I ordered some goods from an online retailer back in October. They were sent by UPS and disappeared into a black hole. After about 6 weeks I couldn’t wait any longer and ordered the items from somewhere else and got my sister to post them to me and had them in a week.

Then last week UPS finally get in touch with me to offer to deliver my package after the retailer had logged a track and trace enquiry with them about 1 week earlier.

I refused the delivery as 1 it was too late and 2, they wanted to charge customs duty that was way over the normal rate and would not / could not justify it.

Now the retailer says that he will not refund the shipping fee when the goods are returned to him. On top of this he proposes to deduct the fee they supposedly paid UPS and not the fee that I paid as part of my order!

Firstly I think he is way out of line in not refunding the whole thing as over 50 days is an unreasonable length of time to wait for a delivery and secondly, how can you charge someone one fee for delivery but then say you will deduct a different fee when things go wrong.

What does the collective think? Am I expecting too much?

Cheers.

Did you cancel the order when it didn’t turn up?

They wouldn’t cancel the order until they had done a track and trace and proved it was lost. Although I did email to ask them to cancel and refund, yes.

Presumably this is something you’ve ordered from abroad. Normally you could use Distance Selling regs and not need to have any reason to return items and be refunded, but I guess in this case you’ll be bound by whatever the regulations are in the country you’ve ordered from.

I’m Abroad, they are a UK company.

Looking at the distance selling regulations I think they are on dodgy ground, especially as I had asked them the cancel the order and they had refused, instead choosing to chase the missing delivery with the shipping company instead.

I will wait for their next email reply (I don’t expect much to be honest, they have a reputation to uphold!) and then quote them some suitable paragraphs from the regs and offer to report them to trading standards.

They had an implied condition to deliver within a reasonable time if you asked for a refund then you asserred your right to rescind. That they refused for their own reasons is their problem not yours, they breached your rights. Time to send them an N1.

Do the regs apply for an overseas order?

quote them some suitable paragraphs from the regs and offer to report them to trading standards.

The UK distance selling regs aren’t relevant, as the customer isn’t in the UK

You need to check the distance selling regs for whatever country you are in, and send the relevant paragraphs of those.

At least it’s not just me then that thinks they are wrong in their proposed actions. Sometimes the blue mist can descend and you need to take a step back and ask “am I being reasonable” I think in this case I am. So it’s time to play hardball.

Sometimes the blue mist can descend

but when it gets mixed with red mist you get a lovely relaxing purple haze

😆

Just don’t sign of it when it comes, tell them there’s no one of that name here.

International shipping can be a disaster. Earlier this year, I ordered some offset shock bushings from ProShox in Poland; I’m in the US. It took 6 weeks for the order to arrive.

The seller sent it registered mail and provided me with the tracking number. Based on that tracking number, it cleared US customs in New York less than 2 weeks after I placed the order, which is more than reasonable IMO especially since they were custom made, not off the shelf items.

Then the US Postal Service got a hold of it. It took them 4 weeks to move a small padded envelope some 360 miles! It wasn’t damaged and the address wasn’t incorrect or unreadable. I was part way through the dispute resolution process with the seller (It wasn’t a dispute, just hadn’t been delivered) when the item arrived. So the dispute got cancelled.

Seller did nothing wrong, buyer did nothing wrong. USPS just took forever!

You need to check the distance selling regs for whatever country you are in, and send the relevant paragraphs of those

seems a waste of time – if you wanted to look at the legal side i’m fairly sure the sellers Terms and Conditions will somewhere say that any dispute will be subject to English law or NI law as well as stacks of dubious stuff that somehow “doesn’t affect your rights under consumer law”- but as not going to court not relevant

I would see if can get a named individual responsible for customer care and then email a timeline including the date you requested to cancel order – point out they have failed to supply goods in timely manner and that you gave more than adequate time for them to correct problem. You expect a full refund of original purchase price plus additional charges and to be put you back to position you would have been in had they not failed to meet their obligations.

Say you don’t intend to request credit for additional costs and time sourcing alternative supply but if they wish to make a contribution as an act of good faith then you wouldn’t object and though you may sympathise that a 3rd party shipper failed to perform that is between them and the shipper and of no concern of yours but you do expect them to confirm in a reasonable period of time that they have credited in full all the original charges.

