Seller contacts me after shipping to change address. Item gets sent back. What do I do?

[neonosferatu77]

Hey everyone! So I'm relatively new to selling on ebay(canada) and I just had a weird situation happen to me and I'm looking for advice.

I'm selling a somewhat expensive trading card (150$) and it was purchased by an account with no rating. They paid and everything was good, until I sent them a picture of me sending off the bubble mailer. They told me the forgot to change their address on Ebay and that I needed to contact Canada post to tell them to change the address.

The change wasn't huge, just a couple numbers higher on the same street but it still felt off to me. I suggested he contact Canada post to see if he could arrange anything on his side, as I wanted to ship at the address that I had on ebay to protect myself. I also made sure the package needed a signature at reception.

Fast forward a few days, it comes back to me, saying the address doesn't exist. I contact Ebay support by phone and they tell me my only option is to ship it to the new address outside of ebay's platform and ask him to paypal me for the new shipping charges.

I'm not really comfortable in just sending the card outside of Ebay's system as the second I ship it out again I feel like I have no papertrail to back in me up if/when the card is flagged as missing.

I was considering asking him to cancel the transaction and I would relist and then accept his offer, with the new address on file so it would allow me to defend myself if anything were to happen.

What do you guys think?

[esclyons]

did you send it with tracking.?, either way,  if not it is up to them to send, payment, for shipping again,. Don't send $150 cards without tracking,, they can say item, not recieved, but if you can show you sent it to there ebay address, you should be covered.

[neonosferatu77]

Yeah I sent the initial order with tracking. I always do to play safe. But the order came back to me because the initial address doesn't exist.

Now the buyer wants me to send the same order but at a new address. Ebay support told me to do it, but payment and tracking will no longer be monitored on ebay's side. So even if I ship with tracking again, it's not going to show up anywhere as sent a second time.

[pjcdn2005]

First, just so you know, Canada Post would not have changed the address regardless of who contacted them.

Tracking shows that the item was sent back because the address was wrong..correct?   Did you enter the tracking on the order details? If you printed the label on ebay that would have been done automatically. If you bought the label elsewhere you need to enter the tracking number on ebay.

Anyway...when an item with tracking is returned because the address was incorrect the buyer is not covered by the money back guarantee.  So they could file an item not received claim and if the tracking info showed attempted delivery, you would win.  It doesn't matter if you now send that to a different address as you are covered for the original transaction if for some reason they open a claim down the road. 

If they do send you the money to resend the package, you should not  buy the label on ebay as that would overwrite the current tracking and you don't want to lose that info showing that the address was incorrect.

 Since a case hasn't been opened, you have a few options. 

You could use the send refund link to refund them less the cost of the original shipping and fees for that shipping. Then relist the item so that they could purchase it again changing the address before they pay.

Or you could make a new listing just for the shipping cost (make  sure that you are taking into account what the ebay fees will be) and when they pay for that, they can change the address. You can purchase the label through ebay as the tracking info will be added to that transaction.

Or you can have them send the funds via Paypal. You would buy a label away from ebay and just send them the tracking number.

[neonosferatu77]

Thank you for the suggestions. The address wasn't wrong on my side. The address the buyer as listed on his account doesn't exist so that's why he wanted me to change it.

(example: the label was printed to be sent to 123 fakestreek, when he went to look at the tracking he told me 123 fakestreet on his account was wrong, he wanted me to sent it to 144 fakestreet instead.)

I think in this case, reimbursing minus the shipping then relisting it would be the best course of action for me to keep a papertrail and protect myself.

[flipistics]

Realistically you have a few different options.  From a technical perspective, I don't THINK you're required to do anything (I'm not 100% sure on that since you got the item back). That wouldn't be the right thing to do though.  I would suggest one of the following:

1. Eat the extra shipping cost and send it out to the new address (don't use eBay labels).

2. Have the buyer open an item not received case and refund them fully. Relist it so they can buy it again with the correct address.

3. Use the "send refund" option to refund the buyer the item cost minus shipping (let them know you're doing that and why). Relist the item and let them purchase it again. Note, DO NOT use "send refund" to refund the entire transaction cost or you'll probably get an out of stock defect.

4. Have the buyer open a return request for having changed their mind, refund them the item cost minus shipping, relist it and let them repurchase it. Let them know ahead of time you won't be refunding the shipping.

For a relatively low shipping cost, high value item like that, I would personally do 1 or 2.

[reallynicestamps]

https://www.ebay.ca/help/policies/ebay-money-back-guarantee-policy/ebay-money-back-guarantee-policy?....

You don't owe him a cent. Or the card.

At least , eBay will not insist that you refund when you were given an Undeliverable address.

Now in Real Life.

I don't think you own him the (wasted ) shipping cost.

Suggest that he change his address.

Double check on Google Maps that there is something there. Remember that google can be a year or two out of date.

Cancel the sale , giving a partial refund (no refund on shipping or any fees you paid) and relist.

You could also change the title to his name.

He finds the relist, with your coaching, and pays.

You ship, as before, but to the corrected address.