ebay business sellers / goodwill / WYYD?

[Temp11092017]

It’s moot now, but be interested on seller POV on this, purely out of interest.

• Bought an item (

[19lottie82]

You're problem, if you wanted to cover yourself then you should have sent it recorded delivery - I'm not doing so you accepted the risk that if it went missing you would have to claim from Royal Mail.

A return request won't do any good anyway as you will need to prove delivery, and anyway eBay won't get involved if it's over 30 days after the latest delivery estimate.

I don't see why the seller should bear a goodwill gesture here and be out of pocket?
Just put in a claim with Royal Mail and no one loses out......

[Temp11092017]

Thanks for your thoughts @19lottie82.

Your problem, if you wanted to cover yourself then you should have sent it recorded delivery
Tbh, I’ve never had a problem before now - with any online return via post, not just ebay. They gave me a Freepost returns address, I added Proof of Posting and thought even that would be overkill*. It’s a fair point but everyone has to weigh up the cost:risk of shelling out for recorded vs the low likelihood of it going missing (it was clearly addressed and had my return information on it as well).

A return request won't do any good anyway as you will need to prove delivery
The seller was the one who explicitly told me to open a case (to say the return I had sent had not been received by them), I was just doing as they asked. I assumed at the time it was just “virtual paperwork” for them to keep track of their various customer contacts. Ditto when they said to call ebay customer services when I couldn’t open the case online.

anyway eBay won't get involved if it's over 30 days after the latest delivery estimate.
I know that now and it is what I told the seller when I updated them. They sounded surprised by that (which you would think a pro seller with a substantial ebay business would know).

I don't see why the seller should bear a goodwill gesture here and be out of pocket?
I wasn’t saying they absolutely should do anything, I just thought offering an £8 replacement item might be a nice gesture/show of customer service after they sent me round the houses with trying to open cases; and then asking me to phone ebay (you knew that was pointless straightaway so it’s reasonable to think they should have as well?); and also with me having to chase them up and down to confirm if they had received my item after I (also proactively) confirmed I had sent it and they should expect it.

Just put in a claim with Royal Mail and no one loses out......
Yes I am going to, as per my OP. I also said to the seller that they may want to contact RM themselves, as if their mail is not being delivered and they are paying for Freepost, that is not on for them either.

(As I say, it’s not the end of the world and I will just buy a replacement, but it won’t be with them. I’m sure they’ll cope with the tragedy of losing a customer )

• googling now I see there are "ex PO workers" claiming on various consumer fora that you can't even add recorded to Freepost addresses, but there are contradictory posts saying you can, so who knows!

[ImaLannister]

The tone of how you are writing this is all off. No one us going to reply to you because it's like your shouting at us with the black bold. You need to chill out a bit

[Temp11092017]

Sorry @ImaLannister - I only put two words in bold to distinguish them from the rest of the words; and only used bold because the comment I was replying to was italicised. I didn't realise bold was frowned upon on this particular board, when its used everywhere across MN without issue?

I am perfectly fine, as I keep saying, it's not a big deal in my life, I was just interested to get another seller POV for a situation I thought was a bit unusual in the way they handled it. No cause for concern for my health I assure you!

[DoesAnyoneReadTheseThings]

If you paid with PayPal you have 90 days to open a case through them rather than the 30 days eBay give you.

[nauticant]

True but to get the benefit of that the OP would have needed to have sent the item back using a service providing an online confirmation of delivery.

Once the item has gone back untracked and the seller says they didn't receive it that's the end of the matter as far as ebay and Paypal are concerned.

[19lottie82]

does no point in opening a PayPal case either, to win it the OP will need to prove an attempt at delivery has been made when returning the goods to the seller (aside from the fact that anything you purchase with PayPal doesn't have a warranty as such, you're just protected from an item being misdescribed or faulty at the point when you receive it)

[19lottie82]

PS actually I forgot to mention that OP, ebay purchases don't come with a warranty as such..... just a promise that the items will not be misdescribed at the time of receipt, and you have 30 days to submit your claim.

So if you bought something that worked fine for 2 weeks then stopped working, technically you're not covered by eBay or PayPal!

[AllToadsLeadToHome]

Some of the postage services now include a unique no. which can be tracked by RM. Have a look on your receipt. It does depend on whether the delivering postie has completed it though. If you can ask the Post Office or Royal Mail about that and you find it is shown to be delivered you might have some luck with PayPal.

This sounds to me like someone who knows exactly how things work and how to dodge paying out. Do you have time to leave an update on your feedback left? Sometimes there is a way to do this even when it looks as if you can't. You have to go round in many circles to get there.

If they are a well known company there might be other sites to leave a review. And you can also review things on Ebay.

[AllToadsLeadToHome]

ImaLannister Mon 11-Sep-17 21:55:23
The tone of how you are writing this is all off. No one us going to reply to you because it's like your shouting at us with the black bold. You need to chill out a bit grin

It is a way to emphasise words to make them clear, I have no issue with it whereas if it had been in capitals I would not have read it.

[Temp11092017]

Thank you for the further thoughts.

@DoesAnyoneReadTheseThings If you paid with PayPal you have 90 days to open a case through them rather than the 30 days eBay give you.
Sadly it is outside that timeframe too, and as @19lottie82 says, I'd need to have used trackable post too.

@19lottie82 PS actually I forgot to mention that OP, ebay purchases don't come with a warranty as such..... just a promise that the items will not be misdescribed at the time of receipt, and you have 30 days to submit your claim.
Thank you. It was actually ebay CS who got a bit obsessed with their own moneyback guarantee and I told her about 5 times that was not what I was asking about! (Call centre seems very very strictly scripted, down to the precise sentences they quote, so I think she was valiantly trying to mould my non-standard query into a template even though it didn't apply)

@AllToadsLeadToHome This sounds to me like someone who knows exactly how things work and how to dodge paying out. Do you have time to leave an update on your feedback left? Sometimes there is a way to do this even when it looks as if you can't. You have to go round in many circles to get there.
Possibly. But it would have been a lot easier for them to just say no from the outset, so I would like to believe it was ignorance before malice! I left them feedback after I got the item and it had been working fine for a while. I was quite surprised it failed actually, as it is a large brand name I have several of over the years and never had an issues before.

Again, thank you all for taking the time to post. I have sorted out a claim with RM and it looks like I should get a refund of the full amount anyway as I have all the relevant evidence etc.

[inconspicuousrhino]

Really not sure why you would want the seller to pay for the error of Royal Mail?

Does that not strike you as unfair?