Customs cock up by son

[Rhinosaurus]

My son purchased a laptop from USA for £675, via PayPal using a Barclaycard - when it arrived he received a customs invoice for £143 which he could not afford to pay, he had no idea he would have to pay VAT and the seller had told him he wouldn't have to as he would mark it as a "gift".

My son did not pay it as he doesn't have the money, it has now been deemed return to sender and got exported back to USA on 19th July by parcel force. That is where the tracking ends.

Where do we stand here -'the seller is down a laptop and my son is down £675, who is responsible for chasing this up with parcel force?

I know my son has cocked up and I wish he had told me what was going on, so that I could have sorted it out properly, but any advice what to do now much appreciated.

Just been sent this from parcelforce - there is no way we can prove it has been delivered back. Although the tracking does evidence that it was never delivered to my son.

"Please accept my apologies for any concern this posting may be causing.

It appears that your parcel has been posted using our Global Economy service which doesn't include any tracking or search facilities. Therefore, we're unable to confirm it's location.

For further information regarding deliveries to this destination please click here.

If you need help with anything else please reply to this email or if you would prefer to speak to one of our advisors please call 03448 00 44 66. Calls are charged at national rates."

How old is your son? If he is an adult and has correspondence with the seller showing he was trying to dodge tax, then didn't receive the item because the dodge failed, I'm not sure Paypal/EBay should be liable.

My son is just turned 18, the buyer volunteered the information that he would mark the package as a gift so there wouldn't be any more money due, my son said he had no idea what that meant as he didn't even know about tax being payable on overseas purchase as he had never bought anything from abroad before.

Pretty tough on the seller to have his ratings ruined by "item not as described" when this was the buyer's fault in not knowing the relevant customs laws.

How long has it been? It may be that the laptop has been returned be cheaper surface mail - this could take 8+ weeks (someone once sent me a birthday gift that took 8 weeks to arrive AND I had to cough up £30 in customs duties to collect it)

Yes I do think it is tough on the seller, but for all we know he has had the item back and is denying it. He also volunteered to fraudulently declare the parcel whether my son knew the law or not - I have seen the eBay messages, and he was not asked by my son to do this. According to parcel force it should take 30 days to get back - not sure if this is working days, and even it was 8 weeks it left the UK mid July so may still be in transit.

but for all we know he has had the item back and is denying it.

Or he hasn't had it back and your DS has lost him a laptop.

This is why it's shit that you can't leave negative feedback for a buyer.

the buyer volunteered the information that he would mark the package as a gift so there wouldn't be any more money due, my son said he had no idea what that meant

So why didn't he ask the seller what it meant?

Unfortunately you can't use " chargeback" if you use PayPal as you aren't paying direct with your credit card. Still contact them though to see if they can help if you don't get anywhere with eBay.

He said he thought it had to do with PayPal like when you send money to friends and a fee isn't taken.

This happened once with an actual gift I sent a friend. She found it hard to get to the customs pick up point or didn't want to pay for it, probably, and eventually they sent it back. Then it took about 6 months to get back from the uk to Australia. I don't know where it went but parcel force were in no hurry, I suppose since they had not been paid to ship it in the reverse direction.

so he sent all that money as a gift payment via paypal?

The problem is the 'not as described'. How did PayPal change that? The customer chooses the reason.

You need to phone Paypal and talk to an agent and say the item wasn't received.

I don't think it's going to work though. I think it's gone along with your money.

Your son needed to pay the extra, or ask you to lend him the money. It's a Mac right, at that price? It was likely worth the extra money.

It certainly is not tough on the seller - marking an item sold as a gift is tax fraud and the seller is 100% responsible for it!

If the original case opened was Item Not Received, and Paypal decided to change the category to Not As Described when this is not factually correct, you should phone up Paypal and ask them to reinstate the correct category and if they don't ask for them to provide an explanation of why they have made this change.

They might have changed it for their own convenience so they can easily dispose of the case. It would be good for them to know that handling this incorrectly will cause Paypal more inconvenience than handling it correctly.

If you get no joy, contact the Money pages of The Times or The Telegraph. It's the kind of story they like to include in their Consumer Problems pages and if they did I'd expect Paypal to move quickly to hand over the money.

Does the message from the seller state that he would mark the parcel as a gift to avoid import duty? It seems odd the seller would say "so that there wouldn't be any more money due" without explaining what that extra money was. I'm puzzled as to why your DS didn't ask himself, if he'd already paid the selling price plus postage. He sounds very naïve tbh.

No he sent the money via normal PayPal, but when the seller was saying about "gift" he thought this was to do with PayPal - he is naive and I am so angry with him - if he had said he was doing this I would have told him about customs import duty, or lent him the money due so at least we would have the bloody laptop! I have many other words besides naive but just want to sort this out now.

Just received his, i will phone PayPal and also Barclaycard regarding a chargeback. I think the seller is genuine although yes he did offer to post it as a gift to avoid customs charges.

From PayPal:
The tracking information you provided was invalid, and we were unable to
confirm delivery of the item associated with this claim. As a result, the
case is now considered closed and we are unable to process a refund.

We encourage you to work directly with the seller to find a resolution.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Yours sincerely,

Protection Services Department

PayPal does not tolerate fraud or illegal activities. Your complaint has
been noted in the record of the PayPal member you reported. If we find this
member has violated our policies, we will investigate and take appropriate
action. If this occurs, you may be contacted in the future about the status
of this complaint.

To make sure future transactions proceed smoothly, we suggest you visit the
PayPal site and click Security located at the top of any page. There you
will find tips on how to avoid fraudulent sellers in the "Fraud Prevention
Tips for Buyers" section.

Please do not reply to this email. This mailbox is not monitored and you
will not receive a response. For assistance, log in to your PayPal account
and click the Help link in the top right corner of any PayPal page.

I think a chargeback is the way to go. PayPal's rulings can be dodgy (in our case: sales description is incorrect and in breach of trading laws, yet PayPal still ruled in sellers favour, so got trading standards involved which sorted the problem).

Barclays should be more than willing to do a chargeback on the basis that the goods haven't been received.

Yes, phone them and put them on the spot (while being patient, pleasant, and persistent). If it seems that Paypal have arbitrarily switched claim category for their own reasons tell them they are not even following their own rules and you will be kicking up a fuss unless they do go with the correct claim category.

If Paypal want the seller not to lose out they have the option to pay either you or him out of their own funds. It is something they do.

I have asked my son to send me screenshots of the email offering to send the package as a "gift" before j phone them.

I don't even know how he got a Barclaycard with a limit in excess of that as he is on a zero hours NMW seasonal job, and some weeks has only worked 12 hours due to being sent home!

Beware of getting side-tracked into the rights and wrongs of what the seller did that is of no interest to Paypal.

The more complicated and non-Paypal-related this becomes, the less they'll be willing to engage.

The issue is the change of claim category. You want to make them explain on what basis they think they are justified in doing this.

did you actually file a not received claim? Because doing not as described was wrong in this case?

Acat like I said a chargeback can't be filed . The item was t paid for direct with a credit card so section 75 no longer applies.

"of transactions aren’t covered?

Some types of purchases are not covered by chargeback, and eBay users should take note as this includes PayPal transactions.

In using PayPal, the actual act of loading the money into your account is considered to be the transaction.

This means the transaction is with PayPal, not with the seller you've bought a product from, so the first port of call to dispute a purchase in this case is to go through PayPal's complaints process"