone did not really understand what I was saying.

[Geronimo1]

Oh, and the courier who lost the package and who use scraps of plain paper as delivery documents is Night Freight.

[renegadeimp]

You need to issue a formal complaint to paypal and get their side of the story. Then you need to give the seller one last chance, possibly in the form of an lba. Then head to small claims court if everything else falls flat. I'm sure he doesnt want a claim against him which could include possible court action.

 

So the steps you need to take as you already have some of the story are:

 

• Contact paypal inwriting, and get the full information on the refund/selling scenario.
  
  
• Depending on the outcome, contact the seller politely, advise them of what paypal have said, and give them 7-14 days to refund your money in full.
  
  
• If the seller doesnt cooperate, or makes excuses ( his story does seem far-fetched so far), then consider issuing an lba to force him to refund.
  
  
• If he fails to respond, use MCOL.
  
  

 

The only reason i say this is because my father buys a lot of things on ebay and sells things too. We usually have to chase a good amount of buyers and sellers around, as there are a lot of people who are there purely to rip you off, and will give you every story under the sun.

 

Unfortunately for them, my father has heard almost every fairytale they can dream up.

[Geronimo1]

Thanks for that, I'll keep it up my sleeve. It took me a while to figure out what LBA and MCOL meant.

 

I actually think the seller is just inexperienced because they tried to save money shipping the item through work but they said it cost them almost £35 (even though they only charged me £5) when I sent mine it cost £4.99.

 

I think it is a series of cock-ups rather than somebody trying to rip me off; the seller themselves, the courier, the seller's bank and then eBay/PayPal just come in at the end to add their final topping of manure.

 

I know it makes no sense to appeal here but the seller has had my money for four weeks and I really need it right now to pay a bill from somebody who is breathing down my neck.

[renegadeimp]

Thats why you need to get the right information, and give a seller a last chance to refund. He has your money, so he can easily do a bank transfer or write a cheque.

[Geronimo1]

Yes, I've sent my bank details and will wait to see if there is a response by, say, Tuesday then I will go into ICBM mode.

[IdaInFife]

Can you confirm........when item A eventually arrived .....you gave back to courier?

[Geronimo1]

When you say, 'confirm', do you mean, am I sure or have I got proof?

 

I know it was the 18th for sure because I sent the seller a message via eBay within about 30 minutes.

 

But there was no paperwork other than the scrap of plain paper which the courier had me sign and then scribbled out my signature and wrote that I'd refused to accept it.

 

Anyway, as an update, the seller has contacted me and said he is sending a cheque. I only hope it clears quickly so that I can put this fiasco behind me.

[Geronimo1]

No cheque arrived. I have just sent a message that I am taking this very seriously and will be taking legal steps.

 

Do I need the seller's address to use MCOL? When I asked for their contact details from eBay/PayPal, all I got was their phone number and e-mail address.

[renegadeimp]

Yes. To use MCOL, you need to be certain that the Person you are claiming against is a resident in the UK. If you dont use an address, and the opposing party gets a CCJ, it would be very easy for them to get it set aside due to them not receiving the documents or have any knowledge of the claim.

[stu007]

Hi

 

When you raised your dispute about this item purchased from EBay did you go through EBays Dispute Resolution Process.

 

*You raise your Dispute.

*Ebay contact you with a date to try and resolve with seller.

*Ebay then contact you on given date to confirm if seller has responded.

*If you confirm seller has not responded Ebay escalate this to Customer Resolution Team for a decision.

*Ebay then confirm whether in your favour and refund as you paid via Paypal refund via Paypal.

*The Paypal Refund is always Pending in your Paypal account until the refund is actually taken from the persons account. (the issue you have with this which is so open to fraud is that the seller may already have cleared that bank account so if there are no funds in it then paypal cannot refund the money).

 

Another avenue to look at with the seller is have a close look at the sellers feedback and see what has been said in the neutral and negative feedback.

(this I recently used against a seller that had done something similar to your seller but with all the negative feedback stating the same thing about sellers action, classic is ebay have recently removed that seller from ebay).

 

A word of caution on purchasing from Ebay is to ensure that you use the ".co.uk" website and not the ".com" which is outside europe so giving you have less protection of your rights as a buyer.

[Geronimo1]

There have been some developments which relate to both the above answers. Rather than try to address each point, I'll just run through it chronologically as I'm sure the relevant points will be obvious.

 

The cheque which was supposed to have been posted on Monday did not arrive. I informed the seller of this and told them that if the funds were not in my account by close of business tomorrow (Thursday) I would be taking legal steps to recover the money as I felt I was left with no alternative. I gave them my bank details again to make a direct transfer which I am certain is possible over the phone with any UK current account.

