I recently sold my Rolex on eBay for £2,200, as I needed cash to pay off the arrears on my mortgage. 

The watch was sent to the eBay authentication department for inspection and it passed. 

It was forwarded to the buyer and I received the payment into my bank account.

A few days later, the buyer returned the watch with some feeble excuses about its condition and eBay refunded her in full.

The firm contacted me to ask to refund the money I had received. I was very unhappy as the watch had been checked, authenticated and sold. I feel I have been unfairly treated.

K.T., Suffolk.

Auction hell: A reader sold their valuable Rolex watch on eBay - but the buyer then returned it with a fault

Sally Hamilton replies: You were put in a sticky financial predicament by this aborted sale as you had already used the proceeds to pay off your mortgage debt before eBay demanded you return them.

This was a terrible blow, particularly as you suffer from multiple sclerosis and you told me the stress of your financial predicament had left you bedridden for three days.

If it wasn’t bad enough that the sale needed to be reversed, when the watch was eventually returned to you, the mechanism was no longer functioning, so you had a non-working watch on your hands that you could not re-sell.

On expressing your dismay to the eBay authentication team, they suggested you take the timepiece to a Rolex jeweller local to you to be checked.

You did this and you were told it was indeed faulty but were horrified when they told you it would cost £3,000 to repair.

Feeling angry and upset you complained again to eBay, which eventually offered 25 per cent compensation but still demanded you pay back the remaining 75 per cent – £1,650 – to cover the reimbursement it had made to your would-be buyer.

First, I checked the details of eBay’s free authentication

service. Ebay uses independent experts to scrutinise a watch to ensure it matches the details on the seller’s listing. If an inspected watch is later returned by a buyer, as in your case, it goes through the process in reverse – with eBay’s experts checking it has been sent back in the same condition as when it was forwarded to the buyer.

The firm’s authentication guarantee also states that ‘in the unlikely event your item is lost or damaged while in the possession of the independent authenticator, eBay will cover such loss or damage of the item’.

It looked again at your case and concluded that your watch had been in the same condition when it sent it back to you as it was when it was first authenticated, and told me that ‘once items are returned to the seller, they are outside eBay’s control’.

Your case seemed to me to fall in a grey area, as we can’t know for sure what stopped it working and whether it was damaged in transit to you. Nevertheless, I felt eBay was responsible for getting it to you in the same condition as it was when it left the firm.

After re-examining your case, I am pleased to say eBay decided to withdraw its demand that you pay 75 per cent of the refund bill – and instead covered the total £2,200 cost of the reimbursement to the buyer. 

I hope you can find someone to fix your watch for less than £3,000 so you can at least use it or sell it to another buyer. 

Why am I being denied home insurance? 

I recently noted my Tesco home insurance was due to expire and was surprised I hadn’t received a renewal notice.

When I phoned to check, Tesco told me it could not insure us but did not offer any explanation except to say renewals usually were sent 21 days before expiry.

I tried to get cover with Admiral instead but at the end of the form filling process, it also refused to insure our property. Admiral said it was because there is an outstanding claim.

Please help as our insurance is about to run out.

G.S., Newcastle upon Tyne.

Sally Hamilton replies: THERE had indeed been a claim made on your policy, which you were well aware of, but you believed it was all done and dusted. It was for £2,000 worth of repairs on your garage roof, which had been badly damaged during a storm in January this year.

Tesco had arranged everything, from the surveyor to sourcing a roofer, who repaired it in February. 

You had no complaints. But when you were turned down for the renewal of the policy, you found out the claim was stuck in limbo as the roofer had not sent Tesco Insurance the repair bill.

Apparently, the person dealing with invoices was on long-term sick leave. This is why the claim remained open.

To my mind, this shouldn’t have led to you being left without cover. The Association of British Insurers says it is good practice for the incumbent insurer to continue cover while the claim is open. It also says that householders should be able to shop around, if they prefer.

You might have had more success by comparing deals more widely than just asking Admiral, perhaps by using a comparison service or a broker. But I wasn’t surprised you were worried. I asked Tesco Insurance to look at your case again.

Its investigation concluded that it had indeed declined to offer renewal, which it rather opaquely put down to its ‘underwriting criteria’ but agreed an administrative mistake meant you didn’t receive sufficient notice to seek alternative insurance.

After my intervention, Tesco found a way to offer you cover after all. You were quoted £20 a month (up from about £14 last year) and were relieved to accept.

A Tesco Insurance spokesman says: ‘Unfortunately, on this occasion, we fell short of our own high customer service standards and an administrative error resulted in [the customer] not being sent a letter explaining this in sufficient time, ahead of his policy renewal date. We apologise for the frustration this caused.’

Tesco confirmed that the roof claim is now closed.

• Write to Sally Hamilton at Sally Sorts It, Money Mail, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT or email sally@dailymail.co.uk — include phone number, address and a note addressed to the offending organisation giving them permission to talk to Sally Hamilton. Please do not send original documents as we cannot take responsibility for them. No legal responsibility can be accepted by the Daily Mail for answers given.