Aibu to not refund this buyer?

[Sellerseller1]

Have an online website selling handmade items.

Buyers item was shipped with royal mail tracked delivery, tracking info says it was delivered to a safe place.

Customer has now emailed to say item must have been stolen from said safe place and therefore they want me to refund.

Aibu to say no? I have sympathy if it genuinely was stolen but firstly I can't just refund everyone who messages to say something has been stolen with no evidence it actually has been and secondly, I've fulfilled my obligation in that it's been sent and marked as delivered on the tracking page.

If they come back and it seems they are actually telling the truth I.e. trying to correspond with royal mail/ the police then I may as a gesture of good will replace it but I don't think I need to straight away? (Or even at all technically).

Fwiw item wasn't cheap and took a lot of work.

"Don’t think this is fair to the customer. The customer s bought something and chosen from the seller is offering. It’s up to the seller to provide the right amount of protection in the event of the item going missing. If there is difference then the seller has to be the one paying up the difference."

I disagree with this. The customer chose a cheaper method of delivery, from the selection offered, and may now have to accept the consequences of that.

Why is the seller responsible if the buyer didn't want to pay for insurance or chose an unwise safe place?

Obviously different if RM ignored the safe place instruction and left it somewhere else, or delivered to the wrong address.

Also, it’s legally incorrect if the buyer hadn’t chosen a safe place. The courier is an agent of the seller so unless the courier has delivered it to the specific safe place in the delivery instructions, it legally has been lost by the seller and he / she has to replace it or compensate the buyer in full.

Because as others are saying the customer is not the customer of the delivery company but the seller.
op hasn’t anyway how much the item is worth that is lost so could be it’s less than £20

@Sellerseller1 youve got the tracking number, you can go online and see the information- there should be a photo?

YABU. What Royal Mail service was it (they have different levels orlf coverage) and what exactly does the tracking page say? Is there a photo?

I disagree with this. The customer chose a cheaper method of delivery, from the selection offered, and may now have to accept the consequences of that.

The cost is irrelevant. The courier still needs to deliver the parcel.

Why is the seller responsible if the buyer didn't want to pay for insurance or chose an unwise safe place?

Because that's the law!

OP you could inform your customer that you will compensate when you have been compensated.

Lol. You can inform the buyer whatever shite you want, but the buyer has not received their item and has not been compensated for the money that they spent. That is effectively the same as stealing the buyer's money.

If a seller told me to 'wait' until they had been compensated (wtaf?) I would immediately start the notification process to small claims court. And I would be guaranteed to win because the law is on my side.

What seller needs to do is refund or send another item. THEN they can claim for compensation in THEIR time, not the buyer's.

https://www.royalmail.com/business/delivery-solutions/safeplace

it appears the buyer tells the seller the safe place. That is then attached to the parcel by the seller. See the FAQ section of the link. No mention of stolen parcels in that section though.

I never mention a safe place because I don’t see how anything left unsecured is safe. I regularly get large parcels dumped at my front door (quiet area but in a large town).

Or via the app if it was posted using specific postal types.

• Free service for Royal Mail 24 & 48 and Tracked 24 & 48 customers

This extract is from compare the market website. It is why I will never nominate a safe place (other than my neighbour - who I am also happy to take parcels in for).

The retailer is responsible for delivering a parcel safely to you. If it’s stolen, you should contact them to arrange a refund or replacement.
But if you told the courier to leave your parcel in a safe place, then you’re responsible for it going missing or being stolen.

@Haffiana

Lol. You can inform the buyer whatever shite you want, but the buyer has not received their item and has not been compensated for the money that they spent. That is effectively the same as stealing the buyer's money.

Hardly. The seller has sent the item and it has been delivered. How is that stealing? OP has only got their word that they haven't got it.

OP needs to talk to Royal Mail and also find out about the buyers safe space. I wouldn't jump to refunding without doing some legwork first. I meant/should have said compensate when you know you will be compensated, which I suspect will be the case.

