So I should be £3.00 worse off after returning an item which was falsely advertised?

What should I have charged back? To add, I emailed him a copy of my response letter, and this is his response below. What do you make of this?! It seems completely bonkers IMO. I have not received this "third party royal mail" postage label he talks about buying on 3rd March, as I've told him many times now. All I've received is a few messages from eBay, none of which contained any postage labels. Nothing of the sort has arrived in my PayPal account. He seems to be ignoring ebay's money back guarantee returns policy, for items "sold not as described" (as he readily admits below.) so I assume I am in still in the right here? Private and confidential. Without prejudice. Hi I have not read your email as I do not accept electronic communications in regards to this dispute which sits alongside your earlier request in relation to not communicating again, please forward anything you feel appropriate in writing, Please consider what you have sent via email as unread. No future correspondence will be accepted or read/replied via any electronic methods i.e. email, unless of course you are confirming you have used the postage paid label sent to you on March 4th 2019 by eBay to return my item in which case I will consider this issue resolved. failing that I have no alternative than to seek redress via the legal channels. The facts remain Feb 20th 2019 you requested a refund fair enough I had not seen the damage as it had sat in its packaging since purchase so I just took pictures and posted on eBay, then later that evening you requested a postage paid label, at that time I had no responsibility to refund the purchase price of the item until I received the item back however as i was unable to find the returns postage section on my phone I took it upon myself to refund the amount paid, I repeatedly requested you send the item back and repeatedly requested you send me your PayPal and postage details so i could not find how to sort the returns postage out. On each occasion you refused, eBay confirmed to me which was relayed to you that as I had given the refund they could not do anything about postage labels so again I repeatedly asked again to no avail, to which you then sent a link to a useless article. eventually after nearly two hours I got in touch with eBay and explained the situation On March 3rd 2019 whilst online with eBay I purchased under the explicit instructions and guidance of eBay a postage paid label from a 3rd party and emailed it to eBay at their request, they inform me they have sent this to you alone with numerous messages for you to return the item to me. For the avoidance of any doubt. some undeniable facts! 20th Feb 2019 refund requested and given on Feb 21st 2019 electronic evidence available to prove this beyond any doubt. Item not received details outlined above. 3rd & 4th March following repeated requests for you to send me postage costs and PayPal details a Postage label sent to you from eBay emails and chat transcripts evidence beyond any doubt. Receipt for the cost of my purchase of a 3rd party Royal Mail postage paid label beyond any doubt Item still not received I have involved eBay legal department and a relative who is a solicitor as i will be requesting any emails, chat transcripts or other documents relating to this issue including very specifically the postage paid label proof it was purchased by me and sent to eBay to be forwarded to you. Your whole position is revolving around your hunch/opinion you would lose out on less than £3.00 postage yet not satisfied with me refunding the whole amount or my explanation which I did not have to do until i received the item back, the evidence is very clear I have as previously explained . I have fulfilled my obligations completely in terms of giving you a full refund and paying for a postage paid label which was sent to you by eBay, yet you still have my property. You ave two choices, return my item which you are withholding without permission despite having a refund and a postage paid label or keep it in which case i am left with no alternative but to follow the legal avenues available to me. Time spent on this email 15 minutes, charges to be added as per my letter, this will be added to the final owed amount, a statement will be sent to you periodically by Royal Mail recorded delivery. Regards

