Paypal Advice Request

[Euston]

Hi, I have a bit of a weird situation occuring on paypal.

Its a bit of a long story so I'll bullet point it to keep it simple

• I was selling two items on ebay
• Somebody clicked buy it now on one of the items
• they then messaged me to buy the other item out of ebay and to add the cost onto the postage for the first item

• I agreed and sent out the items
• one item arrived fine - the ebay buy it now item
• the other was damaged beyond repair so a refund was promised

Now the problem was that by this point I was away from home with no access to a computer, I only have a basic email function on my mobile phone which I was able to contact the person to let them know what the situation was and that they would have to wait a week until I returned.
They refused to acknowledge this sent me emails every day for the whole week, most days multiple emails threatening bad feedback & reporting fraud on ebay etc and always playing ignorance to the fact of what I had informed them. (bear in mind that the damaged item was bought outside of ebay so they would be reporting and giving false feedback on the item that arrived fine)
I arrived back to find that they had reported a problem via paypal and are requesting the full amount for both items to be refunded They also immediately escalated the claim so it is not even a matter that I can discuss and resolve. I am so frustrated about this that it is untrue!

So now I'm sat staring at paypals dispute page wondering what option to tick - which is where you come in....

• A)Issue the buyer a refund for the disputed amount of £xx.xx GBP. The buyer can keep the item(s). Full refund for both items
• B)Issue the buyer a refund for the disputed amount of £xx.xx GBP. The buyer must return the item(s). Full refund for both items
• C)Offer the buyer a partial refund in an attempt to close this claim.(The buyer indicated that a refund of £xx.xx GBP would be satisfactory.)
• D)Provide proof that the buyer has already been refunded.
• E)Disagree with claim. I would like to provide additional information.

Note .C) the partial refund option - the persons 'satisfactory' amount for a partial refund is lower than the full amount of both items (options A & B) yet is still more than they pay'd for the damaged item in the first place

So what do I do? Where do I go from here? So confused, annoyed.........I just wanna scream!

 

[KittyKat]

You're a bit stuffed as you broke eBay rules and if eBay check, they will know. Did you continue to communicate via eBay all the time?

For now, contact eBay and explain the situation, they can prevent the other person from leaving feedback, for the moment.

Personally, I would go for B or E. If you go for B, contact eBay first and have the buyer blocked from leaving feedback. If you go for E, explain that you contacted the buyer saying when you will give the refund for the damaged item and that they have been harassing you since, also mention that the undamaged item was bought via eBay. Give dates and details.

You should not have taken it outside of eBay, lesson learnt the hard way.

 

[Euston]

Hiya, I've contacted Ebay about it and the lady said that it is out of their hands and they cannot do anything about it due to it being an escalated claim with paypal.

Just to add, I am quite tempted by option b myself but just to make things more difficult. The items were fish

 

[star4]

Did you put on your advert that you would refund if fish arrived dead if so then option A

or did you put that you would prefer collection but would post at buyers risk? If so option E

Did the buyer provide a photo of the dead fish? if not tell them you cannot sort out their claim without proof. Its going to be difficult as it just so happens to be the fish purchased off ebay thats the problem.

 

[Euston]

Did you put on your advert that you would refund if fish arrived dead if so then option A

or did you put that you would prefer collection but would post at buyers risk? If so option E

Did the buyer provide a photo of the dead fish? if not tell them you cannot sort out their claim without proof. Its going to be difficult as it just so happens to be the fish purchased off ebay thats the problem.

Star thanks for replying, I told her that posting them was a risk as the one that didn't make it was quite big. Originally the large one was collection only when I listed it but she convinced me to change my mind. I did say before hand and on the listings that I would refund for the fish but not postage as I was making a loss on the postage anyway to make sure I could do everything possible to try and prevent any nasties.

They did provide a photo of the fish, which arrived 5 hours later than the guaranteed time I paid for. I'd written in my listing that it needed to be within an hour of arrival, she got the pic to me 45minutes after it got to her.

She said that it was fine for me to chase it up with royal mail and to try and get the money refunded from them first. Her patience lasted all of about 5 hours
I haven't been able to do things very fast due to being away and work commitments which I told her but she keeps ignoring that and throwing a wobbly. I got slightly annoyed with her a couple of days ago and told her if she carried on phoning my house and emailing me so many times a day that I would report her for harassment. I got a message from ebay this morning to inform me that she had reported my message as offensive and intimidating and that I will be observed from now on

I have until the 23rd to make my decision on what to offer her. I am so tempted to be a major pain in retaliation and wait until the 22nd to 'click full refund for full return of goods'

 

[FreedomFighter]

Afte reading all of the above.

I'd contact the complainer. Tell them that you'd warned them about postage and that it was them who convinced you to post the fish.
Therefore you cannot assume responsibility for the fish arriving in said condition.

Then continue to state that you would have been willing to offer a partial refund but due to their response and behaviour you will retract any offer of refund.

Then click option E.

I would provide them with additional information along the lines of what you just told us;

"I told her that posting them was a risk as the one that didn't make it was quite big. Originally the large one was collection only when I listed it but she convinced me to change my mind"

and i'd add

"I have attempted to make contact with the buyer to discuss this situation but the buyer is being unreasonable and is demanding more money than the item's worth."

 

[star4]

It is a difficult one, if the buyer insisted you post the fish, with the weather conditions as they are at the moment they are raving mad and you have a nutter on your hands (sorry to be so blunt), Personally I would dispute the claim as you tried to advise them you were unwilling to post. If you did refund her the cost of the dead fish, then getting money back from Royal Mail would be difficult as they would most likely argue that livestock should not be sent via Royal mail they will also blame the weather.

 

[JoshuaA]

Can't you phone PayPal up over this?

I would insist they sent back the item for a partial refund but I can't help but think that there is foul play involved and they knew combining it may of helped in this situation. Whether it is dead fish or not (I didn't read entirely) then I wonder how this works.

If you insist that they send the item back I wonder if the money is only refunded through PayPal when the item arrives. I imagine if that was the case you could really string this one out to work in your favour (if it were fish) and just wait till the 22nd to ask for it to be returned in which any self respecting citizen would either bury or throw it away before that time. Imagine the state it would be in thus they have no product to return. Or you can ask for both items back and then complain back to say they've damaged used the other one.

Interesting the way this has played out, I do really think they knew what they were doing when combining it through PayPal. I ordered most thing separately to avoid this by ordering individually, in fact I filed a PayPal dispute purely because someone posted things grouped even though I specifically paid individually.
I was rather Peeved over it in fact, they wanted £3 postage on each item sent on their own, I ordered 3 items and paid £9 in total for postage and thought #33### it better come in a good condition. In the end it came in one parcel which is NOT what I had paid for and they had clearly pocketed them self a profit from the postage... I got my postage back... As insignificant as it appears I find it quite annoying people try their best to swindle you on P&P, I know it doesn't cost £9 to post those 3 items It would of more likely been around £4.50 for ME a non business person to post it. Though that was another thing!

PayPal are usually good over this sort of thing but if someone knows how to use the system.