You could go down the Small Claims Court route (starting by sending the seller a letter and giving them time), but by the time it comes through this would probably be resolved and be a waste of your time

This is a Royal Mail issue but as the sender using Royal Mail you have to claim from them. RM contract with you. But to be honest I really wouldn't bother I had loads of stuff "go missing" and never had a successful claim with them - best I had was a book of stamps back in the day when that was a cheap answer.

I find RM very poor from this aspect.

Didn't say what I would do - I think you have to refund or resend which eve suits you best - but maybe use a different service or deliver to a box where they collect etc

As you say from your own experience, RM routinely ignore that. The postman picks a random ‘safe space’ which in my case is on the doorstep in full view of passers-by and for some is in the bin on collection day(!), leaves it there and marks it as ‘delivered to safe place’.

Legally, unless the item is left in a safe place actually chosen by the buyer (or handed to said buyer), the OP is liable since the package has not been delivered and the courier was acting as her agent.

I simply wouldn’t buy from a seller who wanted the delivery service THEY chose to be at MY risk.

Delivery is a major problem, especially if you live in a busy street in a busy area. All of my neighbours have had parcels, sometimes expensive, go missing. I would normally only buy if there’s a signed for option or click and collect. I broke my own rule at the weekend but - lesson learned - I won’t do that again.

I have some sympathy for the drivers as they seem to be under a lot of pressure time-wise but it’s down to Royal Mail to employ enough drivers to ensure an efficient service.

Imo Royal Mail shouldn’t be allowed to decide a “safe place” and just dump it there. That’s not delivery.

Just came home to find RM have dumped an parcel behind a wheelie bin at the front of my house, easily accessible and visible from the road in the pissing rain and marked it as delivered to my safe place as if I would ever choose that location. I thought of this thread and OP's and others' unreasonableness.

Did the RM courier take a photo of the item in the chosen safe place? If so, it's the buyers problem.

If not, ask the RM to prove they delivered it.

That’s not the OP’s fault though. How is OP expected to control Royal Mail?

If the buyer agreed a safe place with the delivery company and the item was left in the agreed safe place, then it is not the sellers responsibility.

If the buyer never agreed a safe place and the item has not been delivered then it is the sellers responsibility to fulfil the contract and either refund or send another item.

Legally, RM is an agent of the seller until the item is either handed to the buyer or it is put in a safe place chosen by the buyer (not by RM themselves).

It doesn’t matter whose ‘fault’ it is - the law is clear. If RM do something stupid with the package, that’s legally OP doing something stupid with the package and she has to refund / replace.

The tracking information indicates that the package was delivered successfully to the address provided by the buyer. But now the buyer claims that she never received it and it was probably stolen from her porch or whatever. So she wants a refund. But in reality, the buyer wants this item for free. I don't believe that the buyer didn't receive the item. She's just trying to cheat the seller.

Op, do NOT issue this fraudster a refund, and block her from buying from your store again.

She's not, but as the seller, she's responsible for making sure her items reach their destination.

If they don't, then she needs to either send out a replacement or offer a refund to her customers, and then claim her own costs back from the courier.

I used to sell items online as part of my business - it was my responsibility to choose a courier I was happy with and to make sure I had the right insurance in case a parcel went missing or got damaged in transit.

Legally, the OP is responsible unless the item was:

1. Handed to the buyer; or
2. Left in a safe place chosen by the buyer (not a so called safe place chosen by RM).

Delivering it ‘to the address’ is legally not sufficient for the OP to escape liability. It doesn’t matter what she ‘believes’ happened.

Op, the seller, did not make up the mailing address !? She sent the package to the address that the buyer told her to send it to and the tracking info confirms that it arrived at that address. Op is not responsible for what happened to it after it reached it's intended destination. And she has proof that it did, indeed, reach the destination. There is no proof that it was stolen.

OP is responsible if it was left somewhere other than a safe place, or handed to someone.

Just because it's not Amazon, or John Lewis, or ASOS doesn't make the seller any less responsible.

Couriers need to stop putting deliveries in random places, the fact that they do is not the responsibility of someone who is not their customer.