Hi there. Please help! Long story short, I bought a compass from ebay, listed as "new" for £27.95 total (£25.00 for item, £2.95 for postage) Arrived scratched and damaged. Informed seller, and sent photos showing damage, requesting to return it for a refund as per eBay return procedure. They initially refused a refund saying "returns not accepted" and said there was nothing wrong with the item. I quoted a bit of eBay's returns policy for items sold not as described. The seller, suddenly, manually sent a refund from within PayPal for £27.95 only but failed to send me any funds to cover return postage/or provide a paid return postage label. I suspect he purposely did not adhere to eBay's returns policy guidelines, and instead did things manually via PayPal, in order to later cheat me or otherwise cause problems during the return postage. Of course, if you transact outside of eBay's procedures and system, then you are not covered. eBay messages sent back and forth. I repeatedly requested he created a paid refund label. He demanded I send it at my own cost, and once he received the compass, he would refund any incurred return p+p fees at a later date. First he said he couldn't create a label, when I linked him to eBay's customer support page so he could find out how to do it, he then claimed he "didn't have time", and finally said it wasn't possible because he'd manually sent a refund. By this time, the tone of his messages had become quite demanding and pressurizing. From past experience with difficult eBayers, I believed he was going to try something, as I had listed a high-end camera bag on eBay myself and the approx. market value was about £175. I "blocked" his eBay account from bidding on my bag. Sure enough, literally immediately after I sent him a very firm, final message telling him to send me the return postage costs before I would return the compass, my camera bag received bids from 2 eBay users who had variations of his uncommon surname, and also his original seller account's username. One of the accounts was created that day and had zero feedback, the other had a feedback history of about 20 or so. I confronted him about it, in a final message the following day, and he said he knew nothing about it, but his "wife" may have been "causing mischief". I reported him to eBay. Since then he sent a few more messages but I told him I wasn't interesting in communicating further, and the offer to return it still stands, but only once I have received funds to cover the return postage cost. This was all over the period of about 4 weeks, and I still have the compass and i'm still awaiting funds from the seller to cover return postage fees. Received a letter before claim from the guy today. He says he will seek to claim £30+ per hour for his time, based on his salary, if it goes to court, and will need to travel from his home in England to Scotland should I decide on a Simple Procedure here. In his letter, he claims he has "offered" to pay for the return numerous times, which is inaccurate as he wants me to post it first, then wait for reimbursement at his discretion at a later date via PayPal. I responded at length to his letter, sticking to the facts and re-stating my position. Of course, I have proof of all the communications via eBay messages, and also his shill-bidding activity on my camera bag which of course only served to make trust his word even less. Please can you advise what I should do in this case, and if he does decided to take it to court, given the information i've provided, how do you think it would play out? Many thanks in advance for your help, and sorry for the length of this. Cheers!

Hi there I wonder if you can help with this. It seems fishy to me. My fiancee is a support worker (supporting disabled people who have their own tenancies) for an agency on a zero hours employment contract. All of her shifts involve supporting people in their own homes for the local city council (in Scotland, if that's relevant). On average, she works around 37 hours per week (sometimes a lot more), and does additional "sleeping" shifts (paid at a set rate) when they are available (on average one or two of these per week) My fiancee has been with the agency full time for around 18 months. The agency routinely emails all employees every week to say "You have been booked for shifts this week, so please check the online system" or "All shifts have now been allocated" but recently the weekly email included the line "All shifts over 6 hours moving forward will include a 30 minute unpaid break in line with the Councils working time directive." No other information was provided, and we have emailed the agency twice for further information but no reply. There are several problems with this: Firstly, my fiancee supports people with various physical and learning disabilities who explicitly, as per their care plans, cannot be left alone in their homes (or indeed alone in the community) for safety reasons. She works one to one with the person she is supporting, and no other staff members are available to relieve her. Some of them may inadvertently hurt themselves, or are vulnerable to abuse, or suffer from potentially fatal epileptic seizures. It is impossible for my fiancee to take a "break" from her work in the legal sense, and if she left anyone on their own it would be a clear case of a breach of duty of care and serious negligence. It should be noted that none of the Council's own support worker employees are also unable to take a break, as there is nobody available to cover their duties while they leave the site. As for the issue of compliance with the Council's policy/Working Time Regulations, the majority of her shift patterns never complies with the legal guidelines. For example, she is often booked for a PM shift finishing at 22:00, then a sleep shift, rolling over onto an AM shift starting at 07:00 and sometimes working well into the early afternoon. This pattern can repeat several times in a 7 day period. In addition, it seems like her pay conditions have been changed without her being asked to sign an updated contract. Any advice or guidance would be greatly appreciated at this early stage. It sounds very wrong to me, given the circumstances of her work. Thanks a lot!

If they make a written request for one, again, i'm concerned the LL will simultaneously notify them of a significant increase in rent charges which they will not be able to afford due to a limited pension income. If this happens, what should/can they do?

My thoughts exactly, but I am concerned that if they report it immediately they will be unreasonably kicked out by the LL. We're at opposite ends of the country and both of their health is not fantastic.

