Buyer claims they have not received one of the items. Advise needed!

[sweetfrenchie87]

A buyer made two seperate transactions on the 9th of August, but over the weekend I received an email from the customer after nearly a month claiming that one of the two items they have not received.

I always post multiple items purchased together and I remember sendin both items to the customer. I find it a bit odd that it has taken the customer this long to contact me about the missing item. Am I dealing with a dodgy customer?

Any ideas on what I should do or how to respond back to the buyer?

Thanks.

[joethenuts]

TO amesbury  some more advice always check with ebay first  sometimes they let you go for a few dollars,

but remember the policy buyers who dont get there item will get a full refund when there item is not tracked or have a signature, 

a normal envelope has no tracing back or paperwork. your buyer has said to you he did not get the second item ,  and on that basic he will be refunded. 

now it could of fallin out ,the buyer could be pulling your leg ,or you might of made a mistake, or the postie stole it. even if the letter arived damaged to the buyer ,that means nothing , if its damaged and the item fell out ,its not the buyers fault.

if you read thru posts on ebay you will see posters say. if you can afford to loose the odd  items sent in envelopes , thats fine ,if you cannot afford to loose the item then package it with tracking or signature. 

and yes it was a long time for the buyer to contact you ,but its whithin the rules.

anyway hope everything goes well and he does not leave you bad feedback. 

[bakeandfry]

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@joethenuts wrote:

TO amesbury  some more advice always check with ebay first  sometimes they let you go for a few dollars,

but remember the policy buyers who dont get there item will get a full refund when there item is not tracked or have a signature, 

a normal envelope has no tracing back or paperwork. your buyer has said to you he did not get the second item ,  and on that basic he will be refunded. 

now it could of fallin out ,the buyer could be pulling your leg ,or you might of made a mistake, or the postie stole it. even if the letter arived damaged to the buyer ,that means nothing , if its damaged and the item fell out ,its not the buyers fault.

if you read thru posts on ebay you will see posters say. if you can afford to loose the odd  items sent in envelopes , thats fine ,if you cannot afford to loose the item then package it with tracking or signature. 

and yes it was a long time for the buyer to contact you ,but its whithin the rules.

anyway hope everything goes well and he does not leave you bad feedback. 

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Yes, it could of fallen out by damage to envelope (whatever was used), post investigation.

Yes id suspect the buyer is pulling there leg, hence the advice for post investigation.

Yes the op could of made a mistake (highly unlikely).

Yes the postie could of stole it, again post investigation.

[joethenuts]

are you on something today lol, the more it takes ,the more the buyer will open an ebay dispute  the more the buyer will give a bad feedback,  the op should of said straight away i will refund you.

now to bake   are you serious. aust post investigating an envelope ,and asking the posyie , hey jack about a month ago do you remember delivering a letter in lets say bla st coburg, and the postie would say , was it a white envelope , yes thats right,

yes i think about a month ago i delivered 2.345 letters that day ..thats like saying to the postie a month ago did you have a roast dinner and were there pees on your plate, now mr postie do you remember how many pees were on your plate. mmmmm

to bake so what if it was damaged, and if the postie stole it ,whats he going to say. 

and if the envelope was damaged  ,whos fault is that , an envelope is not a good way to send fragile things ,as there is not enough packaging in it to fit in a 20mm slot.

this is the real world they dont investigate for such small things , not even insurance companys come out for small claims , not even police come out for  petrol runaways.

[*tippy*toes*]

Padded bags are mostly used for large letter items as it gives the contents more protection. You are not allowed to put hard things into a regular envelope as it can damage the automatic sorter. Padded bags are hand sorted.

My sister received several large letter items a few years back where there was nothing in them. The padded bags were empty  (all different sellers). She lodged a report with Aust Post and their investigation showed the postman was ripping the sides of the bags and taking the contents. He was trying to make it look like it had been damaged in transit. He was charged,  got a criminal record and last I heard he got deported for committing other crimed.

Oh and yes, police do attend a petrol drive off. A crime has been committed so they investigate it. I know that to be fact.

[joethenuts]

well we have the comichinor  on radio state that drive buys are not checked . lots of petrol station owners say the same thing also i have a friend who owns 2 stations and he says the same thing   , i sopose they look at some.

[clarry100]

We use large letter without tracking for most of our items. All of our listings are "FREE" postage.

We understand and accept that when push comes to shove we have no seller protection anyway in the event of any dispute.

We very often combine multiple purchases into a single envelope. But when we do so we always send a message ahead of postage to the buyer to let them know we are doing this so they don't expect to get separate packages.

We have a recent case exactly like this where we advised the buyer of the combination then about 3-weeks later we got a NEG for INR without prior contact for only one of the items (they were both in the same envelope). Then we can see that she is a seller too and have used the items she claimed not to have received in a few of her products for sale. Pretty obvious she got them. Anyway since the damage was already done by the NEG we did not send out a replacement. She contacted us later saying "still waiting...". So keep waiting honey!!!

Normally since we have no seller protection anyway we normally just send out a replacement after asking a couple of pertinent questions.

We get about 1 in 1000 mailouts claimed as INR.

DG understands our drill here!!!!

[joethenuts]

you are correct , but unless you tell the buyer that both articles are in the same parcel , look we all know that in most cases the buyer has both articles ,but unless you can proove it , you loose ,now you had proof when the buyer used them as a selling item later. 

also do you give the postage amount back for sending both artivle in the same envelope , even yhough you say free postage  .

[harley_babes_hoard]

I'm the same as you Clarry. Mostly envelopes no tracking. I had my first lost envelope in perhaps a year. It was one of my regulars, he had allowed 2 weeks for it to arrive and then contacted me with a polite message. I sent a replacement the next morning and he received it in 2 days. If people are polite you don't mind replacing but if they go for the jugular they are going have to work hard to get a refund or replacement. I ain't going to make it easy.

[cathyjoyjoy]

........... was it a white envelope ? ............... LOL

[joethenuts]

you are correct     but you know harley all they have to do is put in a claim and they will win and you will loose ,  because thats the policy.  but if you loose a minimum of items a yea  so be it.