Dilemma with requesting Mastercard chargeback

I recently made an internet purchase using my M&S Mastercard using what
has proved to be a dodgy Paypal-using company that is ignoring refund requests via e-mail and webform, the only mechanisms provided for getting in touch (and the refunds page does not look "real" anyway: this allegedly London-based firm has exactly the same typos in its return instructions as a separate California based company, which may explain why their opening hours are expressed in Pacific Standard Time!)

The wrong item arrived with no delivery note. As the cost was under a hundred pounds I have applied for a Chargeback with my credit card company, and was phoned today by someone from the disputes department who said they would need to see the delivery note that proved that the wrong thing was delivered. This seems absurd (what if the delivery note described the *right* thing and the wrong thing was delivered?) and anyway, I had no delivery note.

In desperation I suggested that since they would only accept a delivery note as proof that the delivery took place at all, I would change my dispute to be one that no goods were delivered. My logic was that with no delivery note I can't prove the random item that came through my door had any association with the company that I ordered some other thing from. (Heck even if it was the right thing, it might just have been a coincidence!)

Am I on dodgy ground here? The package *was* sent "Royal Mail tracked" so, assuming I was *not* merely visited by the Free Gift Fairy, the problem company could challenge the claim by proving something was delivered to me...and *then* I would be able to show it was the wrong thing.... or would I already be in trouble by then? Can fraudulent e-merchants avoid chargeback requests just by delivering empty boxes?

The good person at M&S said she would turn a blind eye to my original claim that the wrong goods had been delivered, but I'm worried that I will be digging myself into a hole if I am obliged to continue phrasing the item sitting in front of me as "not delivered".

Thanks for your reply

I don't have an account with PayPal: the seller does. Mastercard/M&S Money paid PayPal who paid the seller (or, I guess, left credit in their PaylPal account). Mastercard then billed me.

The first thing I checked was PayPal's policy and they only (seem to) help the buyer if they bought using a PayPal account.

The seller is hidden behind PayPal, and combined with them having sent the goods via a remailer and using an invalid "whois" entry for their web site, the only way to chase them up seems to be to follow the money. The chargeback system seems to be the right way to do this but the requirement to provide a delivery note that correctly identifies the item as being the wrong thing seems a bit harsh!

The plot thickens

While it may not count as a delivery note, it turns out that what I thought was a mailing service is the shipping-end of an entirely different web site, and some cryptic symbols on the packet are the product code that *that* site uses to identify the *wrong* item. So I do have paperwork for the right item being ordered and the wrong one being delivered, but there's no obvious connection between the two.

It looks like the original company could not complete the order and made a separate order themselves for something that looked like it would do the job and specified me as the delivery address!

I have written to the second company, that looks a lot more reputable than the first, to see if this is what happened. I will contact the Mastercard people again to see if what I have counts as a delivery note, but it looks like my phrasing of the issue as "one company failed to deliver: in other news, the Free Gift Fairy sent me something" actually holds water. I just now know the identity of the Free Gift Fairy.

I have sent off the paperwork to M&S Money to start the chargeback procedure. While I used the form of the claim that "nothing was received from the merchant" while including full details that some similar item did show up in the post from another merchant but there is not way for me to determine that the two events are connected. I also included a copy of an e-mail I sent to the original merchant offering them a chance to identify themselves as the sender of the item (which was ignored like all other e-mail).

For anyone keeping track

I sent back the "no goods received" version of the disclaimer and it got as far M&S again before it went through the "what were we thinking" stage (or reached someone who thought differently to the first person to whom I spoke) and I will now be sent the "wrong goods received" form.

In the mean time I have phoned the company that actually sent the (wrong) goods and they confirmed that the dodgy company ordered it and that they had requested that no delivery note be supplied to disguise the fact they couldn't satisfy the orde thmselvesr.

The top google hit for "chargeback-on-credit-and-visa-debit-cards" is what i used.
I don't have enough posts to my name to post links!

Sorry, M&S Money are between me and Mastercard per se, but at least they act like a screening process for my bad first attempt at applying (even if it was their idea to take that approach in the first place).

For the "wrong goods" disclaimer I need to provide an expert witness that the goods were unfit for purpose! Fortunately I know people in the relevant field but I wonder if you have to do the same if sent a pint of milk in place of an iPod...

M&S started proceedings against (the bank who recieved the money on behalf of) the vendor. I'll try to remember post any results to this thread but I think victory will be a bit of a slow burner: apparently the money is refunded immediately, but then at some undetermined point in the future the seller might succeed with their appeal and I get rebilled, so you only *know* when you've lost, and merely *increasingly suspect* that you've won.

The latest on this case is that the original vendor has finally got in touch, claiming all correspondence had been lost in their spam folder, and offering me a refund... if I post the item (a laptop battery) to the third party they used to complete the order (see post #5 in this thread).

The man from the M&S disputes department advised me that this was an unreasonable request. Not that having to pay to return it was unreasonable: I didn't mention it to M&S but the original vendor does openly advertise that it it is the purchaser's responsibility to pay for returns and I believe under distance selling laws they have the right to insist on this(?).

What the man from M&S considers "unreasonable" is me having to arrange to send something *the vendor* bought to a third party I don't have any connection with (although they have arranged an RMA code so if I post it I should be possible to track it). M&S said I should offer to make myself available for the vendor to collect the battery to return it to the third party.

Sounds dodgy to me: I'd almost rather pay the extra postage to avoid that kind of conflict. What does the panel think?

Just a brief Google on distance selling laws, which claimed that if the vendor does not advertise who pays postage in the case of a refund then they are breaking the law, but if they overtly say that it will be the customer's problem, then it's their right to say that.

However, I'm only *indirectly* returning the goods "to" the vendor i.e. facilitating the vendor's refund from the third party, so I'm not sure whether I'm bound by the vendor's rules here. I'm uncomfortable in saying "You collect it: its your refund" when they still have my (associated) money (in theory; currently the chargeback money is in my account).

Further research (i.e. the returns-and-refunds page on this site) suggests that merely displaying on their web site that the buyer is reponsible for the cost of returning goods is not legally binding "pre-contractual information" (as web sites can be changed). And anyway if the goods are faulty (does this include "not fit-for-purpose" like my case?) then, as Tony says, it is the seller's responsibility to pay.

FYI my reply to the vendor

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your reply. I have discussed the details with the disputes
department of M&S Money, who provide my Mastercard, and have concluded
that it is is unacceptable that I pay the return postage for the
not-fit-for-purpose item. It is also a concern that I would be returning
the item to a third party: while I appreciate that it was THIRD PARTY
that sent the battery to me, I don't have a relationship with THIRD PARTY:
VENDOR was the purchaser and therefore I believe VENDOR
should arrange collection of the battery for return to THIRD PARTY. I
will make it available for collection in the original packaging at a
mutually convenient time.

I am aware that the refunds page on the VENDOR web site says the
customer is responsible for paying postage on returned items, but it is
my my understanding of distance selling law that a notification on a web
page does not form pre-contractual information, nor can it be applicable
when the returned goods are not fit for purpose.

Yours faithfully,
MIXEDCASE