I just called them to get some more info. which may be useful: AND this is the best bit. There is no tenancy agreement. They have not signed any contract with the landlord. When they hand over the cash, they don't receive any receipts. They have lived there for 2 years, and the landlord has just bumped the cash charge to £330/month. The previous tenants, a couple, had a formal, signed tenancy agreement and it transpires they were only paying £500/month in rental charges. At the end of that tenancy, all of their £500 deposit was kept by the landlord due to "damage".

Hi My parents are both in their mid-sixties and have retired. They are renting a property from some old acquaintance. I just discovered they are paying the landlord a total of £500/month rental charges, but agreed with the landlord to pay £200/month via standing order and have been withdrawing £300/month in cash and handing it over in person each month. The landlord told them he previously charged £600/month but would only charge £500 if they paid in this way. I am really concerned about this. Do you agree they should immediately and, without notice, start paying the total £500/month via standing order? Do they have a right to do this without fear of unfair eviction? I'm very worried the landlord will suddenly claim my parents are in arrears with their rent payments, and make a huge claim. How best to go about this please? Many thanks in advance for your help.

Well, I put the fact I was unhappy in writing to my management. I also stated the current situation (leaving the flat while s/u smokes) means the service user is unmonitored for a period of time, which puts the public at risk. My manager responded and said I was entitled to work elsewhere in a non-smoking environment. This is in Scotland not England, btw.

My manager verbally told me this after I voiced my concerns. The service user is actually in a transition, gradually moving out of a secure mental health ward (kept there under a compulsory treatment order) and into their own supported tenancy. They are gently being introduced into the community and their flat on a daily basis, and will soon have a few overnight stays in their own flat with 24 hour, 1:1 staffing. After these overnight trials have been successfully completed, they will then be formally discharged from the hospital and living in their own flat full time. We anticipate this will happen mid to late January, so there is plenty of time to sort this out. Would anyone recommend joining Unison in light of this?

Thanks for that. Very useful. I will quote this to my manager.

Absolutely no offence taken. "Service user" is the preferred nomenclature. The people we support are not employees, nor customers. They pay for an agreed amount of support "service" hours per week, hence the term "service user". Obviously they are not animals, but human beings and this goes without saying. This is a "forensic" case. Not everyone is supported because of additional needs, but because of risks posed to the public. There is a greater move towards this kind of service provision, and away from beds in secure wards in hospitals and prisons. I mentioned this as I thought it was relevant to my question. I have spoken to my manager, but they told me an hour was sufficient for the smoke to dissipate. I disagree. I agree with you Sangie595 in that a person with capacity cannot be instructed in their own home, but by the same token, can I as an employee refuse to work in such an environment?

Hi there I am a Support Worker employed by a city council. I support someone with a very mild learning difficulty, but they are totally independent. They are able to cook, clean, self-travel, etc. by themselves, and our team is present 24 hours a day to ensure the service user does not make unsafe decisions about relationships, or get in trouble with the police for anti-social behaviour. They live in reasonably small, modern 2 bedroom flat on the 4th floor. The single bedroom is designated as the staff sleepover room. The flat is owned by a housing association, which the city council then rents. Therefore, the service user is not directly the tenant. We do not have guardianship of the service user. My question: The service user is a smoker of around 110 to 20 cigarettes/day. They choose to smoke inside their bedroom - sometimes with an open window but often fully closed up, particularly at this time of the year. If they are smoking in their bedroom, the smoke can be smelled by staff in the sleepover room - even with an open window. We have been told we have the right to leave their flat for 1 hour if the service user starts smoking. Upon re-entering after 1 hour, the smell of smoke is still noticeable. I understand 2nd hand/passive smoking is dangerous as its unfiltered, can linger in the air for many hours and the dangerous stuff is invisible. As I am working 12+ hour shifts each day in this environment, what rights do I have as a non-smoker? Should I join a union? Many thanks

So just to update - the Border Patrol detectives telephoned me and we had a quick chat. They asked if I knew what was inside the package. I told them why I wanted it, and confirmed my goods were not controlled in any way. They were very polite and friendly, and said they had no further concerns. Within a few days I received my goods via Parcelforce.

Again, thanks Bazza. I will take these questions on board now, and later when I apply for a licence. I certainly do want to receive my goods as I have paid for them!

