Stolen Lens - Here's the REAL moral dilemma

[cowanw]

It has always bemused me that the deal is always that the seller must be trusted first(Seawolf 66 excepted: private and kindy reference).
That is to say the buyer must send the money which is usually held (cheque or money order) until confirmed.
The buyer must trust the seller to send the item.
The seller in no way must trust the buyer to pay him/her. The money is in hand first.
In exchange for this unequal power relationship, the seller is obliged to deliver the item, on a no fault basis.
Negotiation, communication and just plain kindness may result in a satisfactory plan of action but.
At the end of the day, if the lens is lost, the buyer should not be out at all, since he/she fulfilled their part of the bargain. For the seller to say that they put it in the mailbox and that is the end of their responsilbility does not fulfill their part of the bargain to deliver it to the seller.
The greater power relationship demands greater responsilbilty.
Everything should work out here, indeed, the lens should be in the right hands at the end of the day (good on you for eyeballing ebay).
Kindest regards
Bill

[Michael Roberts]

I am a lawyer, and I agree w/Joanna. If the agreement was you would send insured and you did, then you have fulfilled your end of the agreement. The reason for sending insured is so the buyer can recover the amount spent if the item goes awry.

[Michael Roberts]

Sounds like you're doing your part to make the buyer whole. What more do you feel should be done?

[Joanna Carter]

So, from what Michael says, as long as you have done all that is in your power to contact the carrier to initiate the claim process, then you should not, IMHO, take any further action until that process has run its course.

I once ordered an item from B&H which went walkabout; although the item was merely lost in the carriers system (it ended up being returned to B&H by them), it took this statutory waiting period, during which I had no other recourse than to wait, since I wanted the item more than I wanted the money.

Be careful in pre-empting an insurance payout, such things can prejudice their ruling on liability.

[ASRafferty]

It has always bemused me that the deal is always that the seller must be trusted first
The greater power relationship demands greater responsilbilty.

I think that's exactly right, Bill... greater power DOES demand greater responsibility; and a full sales contract, which we don't have around here, would level that playing field by spelling out all the contingencies and basing them in redressing that power imbalance and protecting the weaker party.

No one ever needs a contract til something goes wrong.

[ASRafferty]

Sounds like you're doing your part to make the buyer whole. What more do you feel should be done?

I feel, as Brother Cowan points out above, that if we had a contract that reflected protections for the buyer needed because I can't hand him the item when he hands me the money, we'd know what to do in this case. But we don't, so we have to figure out on the fly what that contract would have said if it had been in place, in order to behave ethically.

[Ash]

Another point, as I'm not sure if it applies to cross-border law in USA; when I worked in a second-hand shop, we sometimes bought in items that turned out to have an owner that wanted them back (ie, had them stolen, maybe by family or by burglary).

We were obligated by law to surrender the item with no reimbursement to the true owner, regardless of how much we were out of pocket.

I'd try to contact the seller on ebay before the auction ends. I don't think you want the item travelling to another party further down the chain.

[ASRafferty]

I'd try to contact the seller on ebay before the auction ends. I don't think you want the item travelling to another party further down the chain.

Both my buyer and I have done... he could have bought it innocently from the thief, but there's a possibility that he's also the original thief, so it's a toss-up how that will go.

[DJGainer]

If you expect the buyer to bring any form of a civil action against you, consult a lawyer. A message board of photographers will not help you and it might actually harm you. Either the people here are not trained in the law (i.e. not lawyers) or they are and they shouldn't be giving you advice (whole ethical thing that I don't want to get into here).

[Henry Ambrose]

snip..... He's thinking of asking his credit card company to go after the money from my PayPal account.

Amy, you're getting some unusual advice in this thread. If you want to see the real legal side of this issue just wait for the buyer's credit card company to charge back against your Paypal account. They'll get their money.

As to any ethics issue, its quite clear that you didn't deliver the object that the buyer bought. Dropping it at the post office isn't delivery absent an agreement to the contrary.

Put yourself in the buyer's place. If you paid for something you never received wouldn't you want to have a refund? If you ordered an item from XYZ catalog wouldn't you expect to not be charged for something they didn't deliver? Lost, stolen, mishandled, who cares? You're not going to want to pay for something you didn't get.

Refund the buyer's money, make your claim and wait for your money to come back. Then you've done the right thing.