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Delivery dispute with items
 

Folks i have a BIG problem. Honest situation below -

Im a relatively new stealth seller and sold two collectible Lego Items just after the new year. The sale values were £250 and £220.

I shipped both boxes at the same time by Hermes Courier.

The Buyers have both opened items not recieved disputes and my paypal account has now been limited. There is a negative balance.

The Hermes tracking numbers are both saying no information available and i have rang and spoken to their staff and sent emails with a reply that i need to wait a bit longer before I can start a claims process. The problem here is that the two boxes were only insured for a value of £50 each. I have used Hermes probably 60-70 times before with no issues at all.

The Buyers are now threatening Police action.

I have since spent the funds and am going to struggle to find the £470 refund.

Comments/Suggestions please.

Re: Am Panicking
 

You can only deal with courier company to trace the items and if lost claim compensation.

Hard lessons to be learned here.

Curious as to why both buyers are threatening police involvement as they will both receive full refunds from p/p if case is found in their favour. No need for police as far as I can see.

Re: Am Panicking
 

Seeing as PP have taken the funds from the account and made it negative, what have they done with them? (the money)

Will they return it to the buyer?

Re: Am Panicking
 

The money is probably being held pending the outcome of the cases.

As you have withdrawn all the funds the account has a negative balance.

Yes the buyers will receive a full refund as you cannot prove the items have been delivered.

You now owe p/p or e/b the money.

Why are both buyers threatening police involvement?

Re: Am Panicking
 

Police must be bombarded with these idiots... Feel sorry for them

I feel for you mate, why would professional buyers be targeting Lego?

Re: Am Panicking
 

what I do not understand is how 2 seperate parcels say no info, you need an answer on that as it is really unusual like you said. However for 2 seperate, there is likely some issue with the pick up courier or the drop off point not scanning or worse....

you can leave it in the neg until you decide what to do, given this needs resolving via the courier first....did you pay the extra Pound for signature?

if you can get something from courier saying 'delivered' you would hve been the clear for a lower value with paypal, but for this sale price, you require a signature to win unfortunately....but 'delivered' is better than nothing, paypal may help you out but not strictly speaking. show them a screenshot of of the courier acc, so they know you at least sent in good faith.

hopefully you will get at least your 2 amounts of £50 back.

the police will not do anything, do not worry, the parcels were sent, you have proof of that, you did nothing wrong, the rest is civil in terms of what went wrong after that, who is to blame and what is owed, do not panic.....

update us.

Re: Am Panicking
 

One simple thing you could of done to avoid all this trouble, and that's got insured for the real price of the items (£470) when you paid for the shipping, for the sake of saving a few quid on the shipping costs by declaring a lower value when you shipped them, you've gone a lost the best possible way of getting your money back if things were to go wrong,

Wether the buyer is a scammer or it's a mistake by hermes, you've already lost your cover for £470 when you paid less shipping costs.

Hope things turn out for you and the buyer is genuine and closes the case after recieveing it late, but remember although us sellers take all the crap for apparently scamming people and not sending the stuff we should, there's twice as many people out there trying to scam us cos they know they have protection as eBay/paypal will allways favour the buyer,

we've got to protect ourselves so 1st rule is to pay the correct shipping and cover your own back!

Re: Am Panicking
 

As NoneOther said I am curious as why BOTH threaten police action?

I have a feeling there is a missing part to this story, i.e. f@ke goods..?

I haven't had a threat like that out of all the hundreds of customers I have, let alone the first 2 items on the same stealth account!

Re: Am Panicking
 

Thanks for all the replies and thoughts.

The two parcels were sent together and collected by the courier. I think theres an issue with the woman that does the collecting. They are self employed no? Maybe she lost it/didnt scan it/whatever.

One of the buyers left neg feedback so i think the other has seen that and both have then colluded with each other and come to the conclusion that something sinister and criminal is going on.

I worry if the police get involved they will trace my real credentials from either entropay or my hsbc bank account through paypal. I see paypal have a special law enforcement portal.

Is the way forward me asking the buyers to escalate this so that paypal issue them a refund?
If so, how does that work and how do i get the buyers to cooperate with that without making their suspicions worse than what they aleady are?