Thanks for the advice and words of wisdom. The only irritating thing, in my eyes, is I have paid for an item which is being withheld from me despite it not being legally controlled. I certainly would not have attempted to import anything illegal. Conversely I also agree with you the police need to follow leads to keep us safe, so I won't be wasting their time by getting into any arguments about the said goods. Thanks again!

Hi there! I wonder if anyone with some legal knowledge can help me out. I purchased a "12ga Micro Rig" and some shell holders from a custom nylon gear company in the states. it is a Cordura nylon shotgun shell holder vest thing. I do not yet own a shotgun, but I will be buying a gun cabinet and applying for a Shotgun Certificate in the New Year. I really want to get into Practical Shotgun (sport target shooting) as it looks like awesome fun! I have ordered and paid for bits of nylon and velcro from the US and they have been held up at UK customs in Coventry for nearly a month now. None of the goods are controlled and I certainly have not broken any laws by importing them. I've made a few attempts to contact Parcelforce about the delay and have been met with an answer of "Sorry, it's out of our hands!". Yesterday, mid morning, two plain clothes gentlemen knocked on my flat door while I was at work. Girlfriend was in. They did not introduce themselves, nor did they show any identification. They had what looked like an A4 print-out, and it appeared to have bullet-points or small images on it. One of them asked for me by name, then asked for my mobile number (which she gave). The GF noticed they both had "cheap, tacky looking" dark nylon wallet-like things on their chest (no lanyards) with "POLICE" on the front in big bold letters. My GF said to me they looked like something you'd buy from Ebay and it made her suspicious at the time. They said thanks, bye and cleared off. I have received no phone calls from "them" since. I called Police Scotland on 101 and the cops ran a check against my name and address and found nothing against my details, nor did they have any history of the visit. After waiting at home ALL DAY for a visit from uniformed police which never happened I was starting to feel pretty confused However, I received a call from a female this evening who said she can confirm "they" were indeed genuine police officers at the door and said they were from Police Scotland Border Patrol. It seems this branch of the police is engaged in counter-terrorism and fighting organised crime amongst other things. She said they would be in touch for a chat with me tomorrow. I really could do without a "chat" from counter-terrorist detectives on a rare day off, let alone have mysterious figures turning up at my doorstep again scaring the doo-doo out of us! Now, I have nothing to hide - but a) I do not want to waste another one of my precious days off talking to police about a nylon/velcro vest and b) the goods I ordered are not illegal to own, and I have paid for them so I believe I should receive them without further delay. Simultaneously, I do not want to go about this the wrong way. If you were in my position, what would you say/do in order to get this cleared up ASAP. Cheers folks! Here's a link to the thing we are talking about: https://www.originalsoegear.com/products/12ga-micro-rig

Ah, yes. Well I work in care for people with disabilities so I guess that changes things.

Hi there. I wonder if anyone can clarify this for me please: I am employed by a council in Scotland. My shifts either run early 07:00-14:30 or late 14:15-22:00. As I understand the Working Time Directive, a worker is entitled to an 11 hour daily rest period between shifts. So, I should not be forced to work a "late" until 10pm, then the next day work an "early" starting at 07:00. I put this to my employer and they directed me to 2 parts of the WTD: 8.3 Where a worker is required to work beyond their scheduled finish time, and will not receive the full daily rest period, compensatory rest must be given immediately thereafter i.e. before the beginning of the next scheduled start time. 8.5 Where a shift worker cannot be rostered to receive the required 11 hours rest between the end of one shift and the start of the next compensatory rest must be given before the start of the next shift e.g. 10.30pm finish followed by a 07.30 am start. The 2 hours rest not received between these times must be given as compensatory rest before the start of the next shift, i.e. the subsequent rest period from the shift finish time must be for at least 13 hours before another shift can be rostered. They also said "as the requirement is an 11hours break after a shift finishes the next shift after a 10pm finish should start at 9am, if they had to start earlier due to operational cover at 7am they extra 2 hrs they lost from the 13hours break would be added to the end of that shift finishing time, so the 11hours break would then have the 2hours extra worked to ensure that there was then a 13 hour break from finishing the 2nd shift before the start of the next shift" An example of my rota for 3 weeks: Monday 3 Oct: 07:00 to 14:15 (EARLY) Tuesday 4 Oct: OFF Wednesday 5 Oct: OFF Thursday 6 Oct: 14:15 to 22:00 (LATE) Friday 7 Oct: LATE Saturday 8 Oct: EARLY Sunday 9 Oct: EARLY Monday 10 Oct: EARLY Tuesday 11 Oct: LATE Wednesday 12 Oct: EARLY Thursday 13 Oct: EARLY Friday 14 Oct: EARLY Saturday 15 Oct: OFF Sunday 16 Oct: OFF Monday 17 Oct: OFF Tuesday 18 Oct: OFF Wednesday 19 Oct: LATE Thursday 20 Oct: LATE Friday 21 Oct: EARLY Saturday 22 Oct: EARLY Sunday 23 Oct: EARLY I have highlighted the problematic shifts in red. Can someone please advise me if what my employer is saying makes sense in relation to my shifts, as I honestly do not understand the logic. It takes me over 40 minutes to travel to work each way (this is a new work placement, I was working closer to home but have recently been moved). Many thanks in advance!

