Buyer has not received item

[atlas006]

Hello,

Recently I sold an Xbox game for $35 free postage. The buyer made prompt payment on the 7th of July and I sent the item the next day on the 8th, Australia Post sent it in a large letter. So I have no tracking and cannot find the receipt anywhere.

All seemed well, I never received feedback so on the 20th of July I sent a follow up message asking if they received their item with no reply. So I forgot all about it must have chucked the receipt during that time, and now today they have sent a message saying I still haven't received my item.

I'm not sure what to do, I'm fairly new to selling and have only sold around 10 items, and I do have no refunds when I listed it.

Do I have any options or do I just have to refund the money? They haven't made a claim yet, but I'm sure they will.

Thanks.

[max-power-models]

Good learning experience for you. What I would suggest if you're a regular at your LPO ask them for help. If they paid with Paypal and you can't prove you mailed it i.e.  the tracking number you lose.

For the future open a click n send account and link your ebay account with it. Or manually enter the tracking number in your check out.

Unfortunatley

---

@atlas006 wrote:

Hello,

Recently I sold an Xbox game for $35 free postage. The buyer made prompt payment on the 7th of July and I sent the item the next day on the 8th, Australia Post sent it in a large letter. So I have no tracking and cannot find the receipt anywhere.

All seemed well, I never received feedback so on the 20th of July I sent a follow up message asking if they received their item with no reply. So I forgot all about it must have chucked the receipt during that time, and now today they have sent a message saying I still haven't received my item.

I'm not sure what to do, I'm fairly new to selling and have only sold around 10 items, and I do have no refunds when I listed it.

Do I have any options or do I just have to refund the money? They haven't made a claim yet, but I'm sure they will.

Thanks.

---

---

@atlas006 wrote:

Hello,

Recently I sold an Xbox game for $35 free postage. The buyer made prompt payment on the 7th of July and I sent the item the next day on the 8th, Australia Post sent it in a large letter. So I have no tracking and cannot find the receipt anywhere.

All seemed well, I never received feedback so on the 20th of July I sent a follow up message asking if they received their item with no reply. So I forgot all about it must have chucked the receipt during that time, and now today they have sent a message saying I still haven't received my item.

I'm not sure what to do, I'm fairly new to selling and have only sold around 10 items, and I do have no refunds when I listed it.

Do I have any options or do I just have to refund the money? They haven't made a claim yet, but I'm sure they will.

Thanks.

---

it seems you have left yourself wide open, lucky its not big beer money.

[clarry100]

Yes unfortunately when you use regular mail with no tracking (as we do) then when a buyer reports an item as not received you have no choice but to suck it up.

You will certainly lose any INR claim against you.

In our case we ask them to validate their address, and check at their local PO in case they are holding it.

After all that is OK we just send out a replacement item.

In your case if you don't have a replacement you will probably have to refund.

We also add a follow-up comment to the feedback we left for the buyer.

"<UID>: Replacement sent for item reported lost in post (date)."

UserID is so that other buyers can see who they are.

This just records that we have sent out a replacement for all to see.

If all sellers leave this follow-up message then we can all easily see if they are repeat offenders.

And so can ebay or police for future reference.

[phorum_junkie*]

I wouldn't wait for them to make a claim, you couldn't win if they did so much better just to refund them and ask them nicely if they would mind re making the payment if it ever turns up.

I rarely send anything without tracking now but back when ordinary parcels and satchels had no free tracking at all I used to put a few cents from each sale away towards a fund to cover the cost of a couple of returns.  I rarely had to use it and built up such a fund that I didn't have to add to it for years.

[harley_babes_hoard]

Never ask a buyer if they have received their item. it's like an open invitation to scam you.

[phorum_junkie*]

Agree with HBH, if the buyer had forgotten about it it wasn't too important to them and if they had never rmembered no harm done.

[lane-ends]

Asking a buyer if they received is telling them you have no idea or proof they did. Most of the time this is ok but it can giv ethe wrong sort of buyers the wrong sort of ideas.

[designers*n*more]

As others have stated you will lose a dispute if you have no tracking. If sending items as letters I would suggest sending it registered post, for the cost of $3.70 it's better to fork out $3.70 than to have to refund $35, that way you are covered.

[fairlaneltd]

Welcome to pain in the ass ebay and dealing with the public.

[phorum_junkie*]

Welcome to pain in the ass ebay and dealing with the public.

What an attitude, there is no evidence that the buyer ever received their item and that is entirely down to the seller's choice so why is it a pain in any part of the anatomy to deal with the situation in the only fair and equitable manner by refunding the buyer if full.