What would you do - damaged parcel

[Howmanyroses]

I sold a pricey boardgame to someone on Facebook (via PayPal), used InPost to deliver to their house. The game arrived damaged, the box must have been stepped on, so even though the damage on the outside was minimal, it was kind of squashed, the gamebox inside has one of the corners destroyed. Inpost didn't accept any liability insisting not their fault based on the outer box appearance and the fact that it wasn't too bashed up. The buyer now wanted to return the game and won't accept any compensation for the damage. I can't help but think that it not my fault, so why should I accept a return? I sold the game for £80 but once I comes back to me it's no longer saleable in this condition, so should I assume all of the responsibility in this situation, suck it up and accept the return? What would you do?

Tricky. It’s not in the condition they paid for so why should they lose out? I agree you shouldn’t be out of pocket though, I’ve seen people take full videos of them wrapping items and handing them over or putting in the lockers because of things like this (& buyers claiming a worthless item was sent instead).

Do you think there’s a chance they damaged it further purposely to get a refund, or do you think it was genuinely damaged that much by the courier?

They will ask PayPal for a refund and open a dispute I imagine, all you can do is state the facts and see which way they decide.

I would accept the return and take things further with the courier. It’s not the receivers fault and they shouldn’t be out of pocket. Go through the complaint process and ask for compensation.

I did go through the claims process with inpost already but they said that because the outer box doesn't look as damaged, they don't think it's their fault, so they closed the claim.

She is going to return the game, so I don't know why she would have purposefully damaged it, except maybe by accident. The thing that confused me is that she only flagged up the damage nearly a week after the game was delivered - wouldn't you report something like this right away after receiving a damaged parcel?

I learnt a lesson when I sent a picture and somewhere during transition someone threw a javelin at it which punctured the outer packaging and went through the picture and out the other side.

Well, maybe not a javelin but that’s what it looked like and my buyer was most upset

I thought I had packaged it securely just like you did but the truth is it was not adequately wrapped to prevent damage.

I've since watched films where the parcels are slung around whilst being sorted and learnt my lesson to use bombproof packaging.

I’m afraid you will have to suck this one up as I did.

I don't know why she would have purposefully damaged it, except maybe by accident. The thing that confused me is that she only flagged up the damage nearly a week after the game was delivered - wouldn't you report something like this right away after receiving a damaged parcel?

Because they regret spending that amount and they want their money back, saying it’s damaged is a sure way to ensure you get a refund from somewhere (courier, PayPal, you -they don’t care who).

The fact it took nearly a week to mention is especially suss. Yes you would normal report straight away. They could have spent the best part of the week using it, deciding they don’t like it and have paid too much so want their money back.

15 years spent on customer service desk doing returns-I’ve seen a lot of shit that people pull just so they can get refunded ‘because it was like that when I bought it’ 🙄 like errr no. That parasol pole was not all scuffed and chipped when you bought it, neither was the table or you would have noticed when loading it into the car last week. Refunding them when you know damn well they left it out in the wind, the parasol blew over and bashed the table is so frustrating, but in retail you can’t accuse customers of out and out lying unfortunately. Cashmere jumper with bleach damage -sure, it was like that when you bought it and you didn’t notice. As you can tell it’s made me cynical