Yes, I'm quite clear about the case law examples now. Basically, if you do a job which requires you to be present on site and you have a continued responsibility to remain on site, then this is covered by the WTD regs. I'm just not sure whether it is best to directly approach my management about this (a few people have warned against that here - thanks and duly noted) or invest the money in a Unison subscription and go that route. Neither my partner nor my job will be tossed aside, but thanks for your advice Emmzzi

I disagree with that. I am being paid £35.00 to be physically present on site for 9 hours at night. I am not being paid to simply "sleep" and the employer doesn't care if I sleep, or remain awake in the bedroom all night long. If I were allowed to wander off site and go into town for a coffee, I could accept that argument. As I said, my partner are happy to perform sleep-in shifts but we want to be paid fairly for our time at work.

I realised that was not the best comparison immediately after I typed it

That's interesting. I've worked for them since the start of May, and have done 1 or 2 "sleep in" shifts per week since then. My partner also works for the same company, at the same site, and is also required to take sleep in shifts. That's 2 to 4 nights per week we sleep in separate beds, which would not be so much of a problem if we were being paid fairly for our time.

Another thought - being quite a naive person, and entirely new to shift work, on my first day of employment with the company I signed a form to "Opt out" of the Working Time Directive regulations. However, the senior employee who was guiding the signing of the documents very casually described this form as "something you just need to sign if you want to do more than 48 hours overtime per week... everyone signs it" (overtime comes with the territory in the care industry - this much I knew beforehand!) This was presented to me in the middle of signing what felt like a hundred other documents and was given the impression of having no significantly detrimental effect to my rights. This is not an excuse for my ignorance at the time, though, and I can accept that now. I was given ample opportunity to read through every word (of what was a very, very long and wordy document!) It's quite a difficult problem, as I don't know If I would make a case for NMW or WTD, or both. What I do know is: a) the 9 hours sleep-in constitutes a significant part of my contracted 35 hours of weekly work, and it is not considered overtime or extra b) I am paid just £35.00 this time spent at work (equaling an average hourly rate of £3.88) c) I am required to be on site for the whole duration, and would be disciplined by my employer if I left the premises for even a minute d) My job is to safeguard the service users, and I have completed training which is required for me to do my job (for example, Moving and Handling training to use potentially dangerous hoist equipment, and Physical Intervention training to safely and justifiably touch someone in a restrictive manner) and- e) -this training clearly separates me from a brand new, untrained employee or someone "off the street" who would be unable to safeguard the service users AND also comply with regulations at the same time. Thanks for your help so far, ericsbrother. I'm trying to get my head around my position before I get into any confrontations at work, as I'm sure you can appreciate!

As I understand the current legal situation, I am entitled to earn the minimum wage for the sleep-in shift as I am a) on a shift at work b) required to be present, in the same way Firefighter is required to be present at the Station overnight, for example. I'm basing this on recent Judgements by the Employment Appeal Tribunal - e.g. 8th May 2014 MIDDLE WEST RESIDENTIAL CARE HOME v SLAVIKOVSKA. In light of this, how should I go about getting the minimum wage from my employer for these sleep-in shifts?