Hermes delivery failure - or online sales scam??

[Savvyshop]

Hi everyone, any help anyone can offer would be appreciated.

 

I purchased a bag for £375 + £8 postage from an individual via Depop. I’m not that familiar with the Depop service but the transaction wasn’t completed via Depop’s checkout just via messages with the seller on the app.

 

The seller posted the item a few days later and sent me a tracking number, and the item says delivered but it hasn’t arrived with me. When tracking online and asking for more info online it says the tracking number and delivery postcode (my home address) don’t match and the website doesn’t offer any further help. The online chat function is a bot and frankly useless and there is no phone number to call.

 

The seller can’t show me any proof that the tracking number marries up to my address (they sent me a photo of the box but that’s it) so feel at a loss and very silly (and sad).

 

I don’t have the seller’s postal address, only email and phone number, but can I (should I) make a claim via small claims for the without having a physical address?

 

I have asked the seller for a refund and advised they have to make a claim for compensation as the contract of sale (postage cost) was with them and the delivery company. 

 

Thank you everyone. 

[dx100uk]

How did you pay?

[Savvyshop]

Via PayPal friends & family I realise now that wasn’t the greatest idea.

[BankFodder]

No you can't make a claim without having the address.

are you telling us that it was addressed to the correct postcode? Or was that wrong?

Who was the courier?

 

 

[dx100uk]

ouch PP transfer...you got had there too then

who advised doing it that way...please dont tell me..the seller?

 

[Savvyshop]

11 minutes ago, BankFodder said:

No you can't make a claim without having the address.

are you telling us that it was addressed to the correct postcode? Or was that wrong?

Who was the courier?

 

 

Ok thank you. No, the seller has confirmed the address back to me as I supplied. They sent me a photo of the package with my address on it but I can’t see the courier details on the photo of package to marry it all up. Just have the Hermes tracking number separately from the seller. 

2 minutes ago, dx100uk said:

ouch PP transfer...you got had there too then

who advised doing it that way...please dont tell me..the seller?

 

Yes, and I’m too naive to have done it the ‘proper’ way.  

[dx100uk]

urm..looks like you fell for one of the classic scams all over these selling platforms.

[Savvyshop]

1 minute ago, dx100uk said:

urm..looks like you fell for one of the classic scams all over these selling platforms.

I found the seller on Facebook (closed profile), and it links to their partner and shows partner’s place of work. It’s 150 miles away but I’d show up and ask for my money back if I needed too!! 

[slick132]

2 hours ago, Savvyshop said:

Just have the Hermes tracking number separately from the seller. 

 

If Hermes are involved, that could put a very different slant on the issue as they have an appalling record of items being "lost".

 

Plus the item was paid for by PayPal, who are well-known for failing to deal properly with buyer/seller disputes.

 

Wait for BankFodder to reply fully ..........

[Savvyshop]

Ok thank you 

[BankFodder]

I'm trying to understand it all but I certainly tend to agree with my colleague @dx100uk that it looks as if you may have been taken for a ride.

You found an advertisement for a bag on an online sales site.
Instead of going through the established procedure of that site, which presumably allows them to recover a commission from the seller you started dealing directly with the seller who is an unknown person to you and of course that allowed the seller to avoid paying the commission.
At whose suggestion was it that you went off-site?

You then pay by PayPal but instead of logging it with PayPal as a payment for a purchased item, you tell PayPal that it was actually simply a gift or transaction between friends and family. This also allowed the seller to avoid paying a PayPal fee on the money.
At whose suggestion was it that you paid in this way?
 

 

 

I don't say that you definitely have been scammed, but it doesn't look very good.

This is how it might have happened:
after you agreed to take the transaction off-site, so you lost the protection of the established system – and the seller avoided the commission and also avoided the sales site knowing that they had sold their item, you then agreed to pay the seller some money – but not for a purchase – simply as a gift. This has two consequences. Firstly, the seller avoids a PayPal fee and secondly, because PayPal has been misled as to the purpose of the payment, you lose the protection of PayPal if it turns out that you've been scammed or there is some other problem with the transaction.

The seller then apparently sent you the parcel and they sent you pictures of a package with your address on it. Separately they sent you a Hermes tracking number – but there is no evidence that the package was actually posted to your address. The seller might simply have taken a picture with your address and sent that to you by way of reassurance – and then changed the label and posted the parcel to themselves but sent you a tracking number which is inaccessible to you and in respect of which you will be prevented from getting any information.

