Refund And Return Policy

What is the name of your state? North Carolina

A customer purchased a gift basket from me to be shipped internationally in October. Well the gift basket never got delivered because of customs, Custom returned the basket back to me on Dec 20, 2004 DAMAGED. The customer requested a chargeback from her credit card company, my credit card processor issued the full amount back to me stating I did what I needed to do, as my merchant responsbilites. My return and refund policies state No refunds just a store credit. Even though the basket was returned to me from the USPS (customs 2 months later, am I liable to give the customer a refund?

La Tunya Sifford
www.fullmoongiftbaskets.com

Was the basket insured? Then you can recover your money for it. Why was the basket refused by customs? Was it your fault?

Regardless, if your return policy states store credit only for returns, then that doesn't apply in this case because the customer isn't returning it. From the brief facts you've provided you owe the customer a cash/credit refund.

North Carolina- The customer did not want to include insurance. It was refused by customs because of th food items that the customer requested.
I agreed that i will refund the cost of th basket, minus the shipping charges?
All of my baskets are custom, I do charge for labor, supplies, etc... Do you think I am within my rights?

I think you're being more than fair offering them a refund of the cost of the basket minus shipping. If they refuse this, they'll have to take you to court in your home state. Since this went through customs, I can only assume they're located abroad somewhere and have no interest in coming to your home state to fight this out with you. They already tried to claim it through their credit card company to get a refund and were denied, so you can take that as a pretty good indication of where you stand on this right now. However you refund them, you need to make sure to clearly document what the refund is for, and that by cashing your check they're accepting this as a full refund for the products and shipping cost. I'm not sure how much the basket was worth, so I'm deliberately going overboard here with what I'm saying!

I'd have to have a copy of your refund policy, as well as details on the method of sale in order to determine more than this. For instance, if you had the item listed with shipping insurance optional at the request of the buyer, then you don't owe this person back for anything that was broken during shipping or at customs. Anything you're in possession of that isn't broken is technically the buyer's property so that's all you need to refund them.