Last summer, July, I was broke, so I sold a collection of books on Ebay. I had a reserve price on the listing that no one got near. On the last day of the auction a bidder kept bidding until she reached the reserve price, then tried to retract the bid, but it was too late, the auction had ended at my reserve price.
A week later she never paid. I sent her emails and got no response. I called her and she said that she would give me a deposit to hold the books and send the rest when she was paid two weeks later. She did give me the deposit, but nothing more. I tried emailing her and calling her. Nothing.
At this point, I wasn’t sure what to do. I had already spend the deposit she gave me, because I was in a bad way and she had said that the rest was coming. A month went by and I never heard from her.
I went to try to figure out what to do according to Ebay’s rules and I discovered that she had been banned from Ebay for doing the same thing to a lot of other sellers.
I figured that I did as much as I could and forgot about it.
Earlier this month, I needed money again. I listed and sold the books again, got paid, all was good. I used the money to pay some bills and that was that.
This morning I got this email from the deadbeat buyer from last July.
So, now what do I do ? I’m still broke, I can’t send her the $100.00 back anytime soon and I tried, at the time to work things out with her and got nowhere.
I’d say she’s out of luck. You tried in good faith to contact her; you couldn’t, therefore you sold the books to someone else. I wouldn’t worry too much about it, unless you wanted to be super nice and return the cash. But I wouldn’t feel at all obligated to do it; even she admits it’s unreasonable to expect you to do so after all this time.
Agreed. She had her chance to complete the transaction - and her subsequent lack of follow through is why she lost her deposit.
The only reason to return her money is if your conscience tells you it is the right thing to do. It it doesn’t, then I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you. If it does, then return her money and move on.
If you were in the situation where it wouldn’t be too much trouble to pay her back, then I’d say that it would be a nice thing to do, but not required at all.
But, seeing as you haven’t got $100 to spare, and are pretty broke yourself? Sorry, she’s out of luck. It’s not like you’ve swindled her in any way. You tried to contact her several times and she’s made no attempt back (Is it really too much trouble to go to an internet cafe, or a friend’s house to check your e-mails occasionally?).
I’d send an e-mail back saying you’re very sorry, but you can’t help.
Treat people in the same manner you wish to be treated. If that means you honestly wouldn’t expect part of your deposit back were you in the same position, don’t offer her a refund.
That’s a tough one. I guess it depends on what you consider the deposit was for. To me, if you send a deposit then neglect to follow through on the transaction, you lose the deposit. The deposit is supposed to ensure that the rest of the money is on it’s way, not to ensure that the seller holds the item forever.
I would do this: answer her e-mail as follows-
Dear Deadbeat (don’t really write deadbeat)
Thank you for contacting me regarding transaction #XXXXX. At the time of the transaction I made every effort to contact you to either collect the balance of the money owed on our contract or refund your deposit to you. You never responded and after XX months I gave up trying. I made a good faith effort to make this transaction right and never heard back from you, and at that point I assumed that you were no longer interested in conducting any business with me. I held the deposit for XX months, and when you didn’t respond to my attempts at contact, I assumed you forfeited your right to the money and deposited it into my checking account. I am not in a position to refund your money or conduct any further business with you. I’m sorry you’re in a bad place now and wish I could help, but I cannot.
That is the point of deposits. The money is yours as soon as she gives it to you, whether she finalizes the deal or not. Send her a nice letter saying that you also are in a less than ideal financial situation and will not be able to return the deposit.
You can’t keep the money and not send the books. To do so is fraud. Unless you have in writing that there was a time limit involved or the refund was non-refundable, you must return the money. I don’t know if this would stand up in small claims court.
Now most likely, this person won’t do anything or can’t do anything, but you’re no better than her. You spent the money before the transaction had been completed and fortunately for you, it appears she paid you in a non-secure method and has waited such a long time. You’re most likely in the clear.
However, you don’t get to keep a desposit unless there’s a contract laying out those terms.
