Seller requested extra money to re-ship after first shipment was "undeliverable". Refused to provide proof and then refunded. Is this legit?

[jbala010]

Hi all,

Earlier this month I won an auction for an item I've been looking for for nearly a year now. Needless to say, I was very excited and paid right away. A few days later, the item was marked as shipped.

Earlier today, I received an e-mail (in response to the PayPal notification re: the eBay payment I made) from the seller telling me that the item had been returned to him, marked as "undeliverable" because there was "no such address". I checked the PayPal transaction and verified that my address was correct, but noted that there was one minor change that, although very unlikely, may have made a difference in regards to deliverability. (I live in Ottawa, specifically a borough of sorts called Gloucester. The address I listed said Ottawa instead of Gloucester, but the postal code was correct and this has never made a difference before for any sort of shipment, including ones from the US)

I replied to the seller's e-mail with the address containing this correction, and received a response within half an hour:

"....thanks for the updated mailing adress...so the first mail expense that was part of the original transaction may be lost..=$ 4.00.........i will attempt to remail your package...with the new adress & .............................i will have to redo your package /return it to the post/ ..etc....this is a cost on me the seller that i should not have to pay................................"

Needless to say, I had no qualms about paying for the shipping again, particularly if it was due to my using the wrong address, but I had no way to confirm that it had actually been sent in the first place. I sent this e-mail in response:

"Yes, I understand. If you could send me a picture of the postmarked package or a receipt for the original postage so that I can confirm that it was in fact sent the first time, I'd be glad to compensate you the $4.00 via PayPal or some other method. I apologize if this seems distrustful, I'd just rather have my records in order."

Within ten minutes I'd received a response:

"hey josh... bad call........ i will refund your $39.00.....good-bye"

I sent another e-mail five minutes afterward (admittedly a bit strongly worded owing to my frustration), to which I have received no response. Twenty minutes after that, I received an unsolicited PayPal money transfer from the seller in question in the amount of $39.00. I don't know if this matters, but it was a money transfer, not a refund of the charge to my credit card earlier this month. The eBay transaction also appears to still be active in my eBay summary page. I was wondering if this sort of conduct is legitimate? Or perhaps if I'm in the wrong here? As you can see, I don't have a lot of eBay experience, so of course I'm open to the possibility that I've committed some sort of faux pas here, but I didn't think it was unreasonable to ask for proof of the original shipment before I sent more money for a second shipment.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can offer some insight.

[karl*katz]

You admit that the address was wrong so why did you require proof the item was returned ?

You should have paid the $4.00 shipping again.

The $4.00 wouldn't actualy cover the sellers expenses if they had to make a second trip to the Post Office.

[jbala010]

Hi karl*katz,

Thanks for your response.

For the record, I didn't admit that the address was wrong. I did indicate that there was a possible error on the part of Canada Post regarding the city included in my address. However, I have since confirmed with Canada Post that my original address was correct, meaning that the problem was not with the address I provided. That is, there was no fault on my part in making the package undeliverable.

All the same, I thought it was unusual that a seller would contact me via e-mail rather than messaging via eBay itself, as past sellers have. That, combined with the nature of the disagreement and the very perfunctory manner in which all communication was ceased felt a bit suspect at best. Certainly not very professional, and I was wondering if this sort of thing was common practice on eBay. Again, for the record, I'm not out to incite a witch-hunt or anything ridiculous like that, since it's very likely this was a problem with the USPS or Customs. I was just wondering what others thought of this situation, and what I should do moving forward, as I don't imagine it would be for the best for either party to just leave the transaction pending on our accounts.

Thanks again,

-jbala010