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.

However Barclsycard may still help but it's not guaranteed.

I think you should give up on the " gift angle" basically your son agreed to a tax dodge so he could pay less for an item. He can't prove he didn't understand what he was agreeing to.

I think your son will have to write this off as an expensive mistake , out of interest did he tell you about this when he received the customs invoice ? In reality the computer did arrive , you just didn't pay the necessary fee to actually take possession of it .

No the computer didn't arrive. It has to be delivered to the address on the PayPal to 'arrive'.

I got my money back from PayPal once when an item went to the sorting office but no card was delivered. It was returned to sender and PayPal refunded as it didn't arrive.

This happened to me once with a bag from Australia, the buyer hadn't mentioned the duty, chancing it I think, but I paid and the buyer refunded me.

I filled the disputed as item not received and PayPal changed it to item not as described.

Sorry the seller refunded

But surely they will argue that it couldn't arrive because the OPs son failed to pay what was necessary for it to arrive , by changing it to not as described are PayPal saying that the laptop was expected to be £675 whereas in reality it was £818 so hence it was not as described .

But surely they will argue that

Once you start approaching the case like Perry Mason you've made things far more complicated and uncertain.

The way to interact with Paypal/ebay is to operate within their rules:
"Was the item delivered?" "No, because the seller cannot provide an online confirmation of delivery to the buyer."
"Is the case Item Not Received?" "Yes, because the seller cannot provide an online confirmation of delivery to the buyer."
"Is the case Not As Described?" "No, because since the item was never delivered to the buyer then it is impossible for the buyer to say anything about the state of the item."

Conclusion: Paypal needs to explain what they're up to in changing the case category. (To make life simple for themselves would be my guess.)

No he didn't tell me about the parcel force invoice, as I said before I would have paid it and him pay me back, or send it back insured and tracked to the buyer.

Parcel force tracking shows it as arrived at delivery depot, then awaiting payment, then returned to international hub and prepared for export and exported from UK

The op ds refused delivery though so surely the onus is on him. How can you claim item not received if you refused to receive it.

No, they didn't try to deliver. 'Deliver' means someone turning up at your address.

Instead they sent him a letter/left a card saying pick up and bring money.

The reason EBay has such a prescriptive stance (not sure if PayPal is the same) around 'deliver' is because of the numerous scams around addresses.

so you should have filed a not received claim - it really should not be this complicated. You need to call Paypal and sort this out. And don't let anyone use your eBay account in future either.

AndNow - it was not received so she can claim not received. Why should you pay for something which was not delivered, that is ludicrous. You order from any catalogue and they tell you if you refuse delivery they will return to them and refund. No problem.

so you should have filed a not received claim

Have a read of the OP's posts. You might find them enlightening.

Smiling I just think it's unfair for the seller to lose out financially because they sent the laptop and no don't have it.
Yes it's crap in the op ds too and I hope neither party looses out financially.

so op needs to tell paypal to change it to a not received claim again. Op should not have let anyone else use her account either, esp when they are not even 18 tbh. What a mess.

My son is 18 and used his own PayPal account, loading the money on his Barclaycard.

I am minded to contact the seller myself and offer to pay any return postal or custom charges etc when he received the laptop back, so that he is not out of pocket that way, so would encourage him to keep communicating.

Yes it is a mess, yes he is 18 but obviously I am going to help my son try and sort things out, and no I don't want the buyer to be out of pocket either. I can't see any reason why the laptop should not return to him, even if it takes ages but we are time limited to apply for a chargeback.

I'd contact the Seller is the feedback positive?

Contacting the seller is a bad move. There is currently no tracking on it, it's in their interests to not tell you if its been received back.

Don't Barclaycad have a refund system fr cases like this? I seem to recall seeing a forum on www.moneysavingeexpert.com

Right, no contacting the seller, contact PayPal and lodge a dispute with Barclaycard also I think.

Assuming you're contacting Paypal by phone, make sure your son is available to join in the call. Otherwise they'll be able to say that they won't speak to someone not on the account without prior notification.

Yes I will try and get him to do the call, else he will never learn from this!

I would t waste time emailing PayPal. Phone them instead.