I kinda think the right thing to do is to return the deposit money. I accept that it’s a question of ethical rather than legal behavior. But it seems you did not incur expenses of anything like $100, so the classy thing to do would be to send a refund. Your immediate ability to pay may well affect the timing of this, but it shouldn’t affect your decision of whether to do do so.
You could send a reply saying that in the very long interval since you received the money you heard nothing and thus assumed the matter was closed. You now wish to offer a refund, but don’t really know when you’ll have the money in hand to do so, but it should be forthcoming in less than the time already elapsed (~9 months).
It depends on what’s agreed to. Accepting someone’s money typically obliges you to provide something of comparable value in return.
Deposits are usually considered non-refundable absent an agreement to the contrary. This isn’t a situation where you’re wanting to hold onto the deposit because it took her three weeks to pay instead of two, or some other minor technicality. She didn’t even come close to meeting her obligation, so you owe her nothing. Would I have refunded her deposit back in the day? Maybe. But if you don’t have the money, you ower her neither the cash nor an explanation.
The reason she has contacted you after all this time may be that she’s probably trying to get her account reinstated on eBay, or at least get your NPB strike against her lifted. I ran into a similar situation where the buyer didn’t pay for a year and then contacted me. According to her, if I responded to her offer to pay by saying that I was unwilling to complete the transaction due to the amount of time elapsed, she could then forward the message to eBay and that would be used as evidence to get the NPB strike removed from her record. That sounds unlikely to me, but she did manage to get her account reinstated so maybe that’s the case.
Ordinarily I’d send a lett er like the excellent sample BoBettie supplied - although I’d omit any reference to your inability to pay her back, as it makes it sound like that’s the real reason you’re not refunding her deposit - but if the case outlined in the paragraph above is true, don’t even give her that much. Chronic NPBs should be treated without mercy and never have their privileges reinstated.
The deadbeat buyer originally offered the deposit to hold the books for 2 weeks at which point he/she would PIF. I think that 8 months is plenty long in that light. Also, it isn’t like she sent an email explaining what happened.
Deposits are usually considered non-refundable? According to whom? If you have a cite, I’ll love to see it. As far as I know, refund policies must be clearly laid out.
You place a $1,000 down on my car. You decide you don’t want it, are you telling me I get your grand and my car?
Yeah. Been there with the car thing. They might give the deposit back for good relations, but a deposit (car, house, books, or whatever) is non-refundable. What would be the point otherwise?
Peace,
mangeorge
Send the money back. Even if it’s $10 a month. Subtract out any costs you’ve incurred and make it known why (if you had to pay extra eBay fees for re-listing or whatever).
Just because someone didn’t act ethically to you, doesn’t give you license to act unethically yourself.
It just seems right to return the money and I think you know this.
If you want to return as little as possible with a clear conscience you could do the math like this. . .
“I could have got $X for the books if I was able to resell them when you didn’t pay. If I was able to invest $X at 10%, I would now have $Y. You cost me $Z = $Y - $X. I will refund your initial deposit minus $Z.”
You place a $1,000 down on my car, decide you don’t want it, and neglect to tell me that? You forgot the mention that last little fact in your equation there.
First of all, you already paid eBay a fee for that auction, based on the winning bid. Plus the time and cost of listing the item in the first place, plus the time and effort and aggravation you expended, trying to resolve the matter with her. Plus the time you’re still spending on the issue right now. Think of the $100 as a fair payment for all of that. Maybe she’ll learn a lesson about bidding on things she can’t afford.
I’d say give the money back… but on your own time. Not too fair to get you in debt due to her wierd ways. She is probably in a bad situation just like you.
So what? You know where I live, don’t you? You sit there and wait a week, three and decide the money’s yours? Or do you routinely take large sums of money without ensuring a method to contact the person?
Dragongirl received the money and whether or not she was able to email this person, she certainly had a method to return the funds. Instead she spent them…hoping that either the rest of the money would turn up or the seller being NARU would disappear. Opps.
So you don’t hear from me, what do you do? Spend my money? Maybe you would, me? I drive to guy’s house and hand him back his money. You don’t get to keep it and the car…unless we have an agreement saying so.