What happens in this situation?

Caporegime
Joined
1 Dec 2010
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Location
Welling, London
Say I sold a snooker cue for £250 on ebay because it didn't suit me. The cue cost me £400 originally.

Supposing the cue arrived damaged and the courier service agreed to pay out the insurance value of £500.

In that situation would I have to keep the £250 and pass the cheque on to the buyer so he could get a new cue or would I be able to refund him the £250 and buy the new cue for myself?
 
Well thought out fraud scheme

No, honestly it's not at all. I just want to know what happens in the event of damage. I'll be pretty amazed if it is damaged. It's in an aluminium case, but you know what some of these companies are like.

Treat it more like a javelin than a cue!
 
Your contract with the seller is to provide them with the cue or their money back (if they paid £250 then £250).
 
hang on.
The item in question doesn't just disappear; it's damaged (hypothetically) so it would probably be inspected and then a like-for-like replacement sought.

I think you would end up with your original monies and the buyer would end up with a replacement cue of some sort. I doubt insurers would just be giving away £500 cheques; they would be going out of their way not to do that I'm sure!
 
The compensation from the courier will only cover what the cue is worth (it's UPTO £500 remember) - you'll have to provide a recpt showing how much the receiver (i.e. purchaser) paid for the item and that will be the value of the compensation paid to you in the event of loss/damage. You then refund the purchaser their OWN money back.

Ofc, you could say you sent the cue as a gift and no money was exchanged and present the original £400 recpt, but 99% of the time they'll contact the receiver and ask if it was a purchase or a gift - and when they say they only paid £250 you're up the creek without a paddle and can kiss any compensation goodbye.
 
When you make a claim with the courier's insurance, they'll almost certainly ask for evidence of the amount you were selling it for, and they won't consider paying more than that.

The amount covered is the item's value up to a certain limit. I can't claim £500 for a broken toothbrush just because I paid for insurance up to £500.
 
The compensation from the courier will only cover what the cue is worth (it's UPTO £500 remember) - you'll have to provide a recpt showing how much the receiver (i.e. purchaser) paid for the item and that will be the value of the compensation paid to you in the event of loss/damage. You then refund the purchaser their OWN money back.

Ofc, you could say you sent the cue as a gift and no money was exchanged and present the original £400 recpt, but 99% of the time they'll contact the receiver and ask if it was a purchase or a gift - and when they say they only paid £250 you're up the creek without a paddle and can kiss any compensation goodbye.

Right.

That makes sense. It's just a shame that the courier company get away with paying only £250 for a cue they destroyed when it costs £400+ to replace.
 
No, it's like car insurance. If the car gets written off they pay the current market value. That's the key here. They wouldn't put you in a brand new Fiesta if you wrote off your 10 year old Fiesta. Insurance is designed to put you back to the state before the incident occurred.
 
Right.

That makes sense. It's just a shame that the courier company get away with paying only £250 for a cue they destroyed when it costs £400+ to replace.

Yet you expect them to pay £500 when even at brand new the cue is worth £400.

An item's worth is what anyone is prepared to pay for it, not what it cost when brand new. That's like me crashing my 15 year old BMW and expecting the Insurance company to buy me a brand new £25k model.
 
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