Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyruscobb
To the seller: Do not issue a refund unless the shipping terms were negotiated and the parties agreed that the seller incurred the risk until successfully delivered. Absent those terms, the seller satisfied his requirements under the contract when he delivered the card to the third-party shipper.
The seller has provided proof this occurred. The buyer had the shipping risk once the seller handed the card to the Postal Service. I’m optimistic this is the correct legal outcome. The parties certainly had the right to negotiate and change these terms and outline who bore the shipping risk. Apparently, this did not occur.
Why should a seller now eat the cost, if the contract did not include the shipping method, type, insurance, etc. Absent those terms negotiated and agreed upon, the seller satisfied the contract when the Postal Service took possession and the seller has provided proof he shipped the item.
This was not an eBay transaction or a regular PayPal one (Friends and Family I’m assuming). This was a transaction between two private individuals. It’s a tough lesson, but the correct outcome. The seller wins this dispute.
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Yikes.
As a seller myself, I feel I'm responsible for the item getting delivered. I've had multiple instances where an item has not reached the destination and I've had to eat the cost - it sucks, but I accept that as part of running an online/shipping based business.
The only examples I can really think of when I do not accept responsibility for delivery are when a buyer asks for items to be shipped without tracking to save on shipping costs, the buyer is in a country with poor logistics infrastructure and I clearly state I will not be held responsible if they want it shipped there, and/or when an item has been marked as delivered by a postal service but the buyer says they did not receive it (at that point I will try to help, but I feel it now becomes the buyer's responsibility assuming I have put in all of the correct details).