^ nice reply 😀

USPS just took forever!

Well, they can’t take all the drugs any more so its understandable.

I think I’d want to know how much of that “black hole” was the customs process. That bit is outside of both the retailers and the third party delivery companies control. 50days is an appalling long time for a uk to uk order to arrive but just a very long time for a uk to overseas order with customs clearance. Having said that I ordered a frame a few years ago for the US on a Thursday evening and was fettling it in my shed the following Tuesday evening so it can be done. You would have thought the retailer would have been able to claim the shipping fee back from USP for breaching their delivery window.

So, the vendor has also said that the Distance Selling Regs don’t apply as I’m overseas. Not sure how correct that is.

The delivery was at first held by UPS on the 20th October saying that the delivery address was incorrect, so I’m assuming that it had already cleared customs by then.

I contacted the retailer to advise them of the problem and confirmed the address which they passed on to UPS. The delivery then just showed up as processing change of address and never changed.

I then wrote to the retailer to ask them to cancel the order as I had purchased the products elsewhere as I couldn’t wait any longer, they refused saying that they would ask UPS for a trace on the package.

1 week later I got a phone call from UPS asking to confirm the address, which I did and it as correct. They then said that they would deliver that afternoon. I told them not to as I had cancelled the order.

The retailer is saying that they paid for UPS delivery in good faith as a customer service to ensure that the goods didn’t go missing and that this service cost much more than they charged for delivery in the first place. They are also now saying that it’s my fault that this came about as I selected “Spain” as the delivery location, even though I am in the Canary Islands. However, at the time there was no option to select Canary Islands (or Balaeric Islands for that matter) from their lists and as I had used them before using “Spain” without issue I believed this to be OK.

Bottom line is that they still want to refund me the price of the parts which was about 50 quid, less the UPS shipping cost, which they say was 35 quid which I think is a bloody liberty, especially since the delivery charge was about 6 quid on the order as it was processed and it was their decision to send the parcel by a more expensive method. The way I see it they should have come back to me and said “Hey, we need to send it by a courier not Royal Mail, it will cost 30 quid more for shipping, do you want to proceed?” I could have then told them to forget it and I’ll arrange something else.

Had a look at the N1 (Small Claims) option, but as I wouldn’t be able to attend a court, I would imagine that it would be found in their favour. Not sure I can even go that route as I’m out of the UK.

Might see if I can find an email for the CAB and see what they say about the whole affair.

First you should have canceled the order
Other than that the retailer as done right and you
are now in the wrong.

Did you pay with a credit card. If so just do a chargeback.

If the Canaries is classed as part of the EEC then the retailer must comply with the host counties implementation of European Council Directive (97/7/EC) – in the UK that the DSR, no idea what it is in Spain

I selected “Spain” as the delivery location, even though I am in the Canary Islands. However, at the time there was no option to select Canary Islands (or Balaeric Islands for that matter)

This muddies the water a bit IMO.

International shipping can be quite expensive. I’m in the US and my November issue of the ST mag didn’t arrive. I waited till well after the ST delivery window before asking for another copy. ST mailed me another copy right away, and I was shocked by the postage cost. It was something like 10 GBP ($15 US) IIRC. 😯

And I’d bet that there is a lot of mail traffic between the US and UK than from anywhere to the VI.

grantway – Member
First you should have canceled the order
Other than that the retailer as done right and you
are now in the wrong.

If you read back I did try to cancel the order. They refused to cancel it saying that they wanted the get the courier to trace the package.

Info here

http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/cons_int/safe_shop/dist_sell/index_en.htm

The Distance Selling Directive applies to any consumer distance contract made under the law of an EU-Member State as well as the European Economic Area (EEA). It provides a number of fundamental legal rights for consumers in order to ensure a high level of consumer protection throughout the EU. These include:

Provision of comprehensive information before the purchase;

Confirmation of that information in a durable medium (such as written confirmation);

Consumer’s right to cancel the contract within a minimum of 7 working days without giving any reason and without penalty, except the cost of returning the goods (right of withdrawal);

Where the consumer has cancelled the contract, the right to a refund within 30 days of cancellation;

Delivery of the goods or performance of the service within 30 days of the day after the consumer placed his order;

Thanks jota180, that’s very useful information as I believe we come in as an EEA country.