Buyer claims item not received

[ameliardcottage]

In the past week I have had 2 buyers claim an item is not received and requesting a refund. In one case, it was 2 business days after it was posted and going to outback NSW. In the other case they opened a Refund Claim after 4 business days.

The items I am selling are low cost and mostly posted standard mail with an option for buyer to upgrade to registered mail for an additional cost. Needless to say, no one has opted to pay more.

My question to eBay is:

If in my item description and returns policy I state clearly that I don't take responsibility for items sent standard mail and lost or damaged by AP and offer alternatives, am I covering my self.

I have put this question to Ebay support, and also what happens if the case is found in favour of the buyer and the refund is deducted from my PayPal account then the next day the item arrives? Is the buyer going to contact me and say the item has finally arrived can I pay now! I don’t think so. Human nature would have most buyer’s jumping up and do crowning with delight for having got what they wanted and not having to pay for it.

The person I spoke to said yes, covered, no claim can be made by the buyer, but on further questioning of his reply, was escalated to a higher level person who kept saying go to the courier and ask them for proof of delivery. It shows how little knowledge they have of how AP works.

After a frustrating, time consuming and at times heated conversation I was finally able to get this person to understand there is no tracking on standard post in Australia.

So the outcome of a couple of wasted hours is HE DOES NOT KNOW IF I AM COVER. Again, the inquiry is escalated and I am now waiting for a reply from someone higher up in the food chain. I asked then to phone, as I do not want to go round and round the garden with ambiguous answers and back and forward emails.

Still waiting!

My apologies for the long-winded diatribe, I think I’ve got it off my chest. Look forward to any comments or others facing the same difficulty.

[black*poppy]

Except when AP fails to scan at the vital point ... DELIVERED.  

I know of at least three of my packages in the last couple of years are out in the ether somewhere..... but probably delivered, just not scanned to tell me so.

[i-love-my-sheep]

Can I ask which town you were sending the package to? Might give us a better idea of a rough estimate of how long it should take. Then you can pass it on to your buyer.

[cq_tech]

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@black*poppy wrote:

Except when AP fails to scan at the vital point ... DELIVERED.  

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That shouldn't make the slightest bit of difference because in Australia, Paypal only require proof of postage, not proof of delivery.

[cq_tech]

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@treasuress.4207 wrote:

I know... but at the end of the day, even standing there and taking photos is not actual tracking and I doubt would be taken into account as proof anyway hon.  The Ebay AP satchels are a joke too - the only way to get verification that it's been sent is to take them in to the post office where they're scanned over the counter, and their big sales pitch when they came out was "pop them into a red box" at your convenience.  Those damn things usually arrive at their destination before they ever show up in Aus Post's tracking.

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But that's the whole point of taking photographs of cancelled large letters. Paypal only require proof of postage, not proof of delivery in Australia, and this was discussed at great length with a Paypal rep quite recently. It was on that basis that in his opinion, photographs of cancelled large letters would indeed suffice as adequate evidence of posting in the event of an INR.

[black*poppy]

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@cq_tech wrote:

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@black*poppy wrote:

Except when AP fails to scan at the vital point ... DELIVERED.  

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That shouldn't make the slightest bit of difference because in Australia, Paypal only require proof of postage, not proof of delivery.

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That's true for Paypal, but ebay have worded their policy as "proof of delivery".  

[digital*ghost]

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@ameliardcottage wrote:

In the past week I have had 2 buyers claim an item is not received and requesting a refund. In one case, it was 2 business days after it was posted and going to outback NSW. In the other case they opened a Refund Claim after 4 business days.

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I noticed you have same-day shipping (if paid for by 12pm). If this starts becoming a common issue, the best suggestion I can make is that unless the same-day shipping is really important to you (and the "fast & free" logo that is on your listings), you may like to consider increasing your handling time.

I actually do post the majority of items the same day as purchase myself, but I have a 2-day handling time. That discounts me from some benefits, like Fast n' Free (well, I don't do free post, either 😄 ) , and qualifying for Premium Service badging (not prepared to offer 30 day returns, so again, no loss to me...) Anyway, the main reason I have my handling time set at 2 days is to give buyers a more realistic time frame for delivery, because every time someone looks at your listing, eBay automatically calculates an ETA that takes your handling time and adds it to Australia Post's average delivery time from before they added an extra day to the averages. 

That means most people are going to see delivery dates that are between 1-4 days after they buy and pay, and there are many who take eBays ETA as a promise from the the seller, and also take the first date shown (if there's a range) as the "due date". (Some ETAs show "between X date and X date", some show "on or before X date", depending on whether you've set up your item location postcode etc - the listing I was looking at told me the item would arrive on or before November 21st, I'm in metro SA). 

The other thing to consider is that eBay supposedly prevent people from sending an INR inquiry / request until the day after the last ETA that they calculate. So if I bought that item, and it didn't arrive on the 21st, I would be able to open an eBay request (theoretically) as soon as the 22nd, but not before, so a longer handling time will give you a bit of 'breathing space' in a couple of ways, if you decide you need it. 

I won't get too much into the debate surrounding who gets what benefit out of registered / signature on delivery service, since I kinda go against the grain here (particularly where PayPal are concerned, eBay's Money Back Guarantee stuff is still too much of an unknown entity for me to have a grasp on how it will all work), but at the very least, regardless of how you send and so forth, you're not allowed to state that you don't take responsibility for lost packages. 

[cq_tech]

That still might not make any difference, although eBay's policy is still an unknown quantity at the moment, but as I understand it, once an item has been handed to the carrier for delivery, it is deemed under the law to have been delivered. It's a bit of a grey area as I'm not a member of the legal profession, but this is what I've been told by somebody who is. On that basis though, if a buyer tried to claim INR under eBay's policy, I'd fight it tooth and nail.