eBay

aisekizakku · ‎09-26-2014

Hello eBay,

I bought an item from a seller overseas for a friend of mine as a gift. I gave the seller my friend's address to send to him because I live in a different city/town. I kept tabs with my friend to see if he had gotten anything but he hadn't. I kept tabs with him for a good couple weeks when before checking the item information and found the seller had left a tracking number. Awesome right?

Well apparently from checking the tracking number, the item had been sent to a Canada Post location near my friend, however there was an issue with the address and the item was never delivered. Instead, Canada Post had the item held for me to pick up. Neither my friend or myself heard anything from Canada Post saying the item was ready for Pick up. By the time I had checked the tracking number, the item had already been sent back overseas. Now it's in Limbo.

I've contacted the seller stating I still want the item and that if he did end up seeing the card again that they should just send it to my address and then I can deal with shipping it to my friend. The only problem is the seller hasn't received the item back yet. According to Canada Post, the item was sent back to its originating Country on September 13, 2014 which was the second destination of the item's journey to my friend's place, but the tracking stops there.

Now that I have the background story in place, my question is: what can be done to get this item out of Limbo? I still want it as a gift. I don't believe it would take this long to get back to its origin. Any help on the matter would be great.

Thank You

Joey K

femmefan1946 · ‎09-26-2014

I'm going to assume that the seller is cooperative, because most people are honest and want to be helpful.

I would ask the seller to send you a refund and a request for a Mutual Cancellation as soon as he gets the parcel back.

This will release both of you from the transaction, return his fees (upwards of 20% of what you paid goes to eBay and Paypal in fees), and allows both of you to leave feedback.

As a PYA, don't agree to the cancellation before you get a refund.

Now here's the tricky part. Postage.

Your seller may be charged as much to get the parcel back as he did to ship it. Who covers that cost?

Whether he is charged for the return or not, who will cover the cost of resending the parcel?

You say however there was an issue with the address and the item was never delivered. What was the issue? If you gave the wrong address to Paypal and the seller, you have to take responsibility for the additional costs. If the seller made a transcription error on a handwritten address, then the responsibility was his. Since this was tracked the former is more likely.

aisekizakku · ‎09-27-2014

Thanks for the advice! I'll contact the seller and see what we can figure out. I feel responsible for the issue right now because I sent the address to the seller via message and not just through eBays address info.