Tricky situation with long term CC deal- what would you do?

Evening all,

I have an odd situation to deal with from an old Commerce Corner transaction. And no- I am not going to be outing anyone. This is a sincere search for the best path in the sort of situation others may find themselves in going forward.

Several months ago, I sold someone some bottles that had just arrived at a US retailer from Europe. They were basically extras that I decided in the aftermath of spending that I did not need.

I had already paid the retailer, and so the buyer gave me the money and I connected the buyer with the retailer to arrange delivery. The retailer does not have a traditional storefront- so admittedly the options for a manual handoff were limited and something was going to have to be arranged.

Suddenly about a week ago I got an email from the retailer saying the wine had been there too long and that I needed to arrange for the buyer to come get it or come get it myself ASAP.

The latter option is easily achieved even though I had not planned on having the bottles back, and I am unsure what to do.

The buyer has been very amenable all along- do not get any bad vibes at all, and I have the cash in hand. But still- PMs I send here that show read go unanswered. Several now.

So from that standpoint, it would seem I am out of the situation aside from needing to facilitate the complexities of a deal I negotiated that the retailer was not party to up front.

But then again, I have funds received via Paypal and no proof of delivery. So the buyer could get the money back at any time from Paypal since I cannot show proof of delivery- which does very much seem to have me in the middle of it. That has not been threatened BTW- as noted above, complete silence from buyer side.

What would you do? I am tempted to have the wine delivered to the official Paypal address (if it can be done legally) when the weather gets cooler and send advance warning. Other option is to refund the money and just retrieve the bottles on my next trip.

The bottles in question are extremely rare- a 2017 Auction German wine that was one of the highlights- so if I take the liberty of stepping in and refunding the money, am I at some kind of risk? They are about as close to irreplaceable in the open market as you can get (after all, Rudi was already in prison when the grapes were harvested.)

Thanks for any thoughts. Hoping to end this happily for all- finding a new home for the bottles will be super-easy if it comes to that.

Ship it to you. If he wants it have him pay the shipping from you after.

Good idea- I had not thought of it. But the issue there is I cannot legally ship to him. He is in a legal state, but I am a private individual.

Paypal does have a 180 day limit for raising disputes (as I once found out to my cost), so you must be soon safe from claims via Paypal. I do appreciate it is not you goal to keep the money and the wine, but it does mean you should be safe from Paypal recriminations in the longer term.

As a seller are you able to use Paypal to communicate with the buyer? Perhaps that might get a response?

Is he just not responding to your private messages or is he completely radio silent? No posts on here, Instagram, Facebook etc. Do you have a phone number you can call?

Not to be a downer, but what I’m getting at is if the person has gone completely silent on all platforms they may have health issues or have passed away.

If they are active and just ignoring you it’s a totally different discussion.

Either way, I would take receipt of the wines and send the money back via PayPal (supposing the total amount vs. your financial situation means the money is all discretionary)

You don’t have an e-mail or phone number? Could you find one by Googling? (If the name is John Smith, probably not. But if it’s, say, Manfred Satterthwaite, the odds are good.)

It’s VERY easy to miss PMs here if you don’t have things set so you receive alerts. Even though I receive alerts, sometimes they’ve been lost in a barrage of other mail and I’ve discovered PMs a week or two after they were sent. I don’t check my messages on WB unless I’ve received an alert.

So I wouldn’t read much into the fact that he’s not reading his PMs.

Is his WB profile configured so you can send him an e-mail instead of a PM over the site?

I advise against sending them to an address for which you have no idea if a person will be present to receive. It’s the fastest way to ruin the wine. If your buyer isn’t reading what you are sending now, there is little chance they will get your message that you have sent to some address you sleuthed out of their PayPal profile.

I’m with Fu - take delivery and make a best effort to get the wine to the person. If that proves to be impossible, refund their money. Don’t make them rescind the payment. I view this as one of the risks of Commerce Corner. You have to shoulder some responsibilities in the transaction that an auction house would otherwise deal with. Caveat venditor.

fred

I read this “But still- PMs I send here that show read go unanswered. Several now.” as stating that PMs are being read, not sitting un-read in Tom’s outbox. That seems odd - the buyer is out-of-pocket and seemingly aware that there is a potential issue but not taking any action.

Regardless, Mr. Fu’s solution seems best.

Take receipt of the wines, continue to reach out. If unwilling to send from your address/cellar, just refund and relist them on CC. I’m sure someone would be interested. An unfortunate situation, but such is life when you conduct business. This isn’t anything out of the ordinary.

To me it depends somewhat on how much OP doesn’t (or does) want the wines. Having sold the wines, he may not want them back at this point (they weren’t sold on option), nor the hassle of reselling (it was easier to sell with direct delivery rather than indirect). So if ending up with the wines because he can’t sell or doesn’t want the added hassle from the purchaser’s failed pickup is a fine result, then go ahead and pickup with a refund upon request.

But if OP really prefers to be done with things I’d be more aggressive about making sure he that he can demonstrate the wines were constructively delivered in case a paypal dispute arises. (Without knowing the terms of the transaction, I’d like to think the OP sold with purchaser to pickup/arrange pickup from retailer.) I don’t see how not picking up is a basis to void a transaction, any more than if OP had shipped the wines to the purchaser and the purchaser had refused delivery of the package.

Did you seriously only communicate through CC and you didn’t exchange e-mails or phone numbers?

Not a good idea at all. But if you have an address and a name, you should be able to find someone. Maybe he’s just not looking at PMs or the board but that doesn’t mean he’s dead.

Ah! You’re right. I guess I misread that.

Thanks everyone. While I came looking to genuinely sort out whether I had the right to refund and take the wines back, the thread seems to have had the benefit of being a good reminder and now all is being completed as originally planned. So no dilemma for me. Thanks for the good thoughts. If for some reason something goes amiss, I am thinking best to refund and take the wines myself for reoffering on CC.