Debt collectors and 16 year olds

So it seems young Revs (age 16) has an EBay account where he has been buying and selling various items.

one such item was a scooter.
he sold it and had been paid for it by the seller and he had removed the funds from his account .

A week or so later , the buyer was complaining that the wheels were damaged ( he had sent it out unassembled as per his description)

Anyhow the buyer sent it back saying it was damaged , and claimed their money from EBay. He never told us this ( my son) and didn’t tell us about any of the correspondence he had from EBay regarding the matter.

Today I opened a letter by mistake address to him from a debt collection agency asking him to pay the money. They have added their fee  on top for admin charges.

Can a debt recovery agency chase a 16 year old ?

It would seem that you have to be 18 to even have an eBay account, so god knows how he got past their verification as all his id would show his age 🤔

I shall be having words with him when he gets back from school to find out what’s going on . If he owes ebay monies then I’d happily make him pay it back. But I don’t intend to give a debt collection agency anything on top and would gladly tell them to shove it if he is too young for them to chase.

But then I don’t want black marks against my address.

And could EBay say he committed fraud which might land him in hot water ??

what would STW do 😉

But I don’t intend to give a debt collection agency anything on top and would gladly tell them to shove it if he is too young for them to chase.

i know nothing here. But you cant have it both ways, hes either old enough to take the cop himself, or as the parent you are responsible for his **** ups until hes an adult.

I would get it paid asap and lessons learned and all that

Pay what money, and to who?

Are ebay asking for the money back off your 16 year old to reimburse them for the money they refunded the scooter buyer?

I know that 16 year olds can be chased for debt on things like mobile phone contracts, so it’s not beyond the pale that Ebay fees might be as well? I really don’t know though.

I guess; contact your local CAB and see what they say?

It would seem that you have to be 18 to even have an eBay account, so god knows how he got past their verification as all his id would show his age

Do you leave your wallet lying around – may not be his ID he’s used.

ebay will have notified him that the buyer had raised a dispute, and he will have had opportunity to appeal against that. after that, ebay will have notified him that they want their money back, having refunded the buyer.

He’s still got the scooter, why wouldn’t you pay back the money? the legal position is somewhat muddy

Are ebay asking for the money back off your 16 year old to reimburse them for the money they refunded the scooter buyer?

That is the long and short of it.
I knew he had sold the scooter , and I know it came back ( and I was pissed off as it was not damaged , it was because the person who bought it had forced the wrong spacers into the forks. Once I had changed them round everything was tickety boo🤦‍♂️) .

what i didn’t know  was that all this was done through eBay. Thought he had sold it locally.

I know that 16 year olds can be chased for debt on things like mobile phone contracts, so it’s not beyond the pale that Ebay fees might be as well? I really don’t know though.

I think a parent can sign on behalf of the child for a mobile contract. From what I have read so far about eBay , you HAVE to be 18 .
The correspondence is in his name , and there is ( as far as I know ) no id in his name showing an age other than what he is ( actually 15 at the time )

Its his birthday soon , looks like he’s getting his debt paid as his main present 😂

Tell eBay he’s a minor. 16 year olds can’t enter into binding contracts so the contract is unenforceable. I imagine they’ll block his account. They and the debt collectors won’t know he’s 16 (you have to be 18 to have account – him lying to sign up doesn’t change anything really).

Offer the scooter assembled and working as it should be. Easier for the buyer and you suck up the extra cost.
Refund them as per then advertise it again or sell it assembled.

I’d get on my high horse, and complain to ebay that the original buyer is wasting ebay’s and your time if they can’t make a simple wheel assembly correctly, then falsly claim the wheels are damaged.

Take photos of the correctly assembled ssooter.

I don’t know the answer to your question but I do know that this

I don’t want black marks against my address.

doesn’t happen.

If I were to guess,

It seems odd to me that no-one is liable – to wit, if he’s a minor and not liable then you are on his behalf.  That’s way too easy to abuse otherwise, just set up an ebay account in the name of your two-year old, or your dog.

It also seems odd to me that it’s gone straight to debt collection, how long ago was all this?  I’ve dealt with debt collection agencies, they’re invariably either a) a last resort to recover money when all other attempts have failed or b) bad debts sold off to them because they think they can scare people into handing over free money.

Something doesn’t smell right here.

if he’s a minor and not liable then you are on his behalf

Really?  I believe that parents are explicitly not liable for children’s debts, unless they have co-signed whatever legal agreement incurred the debt. If EBay allowed a minor to sign up, and not on your account, that’s their problem.

As I understand it the buyer cannot just send items back and claim money from EBay. How the returns procedure works varies slightly if the item is sold with “returns accepted” or not. Buyer should have opened a case in any event and there will be correspondence.

You do have to be 18 to have an ebay account. So that’s a good place to start, find out how he has the account when he’s not allowed it. Tread carefully here obviously, there’s potential for more trouble/hassle than just a possible debt. But obviously you’re hoping for some ebay negligence or failure. This isn’t about shirking responsibility though some might say so, it’s about ebay’s responsibility as much as anything else.

