Can someone tell me the exact process for dealing with an item that a seller says was sent but hasn't arrived please?

[CantSleepWontSleep]

Bought item on 3rd April. They haven't marked it as despatched at all, so I waited until the delivery estimate had passed and then contacted them to ask if there was a reason it hadn't been sent. They replied this morning to say that they posted in on 6th with a load of other items (which I presume they are saying did arrive with the buyers), and had I checked with the post office. Quite what they expect me to check with the post office I don't know .

Can someone tell me exactly what should happen now please. Do I have to get my money back from paypal - is there a 'right' time to do this? She should presumably follow up with her proof of posting with the post office, but is there also a time limit for when they will look at that?

I want to be completely clear before I reply to her.

Thanks

Ok, to start with, paypal gives you 45 days from the sate of transaction to put in a claim, so you have about 6 weeks. Don't leave it longer than that.

What she means is sometimes when an item isn't able to be delivered, say you were out, it's held at the sorting office for a few weeks then returned to the sender. So you could check your sorting office doesn't have it.

She ought to have tracking however; at the end of the day, if your local sorting office doesn't have it then it's down to her to claim or investigate and you need either a replacement sending at her cost or a refund including shipping.

Her contract was with the PO, not yours. HTH.

date, sorry, not sate!

It does depend on what she is doing btw. If she is staying in touch then just ask for a refund. If you don't hear from her within a few days then raise a dispute through paypal. Give her a few days from when you told her it was missing though. that's only fair; she wouldn't have known it hadn't arrived.

Ah right, no def not at PO. We are remote and if we are out parcels go to the village PO and our postie pops a card through. Or if they don't have to be signed for (which this one didn't) then we have agreed a safe place where he leaves stuff and again he pops a note through to tell us to check the place.

I'd have told her it was missing sooner if she'd bothered to mark it as despatched! What should I be giving her a few days for? Do you just mean give her a few days to issue a refund before raising a paypal dispute if necessary?

She can't provide a replacement btw - it was an item of used clothing.

RM won't class an item as missing until 2 weeks after sent. So you should wait for 2 weeks before getting a refund from seller.
If i have a buyer who says an item hasn't arrived i ask them to wait 2 weeks then if still not arrived i give them a full refund.

yes a few days from your contact to sort it out and refund you.

If she stops being communicative then just start a dispute, it can give the necessary kick up arse

don't close it till the refund is in your paypal account.
Bear in mind she won't have realised it was missing till you told her; many buyers never leave feedback or let the seller know they received their goods. So she will prob have assumed you got it Ok.

People operate on different timescales and urgency scales so I always give a few days before getting shirty about it. You'll get your refund either way, so no point getting stressed.

Tortoise, in this case I think the buyer deserves an (almost) immediate refund as it's already been two weeks!

also bear in mind not everyone uses ebay checkout in full, ie marking things despatched etc etc. I don't, normally - I just wing it. If something goes wrong those little check boxes don't have a lot of impact. You have to sort it out human to human.

Ok thanks - have enough info to mail her now.

I would rather have the item than the refund though, so fingers crossed it does turn up.

IngridBergman But they posted on the 6th so not 2 weeks yet. Although unlikely to arrive in that time it is normal to wait 2 weeks to refund.

Is it, Tortoise? I've never heard of waiting two weeks, but I take your point about giving the post office time to get it there, and I realise they make the sender wait 15 days before they will investigate - I just wasn;t sure that applied to signed for items. Surely RM should be able to track those.

I wouldn't wait longer than two weeks for a refund though as a buyer. The sender needs to sort it out with RM.