Who gets compensation for late shipping: the intermediary or the customer?

A question from an intermediary for an online shop who pays in advance for customers' orders, where the shop offers a refund as compensation for late shipping, in which Jordan's General Iftaa Department answered that the refund belongs to the customer if the intermediary acts as the customer's agent, and to the intermediary if she buys the goods for herself and then sells them. ¹

The questioner said she works as an intermediary for an online shop, ordering products for customers and paying for them in advance, then collecting the money from customers on delivery; because shipping is sometimes delayed, the shop offers to refund the amount paid as compensation. She asked whether the compensation is hers or the customers'. ¹

The Department answered that the ruling depends on the nature of the contractual relationship between the intermediary and the customers. ¹ It said that if the intermediary is an agent who delivers orders and takes a delivery fee and an agency commission, the rule that an agent acts for the principal's benefit applies, so the agent may not keep any cash refund from the supplier, and the refund belongs to the customer. ¹ If the intermediary buys the goods with her own money and then sells them to customers, she may keep the refunds, because the goods entered her ownership and risk before she sold them. ¹ It concluded that the refund belongs to the customer when the intermediary is the customer's agent in buying and delivering, and to the intermediary when she buys the goods for herself and then sells them. ¹

Jordan's General Iftaa Department published this fatwa on aliftaa.jo as no. 4026, dated 4 December 2025. ¹ The museum records this text as a historical document attributed to the body or scholar that issued it; it issues no ruling of its own.