Buyer not responding to return item shipped accidentally

[steelerq]

I accidentally shipped two items to the wrong buyer, they each received the item meant for the other.  Buyer #1 contacted me immediately, I issued full refund to him and tried to get buyer #2 to swap with him with the refund offer as well.  Did not hear from him for weeks, then he sends me an email stating he does have the item and did I issue the refund.  I sent him buyer #1 shipping address and id to no avail, both of us have not received any communication from him so I told buyer #1 to just keep the item he received.  Do I have any recourse?  The items were not of great value, I just feel bad for buyer #1!

[slati_2013 · Accepted solution]

No, not much you can do. You have done everything right. This only works when you have two honest buyers. You had only one. 

[rock.star]

No there is no recourse it was your mistake .
It is not a good idea to send a buyers address and id to a stranger.

[steelerq]

Buyer #1 asked me to give buyer #2 the info!!!!!!

[taanti_43]

Yes but did #2 agree to the same?
What you should have done was ask both to return to you and you sort it out and reship

[dqdnvwe0]

Unfortunately when orders get mixed up I have found the best answer is always "return for refund."

Then if the buyer(s) still wish to obtain the proper item they can order again.

[steelerq]

Yes he did also.

[dazzlecity]

Well the good news is you had orders to ship - I would have refunded both and advised them to both keep what they got. Done - you couldn't have gotten a negative by either that way.

[monster-deals]

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@taanti_43 wrote:
Yes but did #2 agree to the same?
What you should have done was ask both to return to you and you sort it out and reship

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A needless extra step.

[taanti_43]

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@monster-deals wrote:

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@taanti_43 wrote:
Yes but did #2 agree to the same?
What you should have done was ask both to return to you and you sort it out and reship

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A needless extra step.

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Yeah and who's going to pay for the buyers to exchange items? 

[taanti_43]

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@dazzlecity wrote:

Well the good news is you had orders to ship - I would have refunded both and advised them to both keep what they got. Done - you couldn't have gotten a negative by either that way.

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Not true, unless the buyer loses a buyer protection case, they could still neg.

@dazzlecity 

[myboardid]

I'm sorry for your problems, I have done that a few times over the years.  I have decided the best way to handle it is to have them ship the item back to me and I will then send it to the correct buyer myself.  I've never had anyone refuse to return, but some have taken a very long time to do so.  The biggest problem is when one item is much more valuable, or more desirable than the other, so that one buyer who received it would rather keep it than get the one they actually bought.  I've sweated a few of those in my time here! 

What I have not ever done is give them the items for free by giving them a refund.  I don't feel that is necessary, and perhaps you might have gotten more cooperation if you hadn't done that, but "live and learn", as they say. 

One reason it happened to me is that my packing person (my dh) had really bad cateracts and didn't notice that he was putting the wrong labels on the packages.  He had surgery for those a few months ago and hopefully it won't happen again. 

[monster-deals]

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@taanti_43 wrote:

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@monster-deals wrote:

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@taanti_43 wrote:
Yes but did #2 agree to the same?
What you should have done was ask both to return to you and you sort it out and reship

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A needless extra step.

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Yeah and who's going to pay for the buyers to exchange items? 

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Who do you think?

Kind of a Homer.

[jeannicho22]

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@monster-deals wrote:

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@taanti_43 wrote:
Yes but did #2 agree to the same?
What you should have done was ask both to return to you and you sort it out and reship

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A needless extra step.

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Not really.  I cannot think of a professional ecommerce business that would have said basically.... Hey guys, here are each other's addresses, please work it out amongst yourselves.  I do realize that is an over simplification, but that's what it amounts to.  The correct recourse would be to either

A.  Let each buyer keep what they were sent and refund them.

or

B.  Have each buyer send back the incorrect items and ship them to their correct recipients.

Having buyers send each other the incorrect items is just tacky

[monster-deals]

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@jeannicho22 wrote:

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@monster-deals wrote:

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@taanti_43 wrote:
Yes but did #2 agree to the same?
What you should have done was ask both to return to you and you sort it out and reship

---

A needless extra step.

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Not really.  I cannot think of a professional ecommerce business that would have said basically.... Hey guys, here are each other's addresses, please work it out amongst yourselves.  I do realize that is an over simplification, but that's what it amounts to.  The correct recourse would be to either

A.  Let each buyer keep what they were sent and refund them.

or

B.  Have each buyer send back the incorrect items and ship them to their correct recipients.

Having buyers send each other the incorrect items is just tacky

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There are more than 25 million different ebay sellers, insinuating they should all operate as you think they should is naive at best.

You are free to spend more money and take more time to try and please your customers.

I'll stick with fewer needless steps as well as cheaper and faster.