refund oddity

[charles]

Not so long ago, I bought a mains lead on ebay. I found, by a lucky chance, the there was no earth connection, so I arranged to send it back. I took it to my local post office, got a receipt, then a message from ebay noting its postage. Then a message from the vendor saying it had been received, and then a refund reached my PayPal account.

Yesterday, the package arrived back here with a Post Ofice label saying "addressee gone away". Obviously never received by the vendor - yet I got my refund.

Anyone any thoughts?

[Chris Green]

Any good/sensible vendor will refund almost automatically and not bother whether the return is received or not. Some buyers may take advantage but the huge majority of buyers don't, in general, take the piss. As a buyer the hassle of returning something is significant and one doesn't do it unless the item *is* actually wrong or broken.

Many vendors will actually tell you not to return the item and just send out another.

[Roger Hayter]

The reason for the refund is that the goods were not fit for purpose. Requiring you to send it back before a refund is only justified if necessary to prove that you were telling the truth. If they already know it was defective then there is no point in wating to get it back. They have a right to get it back if they pay the postage, but that does not alter their obligation to refund you, and they have no right to make return a oondition of refund other than for the purpose of proving that it is defective. (I hope you got your return postage back too.)

[Brian Reay]

It is quite common for Far Eastern sellers just to refund, certainly if you insist they pay the return postage, and not worry about you actually returning the item. UK sellers tend to send labels which the PO don?t accept as prepaid and you have to fight to get them to cough up. EBay tend to be pretty good. Bad feedback is a good trigger to get difficult sellers attention.

All in all, most EBay transactions go without a hitch. Even if I were to write of the ones that hadn?t, I would still say EBay was good. Allowing for the fact I?ve nearly always been able to recover the bad ones, it is very good.

[charles]

I didn't pay to send it back - I had an ebay prepaid lable, with the vendor's address on it. The address that didn't work!

[charles]

Yes, eBay was very good, keeping me in the loop all the time, What I do find puzzling is that the vendor's address - supplied by eBay - was classed by Royal Mail as "gone away" with no forwarding address. Oh, and eBay told me the packet had been recieved by the vendor.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I had a similar experience. guy said stuff is shipped. Never arrived (prolly ex china) he refunded on the spot. No idea what happened to the parcel or if indeed it was ever sent

[tabbypurr]

Either a dodgy sender did not occupy their claimed address, or the postie was taking the piss. I've seen both.

Why refund without return? Either the seller has a policy of keeping 100% +ve feedback or the seller knows the goods are dodgy and doesn't want bad feedback.

NT

[michael adams]

The seller has noticed that a small percentage of buyers are claiming there's no earth connection despite this being required by the listing. Possibly the rest haven't even checked. Quite possibly the seller has never even seen what he's selling, they're shipped direct from the wholesaler and he's bought

20 gross, And he has no capacity to accept returns in any case as all he has is a desk and a computer,

michael adams

...

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I'm surprised they even wanted such a minor value item back. Did you contact the vendor and they said to - or just generic Ebay instructions?

[newshound]

+1

[newshound]

Who knows, seller may be keeping one step away from the taxman.

[charles]

generic eBay intercepted "contact sender"

[whisky-dave]

perhaps he is now in prison for suplying fake goods, did it have one of those CE marks, which means it's a chinese export ;-)

[michael adams]

Short answer, look up "Drop Shipping".

michael adams

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[Brian Gaff]

Cock up somewhere I'd imagine. Its not a new issue. Back in the 80s we ordered a stepladder made of tubular steel. It was brought to us, but was clearly damaged since the straight tubes on one side were bent a great deal. We contacted the vendor, no problem, they sent us a label. It was labelled and the same carrier picked it up, then a few days later an undamaged pair arrived. We checked with the company that they had received the damaged ones and they said they had. Three weeks later the damaged ones turned up back here again, Sender refused delivery.

We rang them and they could not tell us how it had happened, but they sent us another label and they went back, and luckily we never heard any more. People and companies are strange, and hence nothing surprises me these days. I've had the same issue with video tapes and clothing and all sorts, so its not that unusual for stuff to come back. Brian

[John Kenyon]

First time round, "Goods Inward" treated it as a "goods damaged in transit", rather than "return of damaged goods" and refused to accept it. Then a manager carefully applied the clue-by-four and second time around, they accepted the delivery.