Incorrect item received from Global Posting Service

[srila1]

I recently purchased an article out of the USA and am in Australia. When a completely different article showed up I contacted the seller. He did not realise he was posting to an international buyer as he had the address in Kentucky of one of the Mail centres.

It took us a good 2 hours and about 10 messages back and forth to work out what had happened.

My problem is that this package did not come from my seller(I know this because there is a packing slip in it addressed to someone else in Finland). Also on the package, under my Austalia Post label is the original label put on the parcel to send it to Kentucky centre and it's not my name.

So someone in Finland most likely has my $400 watch and I have their piece of **bleep** dry wall tool worth about $20. I can't raise an issue on this as 1) it tells me package could still be in transit for another 10 days, though their tracking function tells me it has been delivered. And 2) it does not seem to be the sellers fault but the fault of the sorters at the mail facility in Kentucky.

What do I do to get this matter looked at.

[afantiques · Accepted solution]

The nearest thing to an applicable solution is to start a claim with Paypal for Item not as described (Which it undoubtably is) and specifying damage in transit, which is about as close as you can come to 'wrong item sent from Kentucy depot', although you should put this in as a footnote.

What will happen is that you will get a complet refund of all money paid and keep the item you got. The seller's funds will be put on hold for a week or so, then  released. They will not lose any money.

The Finnish buyer is the lucky one here, since they can do the same thing, get all their money back and keep the watch.

You could inform the seller that their money will be held and released and they should not get a defect for this. Clearly they have no knowledge of how the GSP works so will know nothing about error procedures.

The Paypal claim can be started without reference to the supposed delivery date.

You should not have any need to do anything else. If you do speak to an ebay CS person specify this is a GSP matter and ask to be referred to a specialist. The basic CS staff know nothing about the GSP and the only usful thing they can do is to refer you to a specialist.

There is nothing at all that the seller can do to help.

I have seen several accounts of this sort of mixup, in all cases they were settled as described above.

[phorum_junkie*]

It is doubtful if a Paypal dispute for not as described will result in a refund without return by trackable means unless you are prepared to spend hours on the phone to Paypal. An ebay dispute however may very well have you getting a refund without having to return anything unless the seller pays for the return.

I presume for such a high value item you would have funded your payment with a credit card which means should you not get a refund you may be able to get your card provider to step in and do a chargeback although the bank usually insists on a trackable return.

It is the seller's responsibility to sort it out and refund you, they may be able to claim against GPS but that is their problem, not yours.

[kopenhagen5]

You may still receive yours also.

[lyndal1838]

PJ, from bitter experience I can tell you that unless the OP follows afantiques advice they will not get a refund of the shipping paid to PB as they did get something.

The seller can only refund the amount that they received, not the entire amount paid by the buyer.

It is a long. complicated process but I believe afantiques is right.

[afantiques]

It is doubtful if a Paypal dispute for not as described will result in a refund without return by trackable means unless you are prepared to spend hours on the phone to Paypal. An ebay dispute however may very well have you getting a refund without having to return anything unless the seller pays for the return.

This is a case where the rules for any other deal do not apply, the special circumstances of a GSP purchase require a specific approach to problems.,

It should not be long or complicated, although it may take a week or so with seemingly nothing happening. Phone calls, apart from the call to ebay CS for a GSP specialist are as likely to result in muddle and misinformation as anything useful. Give the process time to work.

It is the seller's responsibility to sort it out and refund you, they may be able to claim against GPS but that is their problem, not yours.

This is completely wrong. The seller can do nothing at all, and it is not their problem. This is between the buyer and the GSP.

It is advisable for posters to forget everything they know about NON GSP transactions when looking at a thread relating to the GSP due to its unique structure.

The GSP FAQs should include instruction to deal with what to do when things go wrong, but this would be an admission that things can and do go wrong, which is probably why I have never seen such information in the FAQs.

[lyndal1838]

Afantiques you are preaching to the converted here.....I pointed out to PJ and the OP that you were right in this case.

If the seller refunds the OP loses their shipping costs.

[afantiques]

Correcting wrong posts is preaching to the as yet unconverted.

[lyndal1838]

You replied to me but you have quoted PJ's posts.

I have agreed with you so how are you correcting something I have stated incorrectly.

[afantiques]

It should be clear from the quoted comments who I am replying to, I usually try to remember to hit reply on the appropriate post but sometimes it's the nearest reply button that gets hit. I apologise for any confusion but the general tenor of my criticism should be clear.

Post that are out and out wrong information should be countered with the correct information.