Re: Am Panicking
 

If the police do trace me via the avenues mentioned above, how do i explain the false stealthy details? They will surely see that in itself as an attempt at fraud.

Re: Am Panicking
 

Unless you have actually committed a criminal offence directly in relation to the e/b transactions the police will do nothing.

Only you know the answer to that.

Re: Am Panicking
 

The buyers, chances are, will be bluffing to try and get something out of you. Why don't you bluff back and threaten your own police/legal action for fraud?

Re: Am Panicking
 

I see you are in the UK OP.

I would never use Hermes just for cheapness. To be frank I dont hear good things of them. As you say they are self employed people using their own cars and so they have no company loyalty.

For UK courier deliveries I always use Royal Mail special delivery or an established courier like TNT or UPS and have never had anything go missing or arrive damaged or fail to scan.

Re: Am Panicking
 

Stealth isn't for the faint hearted, my advice man up.

All this time worrying you could have opened another 10 accounts and have sold 10x as much.

Re: Am Panicking
 

Stop pushing the credibility boundaries right now.

Go deal with the courier company.

Deal with this in the correct manner and stop leaning towards the Dark Side.....

There's a slight pong around right now. Make sure it does not get worse.

:peace:

Re: Am Panicking
 

Huh? :confused:
Would you like to say that in a way a thicko like me can understand? :s

Re: Delivery dispute with items
 

in 10 years plus of trading, nobody has ever threathened me with the police, but you get 2 in a row, what the others are saying is that it makes the story a bit suspicious, not sure if you added it in for drama as you were worried...

as for the law enforcement portal on ebay never heard any member on the forum had an issue with them, no idea what level they get involved at.

never had a quibble-free time with any courier and I have used them all, you will be lucky to get your x2 £50 back. If you want to keep the account, pay back the neg balance.

Re: Delivery dispute with items
 

I see. And what exactly are you all suspicious of me doing? ?

Hey you know what i was a tad windy about going down this stealth thing in the first place
Seems a lot of aggro and hassle to me. I cant be doing with all this crap.

The only option that i can see is going to the bank and arranging an overdraft or something to refund these two people. But then the PP balance will still remain in neg??

If i put the PP balance back in the black first then that does not solve the issue of the refunds. I just dont understand this at all.

As for the Police threats - well im a new account holder with a couple of low item purchases and corresponding feedback. Just researching on the web shows that this is a prime suspicious way of scamming people. Maybe that is why they have reacted in this manner.

Re: Delivery dispute with items
 

I once has an angry Ruby Lane member threaten to "report me to the FBI" because she believed I had listed a phake. She hadnt even noticed I was in a different country!!

Worried sick in case the FEDS come kicking my door in at 6am (not)

Re: Delivery dispute with items
 

Your situation would be no different if your e/b and p/p accounts were in your real details.

You would still have two buyers claiming non receipt of goods, two cases opened, same threats from buyers and same negative balance and the solution would be that same.

The fact your accounts are stealth is irrelevant as it does not effect how you deal with the problem.

That is what you have been advised by members here based on years of experience of these situations.

Threats of reports to police from buyers are practically unheard of amongst the many people here who have been trading on e/b for many years.

The fact that you asked repeatedly about police involvement would naturally make people curious/suspicious because it is far from the norm for a buyer to react this way let alone two of them to collude against a seller when they know full well that they can very easily get their money back.

Re: Delivery dispute with items
 

Problem over -
Received this by email this afternoon,

"Your eBay account was suspended because recent account activity has raised serious security concerns. We've taken this precaution to protect our members while we make sure that the activity doesn't cause harm -- however unintentionally -- to the eBay Community.

You won't be able to use eBay in any way. This includes using another existing account or registering a new account.

Any outstanding selling fees are due immediately, and any amounts that you haven't previously disputed will be charged to the billing method currently on file.

Regards,

So i guess the buyers will automatically receive a refund now and my Paypal account will remain in neg. Bye bye PPal !

Funny though how as soon as i mention it on this forum, the account gets closed straight away. I wonder . . .

Re: Delivery dispute with items
 

Because you were massively OD in PayPal and have two buyers claiming non receipt of expensive items on a fairly new account. Strikes me as high risk, and eBay does not like high risk.