Please help! I would like to know where we, as sellers, stand

[meg-and-sam]

I am getting so frustrated as a seller as there doesn't seem to be any 'protection' for us against buyers. I clearly state on ALL of my listings that there is 'no insurance or tracking provided unless requested & paid for, no responsibility taken for lost or damaged parcels without insurance'. It seems that having this on my listings is a waste of time as recently a buyer was given their money back after claiming they didn't receive their item. Why are we, as sellers, held responsible for Australia Posts incompetence at delivering the item? Who knows for certain if a buyer received their item or not? What is stopping many buyers stating 'they didn't receive the item' just so they can get something for free? 

I sell mostly small priced items, lots of them and 90% are sent as 'letters/large letters' at a cheap postage rate. To insist on tracking or insurance would decrease my sales significantly so it's just not an option.

I have also had cases similar to this from my overseas buyers. When shipping overseas, I use the green 'customs declaration form' but this too, has proven useless when it comes to a missing parcel, and again, to insist on purchasing insurance or tracking would decrease my sales. I have even gone to the extra trouble of writing down the customers name & country plus the customs number in a book to try and cover myself if a claim is made, but to no avail.

Can anyone suggest what I can do to protect myself? Or, have any information that might help?

Thanking you in advance, have a wonderful day 🙂 Meg

[cq_tech]

Meg, most of my items are also sent by untracked large letter so I protect myself from INR claims by photographing my letters after they have been stamped (i.e. the postage stamps have been cancelled) by the PO at lodgement. Given that under AU law, once the letter has been lodged at the PO it is deemed to have been delivered, the photographs become my physical proof of delivery.

Paypal have already indicated that they will accept such photographs as proof of delivery although eBay as yet have not, although under AU consumer law, legally they're supposed to. If defending a claim under eBay's MBG you'd certainly have a fight on your hands but ultimately you should win.

[clarry100]

Meg
There are three things required to give you 100% seller protection from INR claims.
1. Use trackable mail where the tracking number can be associated with at least the buyer's postcode.
2. Obtain a lodgement receipt when you send you item. What cq does equates to this.
3. Always send to the PayPal address given during checkout.
If you use regular untracked mail as we do too then you have to accept that you self insure. Fact of life trading on EBay unfortunately.
We only sell in AU and get approximately one in a thousand items reported lost where we end up replacing the item.
When you do the put a comment against the feedback that says something like
UID replacement sent for item reported lost in post and date the message.
The UID is so we can all see who the buyer is. And if the buyer makes a habit of doing this and all sellers leave this message it will become pretty clear that the buyer is a possible scammer or very unlucky.
Hope this helps.

[englishrosegardens]

It's against ebay policies to say in your listings that you're not responsible for lost mail.  Regardless of what Australian law is, it's part of ebay's policies and that's what you sign up to.  Buyers are never going to choose to pay extra for reg'd post because they know they can get their money back through ebay if it doesn't arrive.

Personally, I think saying it is a red flag for scammers because they immediately think, "They won't have any proof they sent it so I can claim I never got it and they won't be able to prove otherwise."  It has negative connotations in other ways too, ie. that you don't care what happens to the item once you've sent it.  This may or may not be the case but people could easily get that impression and decide to buy from someone else.

[meg-and-sam]

Thank you for your time in replying 🙂 

I did think about photographing all letters BUT I post, on average, 30 - 50 envelopes a day and I pop them in the red post box (on side of road) so I guess that won't work. Do you actually hand them over the counter and photograph each one as it is stamped? I think my ladies would *slap* me if I wanted to do that (they are wonderful ladies really). Your information is very helpful, thank you very much

[meg-and-sam]

Thank you very much for your reply  I didn't realise it was against eBay policy to add that to my listings, so thanks for the 'heads up'. Gee it's tough but I guess I am just going to have to wear the cost of replacing items that don't show up.

[springyzone]

Meg, I can see where you are coming from as tracking pushes up postage costs & I know some sellers post in ordinary envelopes. I have received some of my purchases this way.

But sellers who put stuff in their ads about paying extra for tracking etc etc now annoy me. (As a one time seller we used to do exactly that 10 years back, but it is not the way things work now.)

Many buyers know very well that they are covered by an ebay guarantee, they know that it is a seller responsibility to provide trackable posting. Why is anyone going to volunteer to pay more?

They won't & if the parcel goes missing, then that is your responsibility and if you haven't provided tracking, it is on your head to either replace or refund.

That is exactly where you stand.

If I bought from you and the parcel was lost, sorry, I would claim. The buck stops with you I am afraid. And yes, you leave yourself open to scammers.

So the choice is yours. You can continue to sell & post without tracking. I think most buyers are honest and Aust Post is usually reliable.

But you will have to get used to the idea a certain % of people will claim item not received & you will have to grin and bear it.

Or you can provide tracking as ebay insist you should.

But don't go telling people in an ad that they can decide on paying extra or not for tracking, it just puts people's backs up and alerts the scammers there is no tracking.

[cq_tech]

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@meg-and-sam wrote:

Thank you for your time in replying 🙂 

I did think about photographing all letters BUT I post, on average, 30 - 50 envelopes a day and I pop them in the red post box (on side of road) so I guess that won't work. Do you actually hand them over the counter and photograph each one as it is stamped? I think my ladies would *slap* me if I wanted to do that (they are wonderful ladies really). Your information is very helpful, thank you very much

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Yes, I do photograph each letter as it is stamped but the most I'd post on a good day would be 5 or 6 large letters. However, there is another method which would be more suitable for those like yourself who send a large number of letters, and that is to buy yourself a ledger, and write in it the details of each item being posted and the date, then once they've been lodged, have the postmaster (or whichever employee has served you) stamp that page at the last entry for that date, then if you need to defend an INR, you can use a photocopy or photograph of the relevant ledger page as evidence of delivery. Paypal have also indicated that they will accept such as proof of delivery, although as with photographs, eBay are yet to follow suit, even though AU Consumer Law insists that they do.

Of course, this still requires that you physically lodge your letters over the counter at your local PO. If posting in a street box, there is absolutely nothing you can do to protect yourself. I suppose it depends upon the value of the items being sent. If you can afford to lose one in every couple of hundred, then continue as you're doing now, but I'm starting to become concerned that eBay's MBG is attracting all the dodgy buyers to come slithering out from beneath their respective rocks which could increase your INR rate to a degree which is unsustainable without additional protection.

[joethenuts]

hi the answers you got here are correct, you cant blame the buyers who dont get there goods ,you cant blame aust-post as you cant prove you even sent them,  you can either change the way you send them, by what the posters have said., or keep doing it the same way and allow for a few to go missing ,ala aust-post or crook-buyers

[casbit33]

Meg, most of my items are sent as large letters. I have a sheet of paper in a clipboard that shows - the date - my ebay account name -  the item bought - the users name and their real name and address.  There is a section next to this that the post office stamps for me as proof of postage. This should be enough to prove delivery. I shouldn't be held responsible for Australia Post Staff. I also keep another  record of everything i sell in an exercise book, who bought it with all their details and postage receipts.  This helps when there is a problem and you can back track to find the tracking number or receipt to prove postage or the address you posted to.