To want a refund from Etsy seller

[sapphicy]

I ordered a piece of jewellery from Etsy for my niece which was due via Royal Mail special delivery on 8th May, unfortunately my DP missed the delivery so we asked for it to be delivered to local post office and it was due there on 9th May.

One week later no update at all on Royal Mail tracking and the occasion the item was ordered for has now been and gone, so I asked for a refund from the seller on Etsy.

At first he just said he won’t refund on the basis my DP missed the delivery. Then he said he will refund if he gets the item back but is refusing to look into it with Royal Mail and told me that’s my problem. I called the post office and they said they don’t have it. Seller has now also closed his Etsy shop until 24th May and put a message up saying messages will not be responded to during that time, he also explained that even if it does turn up I can’t return the item now as it needs a signature and he won’t be there to sign.

I have opened a case with Etsy and waiting to see if they will refund me, assume Royal Mail have cocked up here and lost the item. If they don’t refund me I will have to try a chargeback via Amex.

Any advice on what to do here? It wasn’t a custom item just off the shelf, value £200, and postage was free, AIBU to want a full refund at this point and seller can sort it out with Royal Mail? I feel like the seller is doing everything possible to keep my money regardless of what happens to the item and I’m starting to panic Etsy are going to side with the seller.

If you have opened a case with Etsy due to non delivery then Etsy will refund you. The seller has no choice in the matter at all. He has all the responsibility of getting the item to you.

If he had refunded you, and the item was lost in Royal Mail, he would have been massively out of pocket due to your error. Claiming from Royal Mail for lost items takes ages in situations like this as they do all they can to wiggle out of it - I'm still waiting for a refund from something lost over a month ago.

Going through Etsy is the right approach, and the one I always ask customers to use. This way, Etsy will refund them and the seller should still keep the money from their order - no one ends up out of pocket. This is why they have a purchase protection programme.

https://help.etsy.com/hc/en-gb/articles/7471925990807-Etsy-s-Purchase-Protection-Programme?segment=shopping

Please do bear this in mind in the future - the Purchase Protection Programme is there to protect sellers and buyers 😊

N.B - don't under-estimate how much time can go into creating jewellery. I have quite a few Etsy seller friends, and even their basic 'off-the-shelf' stuff can take easily 10+ hours to produce. Once you factor in their labour, and cost of materials...profits can be pretty small. Which is again why the Purchase Protection Programme exists.

So you want a refund because your DNiece missed a delivery, and Royal Mail have lost it somewhere. How is any of this the seller’s fault?

How is the delivery being missed at your end any fault of the seller? This kind of behaviour is exactly why I’ve pretty much stopped selling handmade things online. There are too many people around these days who don’t know how life works.

Just resell it.

The seller should have sent by RM with insurance up to the amount it cost them to produce so it's up to them to claim from RM. As a seller I've had to do this and it does take a lot of persistence with RM but that's why you buy the insurance when posting.
Not on the buyer at all to be out of pocket.
I will say RM do take a good while to deliver back to the POs though, even when they say it's ready to collect its not, so it may still turn up

Legally it IS the seller’s issue, surely, until they have a receipt for delivery? - the contract with the delivery agent is with them. People can’t be expected to be in every hour of the day to wait for couriers, and let’s face it even if you pop out for just 10 minutes, that’s ALWAYS when they turn up.

How the hell is it the sellers fault? Your niece would have had the tracking and knew when it was coming. The seller did HIS part and got it to you safely.

YOU then decided to redirect it to sorting off and RM lost it.

This is not the sellers fault.

Mm, how is it the sellers fault that you failed to be in to receive delivery? I think if you're expecting an important delivery of a valuable item, you absolutely can be expected to be in waiting for it!

The reason you didn't have the gift to give at the appropriate time is your fault, therefore there are no grounds to return.

The seller does have the right to put his shop on 'holiday' mode and is absolutely right to inform you not to return whilst he's on holiday as there is no one there to sign for the item. Thats not him trying to wiggle out of anything, thats bloody common sense. Did you expect him to cancel his holiday in order to be there to receive the order you've changed your mind over?

RM are a pain in the backside and I don't think the sender can actively chase anything for quite some time and the recipient has to do some of the chasing too. I have had to chase up items that are sitting waiting for a customs fee to be paid (Which has a time limit on it before they're sent back to sender), that RM haven't bothered to let me know are waiting for a fee to be paid (nor let the sender know either!).

I think it was DP not OP''s niece that missed the delivery.

Just talk to Amex - they will sort it out for you quickly. They're always brilliant dealing with this type of thing.

So because we missed the first delivery attempt and asked to have it sent to our local post office for collection the following day, we deserve to lose £200?

Correct DP missed the first attempt at delivery, she was working from home and they knocked rather than pressing the ring unfortunately

This is definitely down to the Etsy seller to resolve.
The OP has done nothing wrong. She missed delivery and asked for it to be redelivered to the local office - one of the options she was likely to have been given on receipt of the sorry we missed you card.
What the seller would be able to do is put in a claim with royal mail (they will have to wait a certain length of time to ensure it is lost) and then they will be refunded. Presumably they sent the item in a way that covered the cost of the item it shouldn't be an issue.
I am guessing this is why they are being funny about it and maybe they didn't cover the cost of the item.

