Speaker sale gone Pete Tong - suggestions please

Well this is a bit of a queer one.

I thought I’d sold a pair of speakers

The tl;dr version is that the buyer has paid and then disappeared, and I am left with both speakers and money.


August 10th - buyer says he’s interested, but will shortly be going into hospital for treatment, should be out 4th Sept - could I hang on to them? This is no problem.
September 8th - he’s out of hospital
September 10th - his mate lives near me, and will pick up the speakers on his way to visit him. I handed over contact details.
September 12th - paid
September 13th - last seen by forum software

Sunday October 10th - I DM him - any idea when the speakers might be collected?
Sunday October 17th - I DM him - hello, anyone there?
Saturday October 23rd - I DM him - last chance, I’m going to assume that something bad has happened. To whoever is reading this please let me know how I can return your money to you.

Tuesday October 26th - here we are


It’s still possible that the buyer is just being a bit of a silly billy. However given the very long time lapses it feels more like something has befallen him, particularly given the closeness to a stay in hospital.

I need to get rid of the speakers, and at the time there was a sizeable queue of interested parties.

However I would feel very awkward about charging again for them.

My rough plan would be to see who was still interested, and hand them over for free on the proviso that if the buyer (or his estate? :grimacing:) pops up then I would return the money, and the new buyer would then owe me £500.

Any other ideas?

Mods, I assume you have nothing more than the guy’s email address, and that he receives an email for every DM I send. Is that about right?

Thanks in advance.

The bank will be able to return the money to the buyer if you phone them up, I’m sure.

That’s the cleanest way.

Hope the buyer is OK. :pensive:

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All I can see is a name and a reference, but fair point, I will contact my bank and see if they can divulge an account number and sort code so I can track it back to the buyer’s bank.

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FWIW, my brother will take those odds.

Is the buyer the guy who has a habit of doing this? I seem to recall threads on pfm and wam about him.

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I don’t know.

No harm in outing him if it will resolve things. It’s Malcolm @Maestoso

Looks like he was last seen on PFM in 2020

Cleanest way forward is to get your bank to return his money and then move on.

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Someone overpaid me once by paying £2000 for a £200 item.
They had paid by bank transfer.
The bank took my instruction to return the £1800. The bank did not give me any more details about the buyer than I had on the statement. I did not know the account number or sort code

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Yes, if I can get them to do that I will.

The chap previously mentioned was a Malcolm. Thread here

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Fuck’s sake. Yes, Malcolm Parker. That’s the name on the FPI at my bank.

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The bank (Lloyds) can’t reverse the faster payment. They need account details which we don’t have.

I guess Malcolm just lost his £500.

It’s hard to feel any sympathy for him.

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I dunno, as annoying as it is, it might be more like mental illness rather than just being a twat.

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Possibly.

I would set his money aside and resell if you can’t refund. I had a guy do this to me over a TT. He paid 50% upfront and then disappeared for a year!! When he did come back he did so by paying the outstanding balance then emailing me with “Where is my turntable”
… They walk among us, and they vote.

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To interested parties (my PMs lit up when I posted this) - I’m just going on the queue order from last time so I think the speakers have already found a home.

Many many thanks to Dave @octh for his detective work in getting to the bottom of this.

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You’re welcome. It was just such an odd business that it stuck in my mind - along with a reminder never to sell him anything.

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I would go with this as that way you can refund him should he do a Lazarus on you… however bear in mind that as he has paid legal ownership of the chattels Has passed to him… that said what more can you do

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