I bought something from china...now its on its way back!

[stuayre]

I bought something from China, it made it all the way here and for some reason or other it wasn't able to be delivered.

Anyway, now the tracking says that the item is being 'return to sender' and that a 'Sales Order has been Raised'

question: does this mean that the sender has to pay to have them item sent back to China?

the sender says that they won't pay to have the item returned so I'm wondering what will happen to my item? Will Royal Mail just keep it? sell it?

is there any chance that I can still get my item? I'd still like it if it's possible to deliver it

legally who owns the item now?

[Snaggletooth]

If it has already been marked as return to sender then I am afraid that it isn't heading your way.

I am not aware of any reason why anyone would be charged for a RTS so I'm very puzzled by this "sales order" business. Could you perhaps copy and paste the tracking into a post on here? And also let us know what website you got the tracking from? Something doesn't seem right here.

[IcanthelpthewayIam]

sales order raised is generally associated with RM tracked, ie an item posted by a large company in UK using rm tracked so for an item coming from China it's a bit puzzling

[stuayre]

Hi Snaggletooth!

thanks for the reply, here's the tracking ID: JJ113852353GB

tracking was on Royal Mails website:

https://www.royalmail.com/track-your-item

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Although you ordered from China it looks like it was actually sent from a warehouse in this country . I have had one parcel that was handled in a similar way.

Looking at the tracking information it looks as though a postie tried to deliver it on 24 Oct but was unable to gain access to attempt delivery. In situations like this a card should be left at the next available opportunity and the item would then be held for 18 days - and then returned to sender. This looks like it happened on 14 Nov.

The sales order shortly after is probably just advising the sender that the item has been returned to stock.

My advice is to contact the sender again.

Afraid we can't advise why the postie couldn't deliver on the day in question but hopefully you may know. Usually its a locked gate, dog loose or trade entrance on flats problem.

[stuayre]

Hi TrueBlueTerrier,

I entered my work address when I ordered this item, Royal mail tried to deliver this item Saturday and the gate was locked (my work doesn't open on a Saturday) we have an agreement with Royal Mail not to delivery mail on Saturdays and to hold it until Monday but for some reason they tried to deliver this on a Saturday and so they couldn't leave a card saying they had called. I'm not sure why they didn't just send one out with the usual Monday mail.

anyway, that's all in the past.

the way I think the Chinese sellers work is they consolidate alot of small items onto one big pallet they then ship this pallet over to the UK and the pallet is split down or passed onto Royal Mail. that way they can use one courier for the international freight and another for the last mile domestic journey. Royal Mail are usually very good at the last mile part but another courier might be good at international freight.

this makes sense when thinking about zx135's comment.... where sales orders are usually "posted by a large company in UK"

anyway this is the sellers comments...this is a direct quote... "Even if the parcel will be returned ,NO full refund,as we paid freight in advance while sending your parcel and there is return freight if we want to get your returned parcel. hope you can understand. have a nice weekend."

So it looks like the sender has something to pay?

now, my question is, what will happen to my item if the sender doesn't pay this sales order?

I read online that Royal Mail destroys 25 million items each year some because they can't work out who they were intended for and others because they couldn't be returned to sender. If the item is of value they get auctioned off.

you can read about it here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... edder.html


So is this what will happen to my item? I would still like my item if Royal Mail could deliver it.

Also who owns the item? is it still legally mine, the senders or Royal Mail's?

it looks like the Chinese seller isn't going to refund me so it's going to cost me the whole order, Royal Mail may auction my item off which means the sellers wins, Royal Mail wins and I lose. It's in Royal Mail's interest not to deliver these items?

what should I do?

[SpacePhoenix]

Unless there's an official retention in place, your postman has to attempt delivery.

It seems to be becoming more common for stuff to be shipped from wherever to a warehouse in the UK. RM will only return it to the warehouse in the UK as that's normally the return address on them items.

Does your work address have an external letterbox?

[stuayre]

Hi

Yes I think there is an official retention in place.

There isn't an external letterbox. I did use the arrange a redelivery form on the Royal Mail website, I did this on the 11th Nov and Royal Mail emailed me to say they would deliver the item on Friday the 13th November, however nothing turned up, there wasn't even a delivery attempt on the tracking. then on monday i went down to the sorting office but they didn't know anything about my item. They asked me to leave their number with them and the manager would give me a call. I'm still waiting for him to call me. The on tuesday the 17th of November i checked the tracking again, somehow Royal Mail have invented a time machine because there was a new update on the 14th of November saying it was being returned to sender. However they still should have tried to deliver it on the 13th as they promised?

anyway, that's all in the past now and I can't change any of that!

I think the way these big uk shipping forwarding companies work is they agree with Royal Mail to take out the cost of any returns from the outgoing mail. Usually the cost of sending a parcel includes the cost of returning it built in, but these warehouses ask for it to be removed so they can have cheaper postage rates.

The Chinese are happy because they have cheaper UK postage.
The warehouse is happy because they can offer cheaper postage and not have to deal with any returns.
Royal Mail is happy because they don't have to deal with any return mail and they can auction off the returned items?

Its worse for the consumer tho because it means returned mail is lost at the cost of the full item!

I'd like to know if there is anyway to get my item back?
who legally owns it?

[NewPostieUK]

It's the sellers responsibility to get the item to the buyer. They can't just wash their hands of it. If you used eBay and/or Paypal you should get your money back. If you bought by some other method, you might have a problem dealing with overseas sellers.

It's not your item, you shouldn't even have to do any chasing up, it's up to the seller to do this.

[stuayre]

i purchased this item using my Visa Debit card so charging this back might be my only hope,