Non delivery of goods after two weeks

Kia Ora Cathy,

Sorry to hear your having a difficult time there,

If you select the Dispute resolution Tab in your Won items you are taken to a 'Problems with your purchase' page where after following advice, if still required you will be able to File a report for TradeMe staff assistance. With Afterpay purchases you have up to the first 30 days of the listing closing to file this report.

The Dispute process takes time whilst TM contact your Seller in attempt to help resolve the issue, it can take up to 10 days initially until you hear back.

All the Best - Cheers. 

Hi, thanks for this but I've already done that. The seller is refusing to send so the seller isn't going to resolve it. Hence, I've filed a dispute. Every email I get from TM says the disputes team will be in touch within two weeks. I've already waited two weeks and I just want it resolved. 

Hi Cathy
Just checking that you are aware of the Live Chat function where you can chat to the Trade Me Support team in real time? I can’t remember the hours of this service but you can get in touch by hitting the Contact Us link at the bottom of this page. Wait a few seconds and if they are online, a blue help button will appear on the bottom right.

In fact Andrea, the Help button appears when they are OFFline and when they are ONline it changes to a Chat button. Either way, clicking it will bring up a box to write a message in.

The  "Live Chat" hours are weekdays are 8:am - 6:30pm and weekends 8:30am - 4:pm

- Once you've selected the Contact us Chat Tab you need to give the landing page a count of 15+ seconds for the Chat Tab to Pop up in blue at the bottom right of your screen, there is a slight delay in this appearing.

The Help Tab is the afterhours portal where you can leave a message - Cheers

Yes the disputes system does take an extraordinarily long time in some cases, and I find TM do sometimes need a nudge along the way.

I'm interested in your comment "The seller is refusing to send" Have you had some communication with them? Why are they refusing to send the item?

Oh no I wasn't aware of this function and I can't say I've ever seen a live chat link. I'll have a look and see if they can help. Thank you.

Answering Callum, the seller is trying to make me pay rural delivery. We are not rural so I've refused to pay the additional $10. I can buy from their website and pay $6. Have already paid $6.90 for delivery. I asked for a refund or for the goods to be sent stating that I've never paid rural shipping and I'd never have purchased if shipping weren't urban. Seller refuses to refund, refuses to ship and refuses to contact me. Says that if they were to send it urban, they'd charge me $50 handling fee to use a different courier. I am a repeat customer of theirs. 

Oh dear. Do you know the seller’s preferred courier? If you go to https://www.addresscheck.co.nz and put in your address, it well tell you which couriers deem your address to be rural. It may well be that the courier they use does classify your address as rural and therefore a rural surcharge will apply.
As for the $50 handling fee, that’s just them being ridiculous. Hope Trade Me can wade in and get this sorted for you.

Has the seller explained why this time you have to pay rural when previous purchases from them you haven't? Could be they have changed couriers from what they previously used and their new courier classes your address as rural, which of course doesn't actually mean your address is rural, just that it's outside their normal coverage area so they have to pass it over to another courier to deliver. Sounds like they are being needlessly difficult. If they are not going to send it, they of course need to refund.

No they haven't really explained, only to say that NZ post don't collect from them. Not sure if they've changed couriers or not since my last purchase, nor if they use a different courier to the one on their website. The seller belligerently argued that we were on the outskirts of some remote town, which we clearly aren't. The item is in the next town from us which is a little over 2 hours away. I explained that I have daily deliveries from all over NZ and it's always urban. She just got angry, said I've breached the terms of trade and she'd report me to TM so no refund. She can't just keep my money though surely?

No she can't just keep your money. In your initial post you mentioned you bought using Afterpay. I would be contacting Afterpay for assistance and also advising the card issuer you used to pay.

I have contacted Afterpay, but they won't intervene at this point, they just say contact Trade Me. I've just chatted with someone on the chat option and they can't make things go any faster either. It's being investigated under buyer protection now, so I gather they'll talk with the seller and find out what the story is. Hopefully it will be resolved soon but I really want to avoid having to make anymore payments since I had to go purchase the product elsewhere and on a limited income etc. Ugh it's just been a needless source of stress really. 

It might pay to check your address Cathy. As Gary said the seller might have changed who they use. Or they might have been charged an RD fee for your previous purchases and have had enough of paying for it. I would check your address at the link below. It will tell you if you are Rural Delivery with some or all couriers.

https://www.addresscheck.co.nz/

But yes, even if you are actually Rural Delivery the seller seems to be making things difficult and shouldn't be dragging things out. Perhaps would be nice to hear their side of the story though. You could always pass this link on and see if they want to comment!

Thank you Callum and yes I've checked my address. The majority class us as urban, and as Gary said, there are many options for courier services so there's no need for the seller to be difficult. I made it quite clear that I could not pay the extra $10, but if her chosen courier classes me as rural and she wouldn't post via any other means, then that's fine, but to please just cancel the trade and refund my money.

Her side of it was that my personal opinion on where I lived didn't matter, because she had looked on google earth and determined that we were rural, so based on that she wanted the extra money and if I didn't agree to pay, then it was me that had breached the terms of trade. That was that. No negotiation and no resolution. 

