Vestiaire Collective - item delivered, I've not been paid

[DeliveryDelivered]

Any advice on this one?

I sold an item on Vestiaire Collective (online selling platform), posted next day 48-hour tracked (UK).
Delivery attempted two days later - "address inaccessible/addressed incorrectly/returned to sender". Address provided from buyer via a pre-paid downloaded label
Notification from VC that item is being returned to me
I check in on tracking for the next few days
Three additional attempts made at delivery ("address inaccessible" each time and therefore, the item was never returned to me, the postie/sorting office still had it.

Then, success! Item delivered on the fourth attempt. Time and date stamped on the Royal mail tracking system.

Days pass
Nothing feeds through onto the VC site in the ways is always does when an item is delivered. Your earnings from the sale then reach you 72 hours later

Today, I get onto the online chat with VC to ask what's going on.
They say the item has been returned to me.
It hasn't, it's gone through the local delivery office to where the buyer lives and has been delivered to them.
I've sent them screenshots of all the tracking.

VC have passed my concern to another team to investigate.

Obviously, I'm now without my item and no money for it (a three-figure sum) and I'd hazzard a guess that the buyer has been refunded as the sale has been cancelled, so they have their money and my item (for free).

Any advice you can expertly furnish me with, in case VC come back and repeat that the item has been returned to me?

They say they'll get back to me withing 48-hours.

Thank you in advance, all help gratefully received.

Bit more - VC have contacted me asking me to "check my letterbox" and to "check with neighbours" for my item having been returned to me. They are completely misunderstanding the issue i.e. that the buyer has my item and I cannot receive my payment!

I can't help but think the buyer has been dishonest here, but that's a different matter.

What legal stuff can I quote at VC so they send me my payment for the item the buyer has received?

(If I need to post in a different area on here, let me know - the ebay forum is very slow moving!)

I smell a rat here - although it could be that Royal Mail have done you no favours with the address inaccessible/addressed incorrectly/returned to sender tracking updates.
I use Royal Mail tracked 48 for all my eBay sales and have never received a tracking update like that.

Bearing in mind that your buyer provided you with the address label it’s highly unlikely it would be wrong or the property inaccessible, but more pertinent perhaps is how would Royal Mail know where to return your parcel to. My view is that if Vestiaire have refunded the buyer on the basis of the early tracking updates they have been far too hasty.

I sell a fair bit on eBay and send every item by Royal Mail Tracked 48, buying the postage myself on the Royal Mail app. I have no idea what information you need to provide if buying this over the counter but online you choose the size of the package, input the weight and the buyers postcode and get the address from the list provided. There is also the option to provide an email address so that the recipient can be notified when the parcel is to be delivered. Before paying for the postage you are asked to provide an address for return if delivery fails which is added to the postage label. Did your buyer know your address? If not, unless you included this information in the parcel Royal Mail wouldn’t know where to return it to. As far as I am aware parcels are not returned immediately anyway, they are retained at the local delivery office for a set period of time.

All things considered I think your suspicions about your buyer might well be correct -(if I was buying an item costing 3 figures I’d be checking the tracking if delivery was later than expected so see if there was an issue) but as you have tracking that clearly shows the parcel was eventually delivered I’d absolutely be contacting Vestiaire again letting them know that they have completely misunderstood what has occurred, explaining exactly how the parcel was sent using a label forwarded by your buyer, and providing them once again with all the tracking updates you received from Royal Mail including the final proof of delivery. If the address label didn’t include your address for return I’d definitely be using this to support the fact that there is no way Royal Mail would know how to return the parcel to you and even if they did it would not be returned to you so quickly.

Hope you get your money OP.

Thank you @millymae The parcel had my return details included on the pre-printed label.

VC are now saying all they can do is contact the buyer to see if they've got the item. I dread they're going to say no, despite what the tracking says as the sale has been cancelled and they'll have been refunded.

I can see the sale has been cancelled as new people are 'liking' the item again, so it's back on the site and available to be bought again. Except it isn't. It's in the hands of the buyer (according to Royal mail tracked 48).

All in all, a horrible situation with seemingly very little recourse.

What a nightmare for you - I know nothing about this selling platform but I’ve just taken a look at the website. I’m assuming you are not a professional seller so wouldn’t the following apply to your buyer ….

