Sold item returned in the post - WWYD?

[victoriaplum01]

I sold a dress a few weeks ago on eBay to a lady in a far off land. Not something I normally do (prefer to stick to UK postage only) but she contacted me upfront and I had a 'good feeling' about her. It cost £11 to send the package and she paid for the postage accordingly.

A couple of weeks after I sent it, she contacted me to say that her post office had messed up and had misplaced the parcel somewhere in the sorting office. From her location, I'm guessing the post isn't that reliable so she had some sort of 'hold at the PO' request on her mail. So I sent her a description of the packaging to help her local contacts search for the parcel. Then nothing. No feedback left, but no further contact to say the dress was still missing.

Today, the dress arrived back with me "Return to sender. Uncollected."

So, my question is, do I contact her to tell her that I have the parcel and ask her if she would like me to re-send it (providing she pays for the postage again)? Or, should I keep quiet, because I don't want to alert her to it and have her do a Paypal chargeback on me because then I'd be out of pocket for the postage, and it was a mistake by her post office? I'm happy to send it to her again, after all, she has paid for it, but I don't want to pay the postage again.

I'd probably keep schtum about it, too.

you can't keep her money and hope she doesn't do a chargeback - isn't that theft?

You either need to ask her to pay postage again and re-send it or you need to refund her in full.

I know! I was waiting for someone to question if it is theft - I am an honest an upstanding citizen (honestly...!). I think I'd like to give her her money back and re-sell the dress, rather than try to go through the 'will you pay postage again' minefield. But since telling me about the PO mess up on her side, she didn't ever get back in touch, so after all this time (3 months), I rather thought it had all been sorted, so was a bit to get it back this morning.

Refund her cost if item and re-list
Let her know this is what you are doing and why

the buyer only has 45 days to raise a chargeback

when you refund her you are too late to refund the original payment, you will have to send money to her email address as a gift payment

could you refund the cost of the dress but not the postage as it is beyond ur control if she didn't collect parcel or PO messed it up.

don't see why you should be out of pocket on postage.

I couldn't remember how long the chargeback period was - I was thinking 90 days, which is pretty much how long it has been. 45 days is good to know. I was thinking of just offering the cost of the dress as, by her own admission, it was her local PO which caused the problem in the first place.