Customer never received despatched goods

i have proof of delivery

[marcus76]

I've one very annoyed customer who believes i've not despatched the goods they ordered - even gone as far as calling me a liar and insisting i have not sent anything.

I have the delivery receipt from the carrier and i am at the moment chasing down a copy of the signature for the receipt of goods.

UK Royal mail to spain, Royal Mail advise parcel was delivered to a Spanish address.

I have now requested a copy of the signature (signed for delivery) from the spanish mail carriers - this is taking weeks..

I'd like to understand where i stand on this legally. Does the customer have the right to demand a full refund? I can understand they are out of pocket with no product but i will also be out of pocket if we refund them for a parcel we have no reason to believe has not been delivered.

your thoughts?

Regards

Marcus

[luckychucky]

If you have receipted proof that you sent the parcel correctly to the exact address provided by your customer, I feel certain that in legal terms you're in the clear, completely. If upon arrival the wrong person (ie: a thief) signed for it instead of the proper recipient, that's the buyer's fault for providing an insecure delivery address. You sent it where she told you to send it, so you did your part with no slip-ups.

Perhaps --just maybe-- if only a specific person was supposed to have signed for receipt of the parcel, and the deliverer instead handed it to whomever conveniently answered the door, then I don't know, maybe some kind of fault lies with the delivery person. But again, if you accurately did your job by following the provided delivery instructions exactly to the letter, I would assume you're 100% off the hook.

[Miklo]

The problem here is that if you don't refund the customer, he might call his bank to do a chargeback. If he does, you loose the product, the sale and you will be charged a chargeback fee.

You probably have been scammed...

In legal terms, you will maybe have a case. But do you really want to go into all the trouble? It could take months.

I think you need some suggestions from other posters who are more experienced in this area. Maybe the following article regarding chargebacks can help you out a bit: [sitepoint.com...]

[luckychucky]

Thanks for posting that article link. Basically it restates what's pretty obvious...basic business procedure to resolve any dispute: it advises that you submit documentation to prove you did the right thing. The only caveat I'd add is that card companies are notorious for reflexively siding with the customer, even when he's dead-wrong. They also tend to notify you of the chargeback by postal mail, with only 1-3 days given to respond/object before it's written in stone. Dealing with a lunatic customer, and a card processor whose default mode is that the merchant is always the responsible party (facts be damned) can be a frustrating experience. Still, right is right, and you should do all you can to prevail.
Here's the relevant excerpt-

Customer Claims Merchandise Not Received

The card-issuing bank received a written claim from a customer that merchandise ordered was not received or that the customer canceled the order as the result of not receiving the merchandise by the expected delivery date.

Remedy: If the merchandise was delivered, send all evidence of the delivery to your processing bank. If the chargeback is attempted less then 30 days from the date of sale, send a copy of the transaction to the processing bank showing the 30 days has not yet passed since the sale was performed.