how does it happen?

[davidc4430]

how can a seller get it so wrong? ordered something from queensland. i live in country south australia. i get a tracking number from 'fastaway' couriers. i check the number today as today was the last day of the predicted delivery time.

i discover my items in perth and there is a message attached saying they have been unable to deliver my item! possibly because i dont live in perth i suspect but who knows.

i just dont get it, when i sell something on ebay i get all the information i require to safely send it to my buyer. only i can screw it up by not sending it where its supposed to go.

just as well its a cheap item and i didnt need it in a hurry.

[4green2000]

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@shiver_me_shrimp wrote:

The seller should at least accept some responsibility for sending it by courier in the first place, instead of AP. Guess it's easier to just pass the buck.

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i agree...sellers fault for posting via courier as the item was to be posted via AP as davidc4430 says....."i paid $8 postage for "Standard Postage (Australia Post Parcel Post Parcel)"...

as i stated in these forums before, i only buy from sellers who send items via AP due to past bad experiences using couriers. this is another example of their incompetence...

[davidc4430]

well i got my resent item eventually via australia post.

but today i got a phonecall from the fastway courier services western australia branch asking where i live as they had a parcel for me and cant find me.....LOL

what a mess

what happened to the item being returned to sender, i forgot to ask.

i gave him my actual address so i may end up with 2, if i do i'll contact the seller and ask if they want to pay me to send it back. i wonder what the seller did after i informed them my item was not here but in perth. i would have thought as they had sent another to me via aostralia post they would have contacted fastway to return the perth one to them.

[shepherdsrule]

A good seller trying to do  the right thing to fix an AP blunder no doubt.

It always seems so unfair that there is no real recourse if the 'delivery co' whether it be AP or a courier take no responsiblity for lost items.

They take the 'senders' money and then it seems 'luck of the draw'.

Years ago I worked for an importing company, we used freight companies (obviously) to send our products - the rep and I got on really well and I will not name the freight co, but he told me once they had actually 'misplaced' a Black Hawk Helicopter that was sent to Darwin for the DF.

It was located, but made me think if they could lose that, what chance did our pallets really have if they got caught in the 'never never' LOL

[springyzone]

That gave me a good laugh, that did. The idea of misplacing a whole helicopter.

But I know that in any half way large workplace, it is ridiculously easy for things to go missing.

Many years ago when my daughter was quite little with a lot of medical issues, the hospital lent me what would have been a valuable piece of monitoring equipment to take home on loan. I had to sign for it and it was heavy as. Really top quality industrial strength

I used it on and off for a couple of years then noticed the electrical safety check was way overdue plus my daughter didn't really need it any more so I took it back.

Everyone was very surprised to see it & no one had a clue about any written records.

[jaffajulie1974]

Fastway does not deliver to Wallaroo in South Australia unless you have paid over $60 per parcel or them to do so. For our business (not an Ebay one) we have used them for over 10 years and they have never lost a parcel and we have never had one returned. They always deliver. Parcels are picked up from our dispatch office so no having to carry heavy items linto a Post Office and get in a queue like we do for the ones we have to post .

[davewil1964]

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@jaffajulie1974 wrote:

Fastway does not deliver to Wallaroo in South Australia unless you have paid over $60 per parcel or them to do so. For our business (not an Ebay one) we have used them for over 10 years and they have never lost a parcel and we have never had one returned. They always deliver. Parcels are picked up from our dispatch office so no having to carry heavy items linto a Post Office and get in a queue like we do for the ones we have to post .

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Good for you.

What do your buyers think about it? Given they might not be home when the courier calls.

I live in a reasonable sized city, the national capital, and the nearest courier depot is 15km from my house. Does that concern you? If not, why not?

Does customer service end when you offload the item to the carrier, or when the buyer receives the item in GOC?

[englishrosegardens]

I've had parcels/letters go to a suburb near Sunshine West simply because the first few letters of the suburb name are similar to the first few letters of the name of the town where I live in rural Victoria.  Generally postcodes are used when sorting mail but sometimes the people sorting will see a town name they recognise and not bother looking at the postcode.  Apparently we get a lot of mail locally that's meant for a place about 80 kms away that has the same numbers in the postcode, but the last two numbers are in the opposite order.

I had a courier delivery months ago and when it wasn't delivered initially the tracking said it was going back to the sender, but about a fortnight later it got delivered, so your courier parcel will probably arrive eventually. 

[digital*ghost]

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@davidc4430 wrote:

i gave him my actual address so i may end up with 2, if i do i'll contact the seller and ask if they want to pay me to send it back. i wonder what the seller did after i informed them my item was not here but in perth. i would have thought as they had sent another to me via aostralia post they would have contacted fastway to return the perth one to them.

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Some sellers will occasionally resign themselves in a "come what may" fashion.... 

Well, I did recently, at any rate, though the circumstances are slightly different - I had an order from a US buyer, and - as I always do - used copy / paste to grab their address details for a shipping label via C&S. Printed it off, dispatched the package, and all was right with the world, or so I thought.

A few weeks later they contacted me and advised the tracking said it was being returned to sender as it was undeliverable as addressed (USPS had made two attempts, in two different cities, which seemed strange).

I pulled up the label and realised that the apartment number wasn't on there, then a short while later saw that the zip code was for an area in the same state, but not my buyer's zip code.  (Which explains the first attempt, then it got redirected to their actual area, but still not enough details). 

I'm willing to accept I may have left out the apartment number, I make sure I copy down everything exactly as provided, but it's possible I did that.... But there is no way I put in a correct Texas zip code but not the buyer's. 

Anyhoo, two weeks later, the tracking updated to say that yet another attempt had been made at delivery so it obviously wasn't returned to sender as indicated. I have no idea where it is, or if it'll make it's way back to me, though I can only hope (I posted a replacement to the buyer straight away and they had that after a week), but I'm going to no effort whatsoever to chase it up.  (In truth, I currently still have two open cases with AP re: mail deliveries, just CBA chasing after them when I can guess what they'll say since it's an OS package). 

[*tippy*toes*]

Quite a few years ago I had a parcel end up in Perth Tassie as opposed to Perth WA. One would think the other way around would be an easier mistake. These days if something is going to a town/suburb that I know exists in more than one place, I write the state in a lot bigger letters than the address. I always add the state when I'm posting within my own state too as I've had items go on round the country trips. Sent something to Swansea NSW and it ended up in Swansea Tas before being returned to me.

[wan303win]

I once had a package arrive 14 months after it was posted in the USA, to me in Australia. It had been correctly addressed by the seller.

The package had been on a grand tour of Austria. I don't know how they managed to fit so many stamps and notations on the parcel as it performed it's sojourn of dozens of areas of that country. As I don't read or speak Austrian, I've no idea what these messages meant, and obviously most of the postal people there never noticed, (for many months,) that the package was in the wrong country. 

So who do you blame?

A couple of months after I had purchased and paid for the item, I had contacted the seller, who had refunded my payment. Imagine his supprise when, 14 months later, I left him glowing positive f/b and resent payment., along with a note of explanation.