No direct cancellation: Once an order is placed with an individual seller, it cannot be directly cancelled. However, you have the option to relist the item on Vestiaire Collective.

As you are standing to lose a 3 figure sum here I wouldn’t be giving Vestiaire an easy ride here. You fulfilled your part of the bargain in posting the item quickly and cannot be held responsible for your buyers lack of availability or the fact that the cancellation took place.

The only similar problem I had with an eBay sale did eventually result in me being refunded - I was so angry that I wasn’t prepared to give up without a fight and all the more so when I checked my buyers feedback from other sellers and found several who reading between the lines had had similar issues.

My advice is don’t give up yet!

Have you actually contacted Royal Mail? I have not had the issue described with RM before but I have had similar with tracking info from another courier when the delivery information was in fact about it being delivered by return to the sender rather than delivered to the recipient (in that case me). I appreciate you have not had it back but it will help to speak to RM to see if there is a possibility this is in fact their mess up and / or any info they can give you around the apparent difficulties and then delivery (the tracking is odd at the least). Even if any information they can give you doesn't suggest it's their error, anything they do say will help a lot in following up further with VC.

Thank you for your replies.

@millymae that bit about direct cancellations is exactly what I was looking for to quote back at VC. Thank you for digging it out, much appreciated.

@Shroedy I've just got off the phone to Royal Mail (45minutes!), they say, yes, it was delivered and it was GPS-ed to that address.

I have to say, if I was the buyer and I hadn't received an item that was supposedly delivered, I'd be making some enquiries at the very least. Especially a pricey item at that. The fact they've not made any contact with me, is just another thing that makes me think they're dishonest.

I'm reluctant to contact the buyer myself as I don't trust them.

No further news on this one, I've contacted Vestiaire Collective again, asking when I will receive payment.
Where do I stand legally? Is there any legal-speak I can add to my emails?

I've been saying: I posted the item within 24-hours of sale, to the address supplied on the pre-paid label from the buyer (downloaded via the VC site), using the courier of their choice (Royal Mail tracked). Item delivered, tracking via Royal mail website. RM said they have GPS coordinates when I called them, these being logged at their end.

VC terms of sale are: Buyer has 72 hours to assess an item upon receipt of delivery, any issues are to be reported in this time. If no issues, payment is released.

Buyer is saying they've not received the item.

Anything else I could be doing or saying?

Thank you

How does VC work in terms of payment, under normal circumstances? Money held by them pending confirmation of delivery then passed to seller?

Yes, that's it precisely

I don't think there is any magical legal terminology to use or statute to quote at them. This is essentially breach of contract.

I would ensure you have the right email address (ask where to send a complaint / legal correspondence) and set out exactly what you set out above, along the lines of the below. I'd call after 24 hours if you can to confirm it's been received.

---

• you sent the item purchased on date X by the buyer on date Y. That was within the 7 days required for direct shipping following a sale through VC. This is evidenced by the tracking information. Include the tracking details.
• It was sent using a label populated by the buyer therefore has gone to the address they provided.
• There appears to have been multiple attempts to deliver the item but it was ultimately delivered on date Z. This is also evidenced by the tracking information.
• you have spoken to Royal Mail who have confirmed it was delivered to the right address, confirmed by GPS.
• You have therefore done what is required of you under VC's terms and conditions. If the buyer is claiming they have not received the item this is for them to investigate further (for example was it delivered to someone else at the same address). It does not have any impact on your entitlement to receive payment for an item which was properly sold and shipped in line with VC's requirements. There is nothing more VC can reasonably expect a seller to do or prove when they have sent an item and tracking and RM confirm it has been delivered.
• As it has been more than 72 hours since delivery, per RM tracking, the sale is confirmed per VC's terms and conditions.

You are entitled to full payment of the money from the buyer held by VC for your item the next working day. You expect to receive payment within the next 72 hours or will otherwise need to take whatever legal steps are required against VC to recover those funds that are now due.

You could take them to the small claims court, this worked for me with Vinted when InPost delivered the wrong thing and no one would take responsibility - they just conceded.

Thank you for your brilliant replies (apologies for the delay in getting back to you).