 

I called eBay/PayPal and asked for the seller's address in order to prepare legal recovery via MCOL. They refused to give it. I protested that the seller had my address, why shouldn't I have theirs? I explained that they had issued two refunds via PayPal both of which had ultimately been refused by their bank. I was told that I should report the issue to my local police station. I told them that there was no way that my local police are going to waste time even raising paperwork on something like this. I stated that if they did not give me the seller's address I would include in my claim that eBay had been unco-operative.

 

I was then referred to another 'resolution specialist' who told me that she was going to make a decision there and then on the case and that she had decided in my favour. I was assured that the money would be credited to my account within 24 hours - however, I have had no e-mail confirmation of this. I had been told on Friday that a decision would be made within 48 hours but was told on Monday that more time was needed.

 

The seller contacted me to offer to send another cheque but I have not responded.

 

The seller has a feedback score of 14 and no neutral or negative feedback (yet!).

 

I always use the UK site. I won't go into details but I'm pretty net savvy. I've been on eBay since 2001 and I have scripts I use to search eBay's UK site exclusively.

[stu007]

Hi

 

What is ringing alarms bells to me is you paid seller via paypal so refund should be via paypal in the dispute so why is the seller offering cheques to refund which still have to clear or is he going to tell ebay cheque has been sent to end dispute but you still have to wait for cheque to acutally clear in your account.

 

With Ebay deciding in your Favour still does not hold much steam as all they will do is since it was paid via paypal is process the refund via paypal again and well you know it will state again "PENDING" until the funds if seller has any have cleared from seller account.

[renegadeimp]

Paypal are notorious for not refunding or theyll come up with every excuse possible not to refund. Remember, they had legal action taken against them a while ago because their site was used for extensive money laundering and paypal didnt do anything to stop it. Mainly because paypal got a cut of each transfer.

[Geronimo1]

It's eBay who pay the refund if a case decision is in the buyer's favour and the seller cannot pay. It is then up to eBay to chase up the money from the seller.

 

That aside, I was told yesterday that I would receive a refund within 24 hours but I haven't and the case is still marked as open. I just phoned them and was told that the case is closed but that there is some system failure which is holding things up and that payment will take up to a further 72 hours. I informed them that if the payment is not in my account, I will be cancelling my direct debit to eBay which will mean that the fees I owe them (currently just over £50) will not be paid because I am not prepared to go overdrawn to pay them when I am owed money - a note to that effect was made on my account.

 

But even if I get the refund, I am sick to death of this transaction - it has consumed so much time and energy, I feel drained by it.

[Geronimo1]

In the seconds since I made the last post, I have been refunded and the money is being transferred from my PayPal account to my bank account.

[renegadeimp]

WEll done for getting a half decent resolution. Just be careful that the money doesnt get refunded again.

[Geronimo1]

And it's now in my bank account!

[Geronimo1]

Just be careful that the money doesnt get refunded again.

 

How do you mean?

[renegadeimp]

As with all banks, the originator can still mark the transaction as unauthorised and claim it back. The same happens when you get a chargeback from your bank. If it gets contested, it gets locked down.

[Geronimo1]

Yes, but as I mentioned earlier, it is eBay who have made the refund - not the seller. They will now take up the case with them to recover their losses.

[deannatrois]

Well done for persisting with this case.., but I have to be honest, there is no way I'd have agreed to so many false attempts to get a refund. One is enough. If that one goes wrong, then its straight to opening a case with both paypal and ebay (at the same time) so one way or another I'd get my money back asap. It could have saved u a bit of time.

 

Re the comments about refunds from paypal. I've only had problems with refunds in one purchase out of hundreds., and I learned from it and was a lot more careful with selecting who I bought from ever since. I've not had a problem since then. I think if paypal were so notoriously difficult to get refunds from.., I'd have experienced more problems more often with the amount of purchases I've made. I'm afraid, usually problems are caused by buyers not following ebay's advice or from not being net savvy enough. However, I will say that paypal are a lot more difficult with sellers (and yes, I've been one of those too!)

[Geronimo1]

Just for the record, I am about 70% buyer and 30% seller.

 

But in response to you, deannatrois, if you read my opening post, you will see that I actually opened a case before the first attempted refund just in case the item arrived after I had bought another one.

 

I have only had one other experience anywhere near as bad as this when I bought a large item which needed dissembling and packing well but had been thrown into a box and as a result was badly damaged. I actually got compensated by the carrier even though it was 100% the seller's fault.

 

Every other problem I have had has been settled quickly and in my favour when a case has been opened.