Hi guys !
Heres one for you…
19/9/2016 12:13 London North West Depot
+London North West Depot Delivery attempted - refused by addressee
Who is responsible? Is customer entitled to refund?
Thanks in advance.
I think you already know the answer.
Would Amazon accept tracking showing attempted delivery and refusal as proof of delivery, or will they ask for tracking showing delivered and customer signature?
Have you contacted the buyer to explain events?
The first two failed deliveries may have been because the person was out or off sick.
The refusal may well have been by a receptionist rather than the customer, and there could be any number of reasons for this which may not be the customer’s fault:
perhaps the receptionist just couldn’t be bothered with it
perhaps the company has a policy that staff are not allowed to have private mail etc delivered to the office (many firms do, because they don’t want their reception or mailroom staff’s time taken up with non-company matters)
perhaps it is a shared building with shared reception etc and the receptionist did not know the addressee. It is useful in these cases to get the name of the company and any other details such as department, floor or room number etc.
As for the item going missing, this is between you and the carrier company, it’s not a case where they claim to have delivered and the buyer claims not to have received. The buyer is entitled to a refund or replacement, but they need to sort the delivery problem out at their end.
Customer has not had item so of course they are entitled to a full refund.
Including postage. Do it now before the buyer opens and wins an a-z claim.
The fact the item is now lost is between you and the carrier - claim from the carrier for lost item yourself.
>Who is responsible?
You and parcel force, sort it out between you.
> Is customer entitled to refund?
Yes - refund the buyer in full
This is true, but the customer refused the delivery, £30 worth of delivery charges now down to us seems wrong but none the less… if that is the rules then then that is the rules… we need new rules! 
Very true, I accept that, just a shame that, as the tracking shows it, the customer “should” in an ideal world, be responsible for that as a “customer no longer required item” where they would have had to pay the return delivery, seems a little bit of a loophole to “change your mind and NOT pay the delivery cost”
Refund section here I come !
+The refusal may well have been by a receptionist rather than the customer, and there could be any number of reasons for this which may not be the customer’s fault:+
Neither is it the sellers fault, really up to the buyer to ensure the delivery address they provide will accept deliveries for them, sellers can only ship to the address buyers provide.
There is an argument as delivery was recorded as refused, then it’s treated as a change of mind and return delivery cost deducted from the refund (irrespective if returned, or lost).
Did the customer pay for express delivery?
If so you can deduct the difference between your standard delivery cost and express i.e. if you charge £8 for delivery normally and £30 for express then knock £22 off the refund.
As for the lost return, ParcelForce are contacted to you so you would have to raise a claim against them for the loss.
I had a similar thing happen recently. The buyer was not in for delivery several times and didn’t reply to messages, or answer their phone, or return calls. It’s a little rude of them to not let you know what is going on but you have to treat is as if they changed their mind.
If their address is un-deliverable, this is an option in the cancel order process. An option you can perhaps use if they try to order from you again.
I hope Parcel Force find your returned parcel.
It is very one sided… IMO, if a customer refuses delivery, or isn’t in for delivery and the item works its way back to the seller, yes a full refund should be issued but LESS the postage.
As a buyer, if something is sent to me, and I don’t pick it up, or refuse delivery why should I then be entitled to a refund of the postage costs…
Crazy… But those are the rules, and we must all stick to them.
What, for the address the buyer provides?
I’m referring to responsibility for the delivery address the buyer provides, not the responsibility for delivery of the order.
The bottom line is you are responsible for the refund, as much as it may pain you, you don’t have a choice, this is something that we will experience at some point in our career as an Amazon book seller, you can try and claim off Royal Mail or your Courier if you don’t use Royal Mail, you could even hope and pray that the item will be returned to you in due course, anything from 4 weeks to 2 years, usually around 3.5 weeks if you are lucky, as everyone will say, refund and move on, yes it hurts but not as much as an A-Z or a unwarranted negative feedback, count you losses over a year and then times that by 5 then put your books up by that amount, even 1p on a book over 100 thousand books makes a difference if you manage to sell them all, now I am being silly, just refund and move on.
If they work in a block, they are “paying” the receptionist… (shared or not they contribute in one way or another to the costs) does that mean the receptionist refuses their parcels when THEY pay the wages ? Accepting parcels/deliveries no doubt appear in their contract somewhere ! As such, this makes the concierge/receptionist an employee, either exclusive or shared worker so I would argue that one of their employees acted negligently and so why is the responsibility then down to us? 
If they customer is not the boss paying the wages and simply “works” in the building that has a policy of no private mail/deliveries then again, THEY should be responsible for supplying an address that they KNOW can not receive mail (albeit physically mail can be received, they know, by way of their work contract, that mail is NOT supposed to be received and therefor can not claim it was not received, nor complain it was rejected as ignorance is no excuse in the eyes of the law, somewhere, they signed a work contract with that clause in effect)
Hanging up my barristers gown lol, we refunded anyway, we’re nice guys
I agree, it should be as simple as that but we fear, as many have said here, that "W"rong is an answer we may get back from Amazon and Amazon case as “W” comes between A-Z !!
We do have a policy of “Customers Before Profits” but on this occasion we were pretty annoyed that the customer said they hadn’t received it… it turned out they were “unavailable” delivery first 2 times, we instructed Parcel Force to them collect them from Hermes to make another delivery (faster) and THEN they REFUSE delivery ?!?
Its the way it goes I Guess, refunded in full with postage and we move on with a slight limp that will no doubt be forgotten about in 2 days !