@Shroedy I've made a draft of what you said up thread, it's everything I want to say to them.

@IAmUsingTheApplauseReactionSarcastically - I'll see how they respond to what I'm going to send them next (Shroedy's email above!)

One new thing I've found is, in my Gmail 'Promotions' folder (where all the junk 50% off shopping news goes), VC sent me an email after the very first delivery attempt saying: "despite repeated attempts, Royal Mail was not able to deliver the item to the buyer, which is why it is being returned to you. The sale has been cancelled and a full refund will now be issued to the buyer"

Obviously, it's a standard response as there were three subsequent delivery attempts and a successful delivery. I take from this, confirmation the buyer has been refunded and can't believe their luck that they've also received the item. For free.

If that's the case then I would be adding in a reference to that email and that it appears to have been sent prematurely, making it clear that there were subsequent attempts, ultimately successful, to deliver the item and that the item was not returned to you (as confirmed by RM and their tracking).

Will do @Shroedy

Have added their email to the timeline as, three delivery attempts later - all listed on the RM tracking - and bingo, the parcel was delivered. Five days after the VC email.

I'm going to send the email this evening and will report back.

I've found something out - couldn't sleep as I was worrying about this, so I went on the Royal Mail Postcode Finder and... their house number doesn't exist.

The address supplied by them on the pre-paid label was for a couple of numbers after the last one in the sequence on the road (e.g. houses go up to 94, they put they live at 97).

Another thing is, they're active on VC as they've listed two new items this weekend, so are they using their fake address as their mandated returns address? I had a look and many of their items for sale are in the mid range of four figures (£7k - £8k), while not unusual for VC, if they're using a fake address, this has wide-reaching implications. Not least because they've got a get-out for saying they've not received my item.

VC also has this system whereby you get a 'badge' on your profile if you buy things regularly - they've got one of these, so where have their items been delivered to?

The whole thing is so suspicious and I really don't know what I should do with this new information.

Could it be that the number that doesn't exist is a house with a name? Have you looked on google maps and street view?
Someone clearly took possession of this delivery according to Royal Mail. It may be this strange buyer or a completely unrelated individual. All very shady.
Definitely pursue this with VC but it might be worth making a claim through Royal Mail if VC will not help.
Not impossible, but maybe Royal Mail will return the same item back to you as 'undelivered' at a later date?

Try and catch the buyer out? A chatty message like, "how well does it fit?", for instance.

I've just had a look on Google maps, the street doesn't go up to the house number they supplied. No house name was on the supplied address, just the number, which was a few digits higher than the road goes up to.

Ooh this is weird.
Can you contact Royal Mail again and ask where exactly did they deliver, what house number.
Because it may be partly a Royal Mail issue.
Although I don't like how quickly VC cancelled the order either.

I'm keeping an eye out on VC and other similar sites, just in case I see it listed for sale. I'm not going to contact the buyer as I just don't trust them. And it's really odd that, after sending loads of questions about the item, they didn't get in touch to ask where it was when it never arrived.

Will do - I'll call them at lunch today and see if I can get the GPS coordinates.

This does sound more like a Royal Mail issue and their system being updated with incorrect information at the depot etc. If the address doesn’t exist it seems unlikely that RM would continue to send a delivery person out on three further consecutive days to an address which the first delivery would have returned an error on. I’d push RM on it when you call them.

This certainly raises the chance it's a RM issue higher up the list (and as previously noted the tracking is odd) but the key for you is that if it is then it's not your problem - you sent per address label the buyer supplied and RM state it's been delivered ie not returned to you. Those are buyer issues to address / follow up on. Don't be fobbed off by VC on that basis.

New update...

VC have just replied to the email I sent last night ( @Shroedy 's great wording) and wait for it...

"The buyer has confirmed the item was sent to the address they provided and was delivered on XX date. The buyer is keeping the item and we will proceed with payment according to our payment schedule"

Yay, great that I'm finally being paid, but huh? The buyer is admitting using a false address, but VC won't know this.

I'm getting the £££ though.

Jeez!

Thank you everyone for your advice 💐

Forgot to add, I called Royal Mail during lunch and they confirmed the buyer's house number doesn't exist. They've logged the issue as a complaint on behalf of themselves as they said the delivery should never have been attempted.