Monday, 3 August 2020

Caveat Emptor

Bill and I went into lockdown the evening of 16 March. I'd intended to nip into the Coop convenience store for milk and cookies for the WI Craft group that evening but when several members sent emails saying they wouldn't be coming because of the PM's announcement telling people to stay home, we cancelled Craft Group. I went to the Coop anyhow to pick up some fresh fruit and veg, not knowing what arrangements for shopping would be in future. Bill came home from his running club that evening and we were AT HOME.

Just that day, we'd been into every shop in North Shields looking to buy hand sanitiser and paracetamol. We found some water soluable paracetamol (horrible tasting stuff, but needs must) but no hand sanitiser in any shop whatsoever.

So I got onto eBay and ordered some. As I recall there wasn't a lot of reasonably priced stuff on offer, but I selected a seller that offered a reasonably large bottle for £11 and I ordered two, which somehow gave me a discount. We never had need of it since we didn't go out except to walk and we never needed to touch anything while walking (well, I never did, Bill forgets occasionally). So I forgot about having ordered the stuff until a few months later when I sat down with a bunch of papers to figure out where my money had gone. When I found the Paypal charge I realised I'd never received the hand sanitiser. It was by then too late to claim back from eBay.

The £17.60 wasn't going to break me, but I was annoyed with myself for not looking more closely at this seller. It was also my own fault for a) not following up promptly and b) being too lazy to read through all the instructions on eBay...all their FAQs are for irrelevancies and I couldn't find an actual person to write to for the protocol. So I figured the seller would likely continue to get away with this, though I see she's not sold anything for the past month, so perhaps there is a limit to fraudulent behaviour that even eBay will tolerate.





Then it occurred to me to contact Paypal. Fortunately their complaints procedure is much simpler. I just got in touch with the Chat line and they transferred me to the complaints department. It took a couple of weeks, but even though the seller never replied to their inquiries, they refunded my £17.60! I'm pleased I didn't give up even if I was very late in following up. Sadly I suspect this is like with bankruptcies, where the costs to the businesses are passed on to other customers. 

I will definitely be more cautious in my eBay purchases from now on.

2 comments:

Rick Stone said...

Glad you sheltered in. Jimye and I were out in March trying to buy necessary items so we could also shelter in. Wound up with the coronavirus. Taken to hospital on 3/30 where we remained for 13 days. Both had the Covid 19, pneumonia plus Jimye had sepsis. Doctors said she was about six hours from dying when we arrived at haspital. I'm pretty back to normal but Jimye is still on oxygen. Meanwhile, my dad, at age 101, got the virus. He only lasted a week before passing in May. Stay safe, this stuff is deadly.

Shelley said...

Hello, Rick

Been a few years. You are actually the first person I know personally to have had Covid-19. Before this is was the office mate of a friend here in the UK and the mother of a former work colleague from Utah. I'm sorry to hear about your dad. Having worked in communicable disease control I take this virus very seriously. I set myself the goal to survive this pandemic and to keep Bill safe if I can (he takes some convincing at times, but he seems to have realised now how deadly it can be - and perhaps worse for him, debilitating).