Refund question

[WelshMoth]

Buyer didn't want the curtains I sold her (have posted this before)due to a misunderstanding about measurements. I agreed to refund including postage. Parcel took its time to arrive but I finally took a postage notification that it was awaiting a fee of £15 as the sender hadn't put a label on it. I paid it, curtains are back with me. Question is, what do I refund? Obviously the price of the curtains but not her postage cost since I also had to fork out £15. Advice please!

Bump

I think it'll depend on whether or not you're using eBay's returns process (as it has its own process to follow). Have you contacted the buyer to let them know you had to pay the postage? It could be handy to have that in writing. It seems an off thing to do as the buyer can't prove the curtains were returned to you.

So you paid to post them to the buyer, buyer decided they didn't like them (you measured them the standard way) and now you've paid another £15 to have them returned to you? What a mess.

It seems an odd thing to do

Yes it's a mess and buyer is getting impatient and I'll be damned if I pay twice for my curtains to come back to me. Gah!

Unfortunately you need to refund the original price paid, inc postage.
If the seller hasn't already opened a dispute, if they do it will all be refunded anyway.

How do I go about getting my £15 back though?

You don't. Unless you want to pursure it in the small claims court....

BUT....... as you say the buyer "hadn't put a label on it", I take it that means there is no tracking to prove it arrived back to you then?

You could always claim it hasn't arrived, and you would have it refund. But that would be fraudulent.

If the misunderstanding was your fault you have to incur all the costs, including return postage.

Only if it was formalised via the eBay dispute centre and even then the buyer should have requested and waited for a pre paid returns label.

In hindsight the OP shouldn't have paid the £15 to cover the unpaid postage and associated handling fee, but it's too late to do anything about that now.

If the buyer hasn't followed the eBay returns process, and they haven't got any proof that they returned the curtains, then it sounds like they'll have to accept whatever refund you choose to give. I would suggest the purchase price minus both sets of postage.

I would refund the original payment minus the £15 and original postage cost.
If she's returning because she didn't read the measurements that not your problems.

The problem with that suggestion is, if the buyer has or does open a not as described case they will get the whole amount back anyway. Once ebay are involved you can't just decide how much to refund.

Thanks everyone.
I've refunded her entire cost including postage but have sent her pics of my invoice of £15 to pay for the unlabelled package. She said she'll claim it back from parcel force and refund me. I won't hold my breath!

I don't think eBay were involved - she'd made a claim against Parcel force and they'd already contacted me to get details of the parcel. I won't proceed with that or else she'll get a 2nd refund from them.

But if the buyer opens a not as described case, surely they wouldn't be refunded without proving they returned the item? The advice on here is always to use the returns process as otherwise the seller can't retrospectively be forced to pay return postage.

Zip...... Yes, true, but in that case it would be a case of either

1 - lying (ie fraud) and saying you didn't receive the package.

Or

2 - refunding in full. If a case is opened you can't decide to refund minus X..... As eBay will enforce a full refund after you issued a partial one.

So stuck between a rock and a hard place!