I operate markets and i sell pitches to traders in advance. The money is used to pay for the venue hire and the advertising costs so for this reason we stipulate at the time of application and again at the payment stage that stalls are non refundable once purchased. We clearly state a cancellation policy that we will try and resell pitches on behalf of traders that need to cancel but if it can't be resold we are unable to refund. That's because stalls are not revenue to us. A venue only holds so many pitches so when the costs are divided up, it only covers costs. Therefore if someone cancels that leaves us out of pocket.
So, we had a trader book for a market and a few days before the event she emailed to cancel. We told her that it would be unlikely that we would fill her pitch in the short time frame and that we wouldn't be able to refund her. We kept her pitch and on the day she didn't come and use it.
2 weeks later she has filed an "item not received" claim, which we disputed citing the terms and conditions of the booking and paypal decided in her favour saying that we had failed to provide tracking. We can't provide tracking for a market pitch and i feel what she has done is fraudulent and a misuse of buyer protection.
So i appeal it, showing all links to the business, where the customer agrees to the terms on both occasions and explain that it's not goods but a service and she didn't attend to use it and they decided in her favour again, again citing that we hadn't provided a tracking number.
What would be the best next course of action. Given all of the evidence i have, i will take it to small claims court if i have to but would prefer it if paypal would just look at the facts and see that she hasn't ordered goods and reverse the decision.
Thanks for any advice
