item paid for but not collected 1 year later...

[slothsport]

sold a car for $300 in july last year, contacted buyer who paid via paypal. he assured me he'd collect by the end of august. ive had no contact with him since then. i now need the car gone, what can i do?

[annies_fancy_dress]

Sell it to someone else.

[*sparklz*]

Yep relist and state a pick up by date as well.

[*crikey*mate*]

who was the buyer - I might contact him see if he wants to buy something off me and not come pick it up LOL.

I think to cover yourself legally though, I would send 3 letters via registered post (spaced 2 weeks apart) reminding him of his purchase and specifing a collection time. (And I'd maybe even get the contents of the letter certified by a JP?)

Cos Murphy's Law says, as soon as you sell it to someone else, the original purchaser will come asking for the car and might cause you some trouble.

This will at least provide proof that you made every reasonable effort to contact the buyer.

If you never specified a pick up time - the contract between the two of you remains on foot - and if the buyer ever makes a claim, you may be ordered to repay the money or maybe even source another similar item, regardless of the cost to you.

(There are a few cases that deal with these situations but I don't want to dig through all my notes to find em LOL

If ya wanna be cheeky, include an invoice for storage costs LOL

[purple.cow]

Send one WITNESSED registared letter to the seller giving them a 'collect by' date, at least 28 days hence.

Clearly state that the car will be disposed of (no need to say how) after that date and no recompense of any kind shall be made to the purchaser.

Make sure you retain a witnessed copy of the same letter for yourself.

I very much doubt if anyone, including Paypal, would want to know about dealing with a claim for refund after so long. In fact I think Paypal would laugh at anyone who suggested it.

Crikeymate's comment about being cheeky to suggest the buyer pays you storage costs for the year isn't as cheeky or silly as it may first appear because you DO have the right to do it, AND get away with it.

However, if you pull that trick just make sure the costs are clearly shown in your registared letter.

The legal ownership of the car passed to the buyer the moment they paid you in full, but that didn't include long term storage costs unless you granted it or inferred it in any way as being FOC.

That's all the nice way of doing things, but there is a not so nice way too, but I better not detail that here because some nice little Ebay poster would be sure to report and get this reply removed, if of course they don't anyway lol.

[purple.cow]

Sorry, my bad lol.

'registared letter to the seller' should read as 'registared letter to the buyer'

[thesoulyearns]

Yeah, contact the buyer first and tell them that you're going to refund the money in a week (or less) unless they can come and pick it up. Make sure that they communicate back and either agree to the refund or state a time (within a week) to pick it up.

If I remember correctly, you're not obliged to refund them as it's been over 45 (or is it 90?) days since they paid but it's just good practice to do that.

[rkwm888]

'registared letter to the seller' should read as 'registared letter to the buyer'

should read

 registered letter to the seller should read as registered letter to the buyer

[not_an_eloi]

http://www.consumer.vic.gov.au/businesses/fair-trading/guarantees-warranties-and-refunds/uncollected...

[purple.cow]

'registared letter to the seller' should read as 'registared letter to the buyer'

should read

 registered letter to the seller should read as registered letter to the buyer

Whatever lol.