All you've seen is a parcel with your address on it. All you've been given is a tracking number which satisfied you for a while until the parcel did not arrive and then when you started to make enquiries, you found that you were unable to access any details referring to the tracking number.
Of course the tracking number says that the item was delivered – because maybe it was – but in that case it was delivered to the address on the parcel which might have been the seller's own address – or the address of a friend.

I don't want to say that this is definitely how it happened, but it is a plausible scenario.

Of course Hermes loses an awful lot of parcels – but on the other hand I expect that most of the parcels that go through Hermes hands are delivered successfully. We only get the bad stories on this forum.

I can imagine that Hermes rate of successful deliveries is better than 97% because otherwise people wouldn't simply just hate them, they would go out of business.

 

We can help you bring a complaint against Hermes if you want. However, on the basis of what you say, the odds are stacked against you but it would be useful to try and find out the address which was associated with tracking number.

As far as your apparent willingness to travel hundred and 50 miles to ask for your money back, don't bother.
If you did actually go there, are you sure that the seller actually lives at the address that you have been given? What evidence do you have that? Of course if you found that the seller didn't reside at that address then it is slamdunk that you have been scammed.
But then what are you going to do? You can try to inform the police but of course it won't get you anywhere.
You can inform the sales website – but they will say that you brought it on yourself because you agreed to go off-site.
You can inform PayPal – that they will say that because you sent the money which was calculated to avoid their fees, you have lost the protection.

If you travelled the 150 miles and found that the seller did reside at that address, do you really think that they are going to hand your money over to you? If they are acting dishonestly then they will simply say that it is nothing to do with them, that they addressed it all correctly and they don't understand what has happened and that this is simply Hermes up to their old tricks.
What are you going to do? You simply risk getting into a very nasty argument and depending on how bad it went, you might even find that the police are called and I'm afraid that they would be looking at you – not the seller.

Maybe you can answer the questions that I've post above as to who it is who initiated the various ways of doing business.



 

 

[Savvyshop]

Thank you for the reply. The seller just asked to transfer the money and suggested friends and family. It wasn’t really discussed about the checkout style for the purchase. I’m not that familiar with the platform.

I do think the parcel was sent, but as you say I don’t have any proof from the seller to show that a parcel was sent to my address, just a tracking number and delivery confirmation. I have tried to call Hermes to no avail and it seems the onus is back on the seller to investigate it as they sent it.

 

Thanks all for you help and replies. 

[BankFodder]

Well it would be preferable that the seller took responsibility for it, but you already seem to be saying that you are not getting any replies from that person.

You do have your own direct rights of action against Hermes under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999. If you read around this sub- forum about Hermes delivery problems, you will find a lot written about it and you will understand.

You say that it wasn't really discussed whether or not to go through the sales site checkout system – but it must have been surely. Somebody must have decided to do the deal directly.

As I suggested, you could pursue Hermes but the evidence you have is very scant and I don't really fancy your chances. I think you haven't protected yourself properly – and the real problem is that the tracking number doesn't relate to your address. Generally speaking with these problems, you would have a tracking number that relates to your address and that it hasn't been delivered.

Here we seem to have a tracking number the relates to a different address and apparently it has been delivered to that address. This makes it all sound very suspiciously like a scam and anyway, if you try to bring a claim against Hermes you would have to show that it was addressed to your own address – and you can't do this.

Unless you can get some better evidence and get some cooperation from the seller, I think that you are probably going to have to suffer the loss. I'm very sorry about this – if you had checked out correctly and also if you had paid by credit card or by debit card then you probably could have gotten your money back.

In fact it seems that all the normal methods of protection have been completely sidelined – and from the sounds of it, they were sidelined at the instigation of the seller.

I don't know how you're going to ascertain if the seller is really at the address they gave you. That would be my starting point. I think you should make a couple of more tries to contact the seller – and I would keep it very gentle and very polite and not express any suspicion in them because otherwise they will simply close up and you will get an aggressive response or no response at all. If you try very gently and politely, you might eventually manage to coax a response.

The other thing you could do is you can search the land registry register for that address and see who owns that property. Of course if they are simply renting the property then it won't give you any clues. I suppose it is more likely than not that they are renting the property – but you never know if it is not a false address then maybe their parents live there. This might give you something to go on