Before I contact trading standards, can anyone here make a better suggestion.
I have ordered an item costing £34.99 from eBay
The delivery service was listed as "Other Courier 3 days" (no tracking number given)
The item did not arrive by the specified date so, after an extra couple of days, I selected the item not delivered option
Within about two hours I got an email from eBay saying that the item had been delivered the day before and quoting a tracking number.
I checked the tracking number with the Royal Mail and found that it had been delivered to a different address (not my address).
They gave me a print out of this which I sent to eBay.
EBay now keep asking for this information on Royal Mail headed paper.
Trouble is that The Royal Mail don't seem to do this
(More than that, they should not give me information on items delivered to other people - GDPR)
The Royal Mail insist that I contact the sender.
As far as I can see, eBay are now blocking me from contacting the seller.
I have now visited the Royal Mail Depot twice (they don't answer their phone) and wasted about 5 hours on this with many emails to eBay
It seems clear to me that one of the following has happened.
The seller didn't send the item
The seller sent the item to the wrong address
The Royal Mail made a mistake
I seem to be in a situation that is impossible to resolve without legal input.
Have you phoned eBay customer services? And how far are you willing to go for 35 quid?
Did you pay for it through a credit card if so contact the credit card company they will sort it a had a similar issue a couple of years ago with an item valued at £120 e bay where pretty useless the credit card company got involved and I was credited the money with in a week
I had almost the same thing happen last year and ebay wanted to side with the seller because they had a signature (from the wrong person). DHL said
it had been left with the receptionist (even though it was sent to my house) and then changed their mind and said it had been delivered to me.
However when I actually got someone on the phone at ebay - which took a fair bit of holding the line, they switched sides and said it was the sellers
fault (which was a bit unfair as it was DHL) and refunded me.
A few weeks later I had a knock on the door and it was guy from a business down the road who had signed for it without checking and then it sat around
until someone took notice of it. So eventually I was able to return it to the seller (who probably thought I was trying to scam him) but was a big
dick around.
So it's worth trying to get a human on the line at ebay.
I didn't know that they had a phone number - I'll try it.
I know that it's only 35 quid but this is pissing me off so much.
I am pretty sure that the seller just supplied a convenient tracking number so that eBay would give me this grief
I guess that the principal of letting people off for this sort of thing is unacceptable to me.
Has anyone ever tried trading standards? - they have a phone number
quote:
Originally posted by JonBowden
I guess that the principal of letting people off for this sort of thing is unacceptable to me.
hmm if it's a car part then I'd post a topic on Piston Heads and forward the sender the link, worked for me over a dispute given all the negative publicity they got... was sorted immediately after that
Phoned eBay but they were unhelpful, insisted that I get a "Denial of Delivery" letter from Royal Mail and gave me the Royal Mail phone
no.
Spent about 40 mins on hold then got to someone who seemed quite helpful but explained that they do not do this, quoting GDPR
Ended up contacting Consumer Advice Scotland who were helpful.
So I now have a letter to send to the supplier by registered post. It seems that I can cancel the order within 30 days of placing the order quoting
non delivery as my reason. So I will do that.
They suggested that this is rather similar to a known scam where items are sent deliberately to the wrong address.
EBay have really annoyed me here as they have mad it impossible to claim for non delivery if the supplier comes up with any old tracking number. I
feel sure that this practice must be illegal but I doubt that there is really much that I can do about it.
So, because the seller can quote a random tracking number, eBay decide in his favor
I then appeal.
Because eBay have already decided in the seller’s favor, eBay refuse to ask the seller to prove the delivery address for his tracking number.
I am required to prove that it wasn’t delivered to my address
But I cannot do that as the Royal Mail will not give me the document that eBay require, quoting GDPR
I seem to have no way out.
Seems like a great opportunity for an eBay scam. It would go like this:
Sell an item
Send it to a friend’s address with a tracking number
EBay make it impossible for the correct seller to get a refund
Seller gets the item back and can sell it again.
It seems that eBay does not always live up to it’s promise on https://pages.ebay.co.uk/ebay-money-back-guarantee/:
“We’ll get your money back fast
We'll get back to you within 48 hours. And if you haven’t received what you ordered, we'll quickly refund you through PayPal.”
Have you run the tracking number through RM's track and trace system?
"Have you run the tracking number through RM's track and trace system?"
Oh yes, even went to the depot, got a printout of where the package went.
Sent that to eBay but it's no good for them.
In their eyes, they have "proof" that the package was delivered
What I would do is raise a PayPal dispute assuming you paid that way and show them the tracking history. I reckon you have a better chance of success than sending a letter.
ebay has a live chat option on the website. It works Ive just used it to report some twat selling ringers
Bottom line is that it's a scam.
eBay require a tracking number and a town along with evidence that the tracking number has been delivered to "prove" that an item has been
delivered. Once they have that, they absolutely refuse to look further unless you can prove with a letter by Royal Mail that the item has not been
delivered - Royal Mail do not do that.
So, all the scammer has to do is post an empty letter by recorded delivery to someone else in your area and use that tracking number as proof.
As eBay have decided against me, they will remove any negative feedback that I leave.
I notice that the seller has 4 negatives this month, 4 in the last 6 months and 5 in the last year - ie all but one of their negatives are in the last
month.The negatives keep reducing - they managed to get rid of two last night (ie, they had 6 in the last month last night).
This company is good at it.
My understanding is that Paypal have the same policy regarding proof of delivery.
The police and other groups will not be very interested in such a small crime.
I will keep trying but I doubt that I will succeed in nailing the scamming scum.
What really gets me is that eBay are almost encouraging the scam and then help cover it up.
The only way of protecting from this seems to be to look at a seller's feedback history.
I guess that anyone who sells enough will get some negative feedback but if it is almost all recent, this suggests that they may be getting quite a
few negatives removed. I had a look at many feedback profiles from sellers that I have bought from. All but my scamming friend have small amounts of
reasonably evenly distributed negative feedback. My scamming friend has about 8500 feedbacks with negatives 4 in the last month and one additional one
over the last year - I have been watching this for a few days, they keep getting negatives removed - they must have had a lot of negative feedback
haaa, God but the scamming scum are good, they have managed to get another two negatives removed. They are down to just 3 over the last year.
You almost suspect an inside job
This is why all of my ebay purchases go on the credit card, i had a similar experience to you a couple of years back, its a very clever scam and ebay are a complete nightmare to deal with and are acting above the law. The credit card company in comparison are a breeze and i had the money back within a week. I suspect ebay take more notice of a big bank than us minions.
quote:
Originally posted by sdh2903
This is why all of my ebay purchases go on the credit card, i had a similar experience to you a couple of years back, its a very clever scam and ebay are a complete nightmare to deal with and are acting above the law. The credit card company in comparison are a breeze and i had the money back within a week. I suspect ebay take more notice of a big bank than us minions.
I too only use my credit card for online purchases. It gives an extra layer of protection and credit card companies are pretty damned good at taking
care of things as well.
I made a purchase online in January 2019. June 2019 the seller I'd bought from took some more money from my credit card. A short call to the
credit card company saw the money refunded to the card and the card replaced. The credit card company simply didn't hesitate they just sorted it
out and I'm still with them.