Of course you're not unreasonable. The usual order of things is, seller refunds you, Royal Mail refunds him. If he didn't have it appropriately insured for delivery, that's on him. You did nothing unreasonable.

Thanks for answering the query, so if I open a case Etsy will basically pay out to me, and the seller can then claim against royal mail? It wasn’t handmade for what it’s worth, it was a vintage gold bracelet they’ve resold, they sell vintage jewellery

So you think the seller, who hasn’t made any mistake at all, should lose out?

Yes I’m quite taken aback how many people think that missing one delivery means it’s fair that the seller should make double profit and I lose £200. Thanks

Their chosen courier is at fault so they will need to claim compensation from them. That is what would happen if the parcel had been lost before the delivery attempt. Why would Royal Mail no longer be responsible for what happens to a parcel after their first attempt at delivering it

It’s unfortunate the delivery was missed but the comments blaming you for this are odd and incorrect with regard to buying/selling online. The seller (or etsy?) has the “contract” with Royal Mail for the item to reach the destination correctly so they are the ones who need to make the claim with Royal Mail to get the refund if they have lost it.

think of it the other way round, if I buy something from a small business and pay to return it (as opposed to a large company with a free post label), if the item is lost in transit there’s no way the business would refund me. This is why I would always pay for the appropriate insurance for more expensive items when I arrange postage.

essentially whoever arranges the postage needs to ensure the correct insurance/coverage and they must make the claim with the courier. In this case that’s definitely not you and you should not be out of pocket and are not unreasonable for putting in the refund request!

The mistake is by the carrier. If the seller didn't buy enough insurance the mistake is with the seller. Either way, nothing is the purchaser's fault and she will receive her refund.

I used to buy stuff regularly on Etsy. I eventually learned my lesson and deleted the app.
I once ordered a handmade skirt. It was weeks and weeks delayed. Seller just kept saying Please bear with me. Then eventually came back and said she’d broken her wrist but don’t worry her sister was working on it. Item eventually arrived. It was a state. I can sew better myself. Argued back and forth because she would only do a return but the postage would have cost me more than keeping it. Etsy wouldn’t let me leave a negative review.
Another seller from Poland charged me for delivery but had a friend who was living in my country quite near to me deliver the package to me. It had no stamps etc. It was very poor quality and I wanted to arrange a return and she said fine, she would send some guy to my house. I said I don’t want random guy coming to my house and so she refused to do a return. Etsy again were no help.
A handful of times, it was straightforward, but more often than not I had some difficulty or other buying stuff from Etsy and they are extremely frustrating in the way they handle disputes.
I ended up out of pocket multiple times.
One time the seller just outright took my money then never sent the item and all that happened in the end was Etsy banned them. I never got refunded.
Never buy anything from Etsy, especially anything expensive. I know that doesn’t help you now but for the future, this sort of thing is par for the course on there.

Why are people blaming the op here? Ive had stuff lost by amazon, they refunded me. Im sure if she was saying it was amazon or a big company you would all be saying amazon should refund. Its not OPs fault that royal mail have lost the item, even if its a redelivery.

Ive done charge back on my bank when something didnt arrive, attached multiple emails I sent that went unanswered. Once I did the charge back the item magically arrived 2 weeks later with the seller blaming me.... I dont think they sent it originally and thought I would give up trying.

Bit weird to be so critical when you can't even read the post correctly. The niece wasn't involved in any way with the delivery.

Special delivery doesn't mean that you're told the exact time something will arrive, just that it needs to be signed for when it does. I'm sure the people criticising you haven't hand received every single letter and parcel they've ever been sent! It's perfectly normal to 'miss' a parcel just from being at work, out the back garden, in the shower, on the loo, because you had music/tv on, were changing baby's nappy...etc.

I think you've made a rod for your own back in saying DP 'missed' the delivery OP, there would have been less chance for people to pile on if you'd just said the delivery was supposed to go to the PO - doesn't matter if it's a re-delivery or that was the original destination, it's still RM who have fucked up, so they are at fault. RM's contract is with the seller, not the buyer, so the only possible person who can chase it up is the seller.

It doesn't mean it's the seller's "fault" as such, but they were the one who chose to send via RM, so it's their responsibility for the parcel to get there. Until the parcel gets a signature, it's their issue. As pps have said, this is exactly why they sell via etsy in the first place - for the insurance.

Have you gone down to the sorting office to ask them to check it's definitely not there waiting for you? Sometimes they don't update the tracking info. If it has gone missing, then yes of course you should put in a claim through Etsy. I do think you should be patient with the seller if they have sent the item out and it was delivered on time originally. I think it's reasonable of him to ask you to wait to return the item until after he's come back from his break, assuming it does turn up.

I checked with the post office and they said they did not have it and that the sender needed to look into it, which he is refusing to do unfortunately.

I can’t return the item as I don’t have it, it’s likely been lost and waiting only weakens my case if I do need to do a chargeback. Even if it does turn up, I don’t feel like I can collect it now as if I send it back and he isn’t there or refuses the return (which it seems like he is the sort of person who would) then where does that leave me, it will end up coming back to me again.