Not convinced that showing her this link would be helpful either. I really just want my money back. 

The seller's opinion or determination of your address does not matter in the slightest. Couriers don't work on opinions, they have a lookup table that tells them in black and white what is and isn't rural for them. If you know what courier she is proposing, you can look it up on the couriers website and on the one Callum posted as a comparison.

No she meant my opinion on where I lived didn't matter. Can't remember her chosen courier now, it was a company that I don't recognise to be honest, anyway she posted a screenshot and it did say we were rural. I tried to say that the main couriers don't consider me to be rural. Seller refused to use any other courier unless I paid a $50 handling fee. 

Seems to be issues on both sides here. The buyer needs to recognise they are rural with the courier the seller uses after seeing the screen shot, the fact nobody has charged them rural in the past is not relevent, its what that courier zones you as.

For the seller , there maybe many reasons they don't have another courier available (one maybe that they already posses prepay tickets and reasonably dont wish to out lay more on shipping when they already have it prepaid). The $50 "handling" to change to another courier is just however bunkum. However I can imagine it may cause considerable inconvenience searching for other couriers/ going into town to a courier depot etc and as another courier maynot be on account the ticket price would maybe higher. They may not have a credit card to pay anything on line.

It does however seem seller is being unnecessarily difficult. Is it possible for buyer to send a prepaid ticket to the seller for the appropriate parcel wt/ dimension as a possible compromise?

Thanks Donal, and perhaps the seller does find it difficult to use the mainstream couriers. But then, she's a business with thousands of listings and from their website, they have a shop in the middle of town. Perhaps the TM seller is an agent operating from a rural location herself? Perhaps she's immobile and can't get to town? None of that was expressed jto me at all, ust pay the money or you're (meaning me) are in breach of the trade, pay the money or it's your (me again) problem. I don't accept I've done anything wrong. There are many many couriers that come here daily. To accommodate me would have been good customer service. Anyhow, it's in the hands of TM disputes now, and I had already paid shipping so that's that. I'm a private seller myself and had this issue come up with a buyer. She had paid shipping, so I just went to the post shop and used a different courier, job done. It's not that hard! ,,,, and much preferable to just keeping someone's money and ignoring them.

I see both sides. Although I fail to see why it's so difficult for the seller to refund you. If it was me, I would just refund.

As a seller, if you charge extra for rural delivery, you should make it clear on your listing what courier company you use, so that buyers are aware whether a rural charge applies based on the courier being used. 

It also doesn't help that some couriers consider some addresses rural, while others dont. For such a small country, it shouldn't be that difficult for all courier companies to agree on common rural/urban boundaries.

I also disagree that its easy for a seller to take something into the post shop or use a different courier, as I've experienced it in the past where I previously used NZ Couriers who pickup from my home and who cannot deliver to Post Office box addresses, and I would make it clear on my listings that I couldn't deliver to Post Office box addresses, yet I'd still have customers requesting I take their purchase to a NZ Post shop and ship with NZ Post to their Post Office box. It's easier said than done to find time in a hectic schedule to find time to take a special trip to a Post shop or use a different courier for one buyer. I can only imagine how much more complex this would be for a seller with thousands of listings, trying to deal with requests to use different couriers.

It should be as easy as, you cant pay the additional rural charge, you email the seller and advise that you didnt realise the courier they used considered you as rural, and the seller refunds you and re-lists the item.

Thank you Greg, and I see her side too and yes it may be hard for her to go to the post shop. I didn't really expect her to go out of her way, but I did ask her to please just refund me so I really don't understand why that has been so hard. Preferable to having a war with a return customer.

Couriers need to get their act together for sure - I've made 8 online purchases this week, 3 on Trade Me last week, not one of them rural charges.

Still waiting by the way ... unreal how drawn out this has been. Twenty days since the trade was made, paid immediately. Why does it have to take so long and why do I feel like the naughty school girl?!

Kia Ora Cathy,

I would be contacting TradeMe again - The message that needs to get through is if the Hyped We've got your back - Buyer Protection - is investigated and paid out in a timely manner Buyer's would have the funds to repurchase through the site - these undue delays prevent that ability and at times, inclination to do so. - Cheers.

I agree with you but there's just no way to contact them. I tried the chat option and they point blank said they couldn't do anything since it was at the 'buyer protection' point - that was a week ago. I tried lodging another dispute, but that just bounced back to my email. You can't reply to the emails they send either, they give you a button to push - resolved / not resolved. Has TM sold out to another offshore company I wonder? I have not had this issue before, you could always contact them directly. That feature has just gone. You go to the option to 'contact us' and you are led to a menu option with preloaded responses and short articles. 

Cheers Cathy, 

I would ask a Chat agent to pass a message through to the Buyer Protection team that you have urgency with payments being stopped from Afterpay who have asked you to resolve this with TradeMe - you can't afford these loss of payments from your account now you have purchased another item. - Cheers.

I did ask exactly that, but the chat agent said that they couldn't for whatever reason. Maybe I should open another chat and ask again. You are quite right about me wanting to buy elsewhere and not having the money! Thanks for your input, good to have some suggestions and support.