Parents are not normally liable for a child’s debt unless they’ve cosigned. And as a general rule, while a minor can enter into a contract , because they normally are assumed to not be able to fully understand that contract it’s voidable at any time. There’s some exceptions but I can’t see an ebay account contract being one of those. So I would expect that the only obligation he has to pay is through the ebay contract and that he can void the ebay contract.

But that’s all about the contract and the debt, it’s basically a sub-problem.

re the actual ebay processes, it’s all a lot of hoop-jumping and there’s protections for both buyer and seller but tbf it sounds like he’s not jumped through those hoops. There’ll be a record of any claim made by the buyer under his account, it’ll show as a closed claim if it’s gone all the way through.

“That’s way too easy to abuse otherwise, just set up an ebay account in the name of your two-year old, or your dog.”

If you set up an account in someone else’s name (fictitious, child or dog) then that’s your fraud. But if my cat or cactus can fool eBay’s ID checks and open an account, that’s eBay’s problem, not mine.

Politely tell any debt collection agency to **** right off. Repeatedly.

Do not enter into any correspondence  whatsoever with the DCA, even if they repeatedly contact you. They have no power unless a CCJ has been issued and for that your son would have been summoned to appear. If you need to get the DCA to back off there are template letters on Money Saving Expert website where you start by saying things like I acknowledge no debt etc.

Really? I believe that parents are explicitly not liable for children’s debts, unless they have co-signed whatever legal agreement incurred the debt.

I have no idea. But someone has to be liable, surely?

It seems odd to me that no-one is liable – to wit, if he’s a minor and not liable then you are on his behalf.  That’s way too easy to abuse otherwise, just set up an ebay account in the name of your two-year old, or your dog.

but could the someone that is liable be ebay because they did not do sufficient dilligence to establish the credentials of the user, of take sufficient security (credit card, bank d/d, or holding the fund in suspense until risk has passed?).

there will be a difference between the civil matter of an immature person entering an invalid contract on the basis of false details and then failing to return the money v someone intentionally exploiting a vulnerability for their own gain (which would be fraud).

I do agree though that it is odd that the first you know is a debt collection letter – that feels like someone has ignored a lot of previous correspondence?  It also feels odd to me that dad thought it was a local sale, but involved shipping it in bits and then being shipped back assembled (wrongly).

the real challenge will be finding a human being at eBay to discuss it with.

Oh yeah a few people suggested trying to resolve it with the buyer. Do not. That’s over and done, the buyer has been settled by ebay, there is nothing to gain whatsoever by that and it could end up worse.

Despite having loads of odds and ends kicking around, it’s reading about things like this that make me avoid selling anything on eBay.

FWIW I’ve sold, uh, about 1600 items on ebay and had only a handful of proper bad experiences. And a bunch of chancers which created a lot of work and inconvenience but was still settled.

I’m sorry that I can’t help with your problem but I can add a cautionary tale.

My niece was caught out around this age by allowing a friend to get money for a phone he was selling paid into her account. He then didn’t send the phone.  She didn’t tell her mum and the first my sister knew of it, my niece’s bank account was closed.

She is lovely kid, has worked hard and is a good saver but she is still on the banned list at 21.

She recieved a 6 year ban for her naivety.

So do everything in your powers to sort this out now, as thats 6 years without a LISA, etc.

In the meantime my Dad set up a seperate account as a work around and thankfully an Uncle had set up a savings account for her, so when he died the account became hers so she had somewhere to pay in her Child Trust Fund.

I’d get on my high horse, and complain to ebay that the original buyer is wasting ebay’s and your time if they can’t make a simple wheel assembly correctly, then falsly claim the wheels are damaged.

Take photos of the correctly assembled ssooter.

That horse has long since bolted – the time for that was when all the correspondence was being ignored.

Correspondence was ignored because a 16 year old is not necessarily capable of understanding the consequences and requirements of fulfilling this part of a contract. The case law revolved around a kid who ordered a load of trousers from a tailor if I remember correctly. This is the crux of the problem.

Despite having loads of odds and ends kicking around, it’s reading about things like this that make me avoid selling anything on eBay.

because you are worried about your ability to manage financial transactions?

Has he paid the debt back? Do you know what Id he used to setup the ebay account. Yours?

and contact Citizens Advice

What a mess. When eBay refunds the buyer they do so out their own pot and then they debit the money out of your bank  the next working day and you are then fully squared away.  You get something like 1-2 weeks to deal with open cases so I’m guessing your son totally ignored everything and then de-linked his bank account from eBay stopping them from taking the funds back.

just to confirm though, your child has both the money and the item back ?

as a responsible parent you need to either

1, get the scooter back with the buyer ( that ship has sailed)

2, repay the money that the kid isnt entitled to

I think that option 2 is your only choice