AP Extra Cover Lesson

[tastek]

eBay item number: 143604835528

I, the seller, was bullied into making a full refund for one of two fragile crystal glasses (adequately packaged but broken in transit) with false assertions from the buyer that the AP claim was the seller's responsibility.  The buyer refused to follow the AP claim process for compensation and disposed of the evidence and packaging after getting his refund.

REASONING - Being my first breakage (a newbie) after sending over 80 fine crystal pieces Australia wide (all with extra cover), getting repeated eBay "Return requests" for this item, with no suitable options (Accept return/Full Refund/Partial refund/Message buyer)  to settle the case, exhaustive messaging with the buyer, my eagerness to retain my 100% feedback rating and the fact I am still holding a AP receipt which reads inter alia "Extra Cover - Article Value $300.00 ... You need to retain this invoice in order to make an extra claim", I relented and gave the buyer a full refund.

To top it off, I received my first negative feedback for a throw away comment in my final message to the buyer after learning of his actions, voiding any possible claim. Further, I can't leave negative feedback for the buyer who misled me. eBay would be nothing without sellers, is this what I pay my 13.5%  (final value fee on item + postage) for? Where are the seller protections?

The lesson is: 
NEVER, NEVER, EVER GIVE A REFUND TO A BUYER FOR A BREAKAGE IN TRANSIT, WHERE YOU HAVE EXTRA COVER WITH AP (Its the Buyer's responsibility to claim compensation from AP)

[papermoon.lady]

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@rocket2retro wrote:

Australia Post deem glass unsuitable for postage therefore will not honour a breakage claim (although they will gladly accept the extra cover fee paid). As others have mentioned I include my own 'insurance' by double boxing in an oversized parcel.

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A couple of years ago I bought a miniature item the size of a pinky and it was sent in a *huge* box with tons of packing peanuts. The seller did mention $2 for "paranoid packing" (his words) in his listing... 

[digital*ghost]

There are two situations where one party needs to rely on the other to get the best outcome for both parties - for sellers it's when an item arrives broken, for buyers it's when tracking says delivered but it hasn't been delivered to them - in the first case, as exemplified by this thread, the seller generally needs to reply on the buyer's willingness to assist with a claim, and if the history of this forum is anything to go by, that happens extremely rarely (poor data source, perhaps, sellers don't usually come here to "complain" about helpful and understanding buyers).

The second, the buyer can't open  / win an INR claim (they can open via PayPal, but wouldn't win) so they have to rely on the seller doing something about it (as a point of interest, if this forum is anything to go by - while still being a poor data source -  sellers opting to do absolutely nothing about it is extremely rare, based on the number of buyers who have complained about just such circumstances). 

Sellers have a little more incentive to take care of their trading partners, I suppose, but these are the risks of buying / selling online. Knowing buyers have little to no incentive to make any effort to ensure their trading partner doesn't suffer a loss and will rarely, if ever, take an inconvenient action that's not out of self-interest is just one of the things sellers have to accept - one of those "cost of doing business" things. (Side-note, I'm not actually sure I would ask a buyer to do this TBH, I mean aside from the "why should I have to do anything?" response that I'd expect, I have self-insured for losses like this anyway, it just keeps my life simpler and a little more stress free, when I add extra cover, it's purely for the loss cover, if the package goes MIA). 

I'm not really sure why everyone is assuming the package was inadequately packed, I certainly am not privy to that info, it's possible, but it's also possible the package was mishandled to an extreme degree - ever seen a delivery driver throw a package over a fence? A package been run over by the delivery van? These things (and more) happen, and would often break contents no matter how well they were packed, and 100% the liability of AP.