Buyer demanding refund for slow Express Post

[dave4110]

Hi everyone, I recently experienced a situation where the buyer bought an item and paid for Express Post. I sent out the item with Express Post the next day, but the item took about six business days to reach him, because his postcode was outside of the Aus Post Express network According to Aus Post, so it became a regular Parcel Post delivery.

Prior to the receipt of the item, the buyer opened a INR case. While the case was open, I noticed that I couldn't do a partial refund in eBay for the Express Post cost, eBay only allowed full refund for INR cases. I went to PayPal and saw that PayPal has held that transaction, so I wasn't able to do any refund through PayPal either.

I called eBay and PayPal, and was basically bounced between these two companies, Paypal saying the case was opened outside of PayPal so they can't do anything (even though they put a hold on that transaction), and eBay saying for INR they can only do full refund, so partial refund needs to be done in PayPal.

In the end the item was received by the buyer, and the case was resolved. But has anyone else experienced something similar?

[dave4110]

Correct, however in this INR case, PayPal froze the transaction so you couldn't do any type of refund in PayPal, partial or otherwise. And in eBay you could only do full refund, not partial. Hence the issue.

[phorum_junkie*]

I have noot had it happen but for a long time now I have not offered Express Post, if a buyer emails and requests it I check that they are in the next day delivery zone and if they are not then I just say sorry, not possible.

[joethenuts]

dave  your listing said   regular for $$$$  or express for $$$  i asume , most buyers and me or even you would not know if there in the zone ,

unless the buyers tried to use express before,  maybe it would be an idea if you can say in your descriptions on postage for express you must be the zone  check with aus post or something, about the refund from express to regular what are we talking about $5 or $10 ,  on paypal you can send money to anybody you like with a space for a note saying bla bla refund    for free .at worst the extra fee you paid were a few cents from regular to express  whats 2.4 % of $5  or $10

[jensmanchester-australia]

ExpressPost has never been a guaranteed overnight service Australia Wide.

Express post is a service which offer the fastest possible delivery time between two locations. 99% of the time it is much quicker than regular post particularly when going between states and even more so when travelling between the east and west coast.

I have always offered express post as an option and as I am based in WA 99% of the time it is a 2 - 3 day service. Buyers frequently choose the express post option and are more than happy to receive their parcel in 2 - 3 days instead of the 7 - 10 days it can take with regular post.

[joethenuts]

the buyer was not in the express zone, the seller was happy to refund the diference , but was not sure how to. 

[dazzledayz]

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@dave4110 wrote:

Hi everyone, I recently experienced a situation where the buyer bought an item and paid for Express Post. I sent out the item with Express Post the next day, but the item took about six business days to reach him, because his postcode was outside of the Aus Post Express network According to Aus Post, so it became a regular Parcel Post delivery.

Prior to the receipt of the item, the buyer opened a INR case. While the case was open, I noticed that I couldn't do a partial refund in eBay for the Express Post cost, eBay only allowed full refund for INR cases. I went to PayPal and saw that PayPal has held that transaction, so I wasn't able to do any refund through PayPal either.

I called eBay and PayPal, and was basically bounced between these two companies, Paypal saying the case was opened outside of PayPal so they can't do anything (even though they put a hold on that transaction), and eBay saying for INR they can only do full refund, so partial refund needs to be done in PayPal.

In the end the item was received by the buyer, and the case was resolved. But has anyone else experienced something similar?

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You probably need to make a change to your listings pointing out that Express Post in Australia can be very location dependent.

Perhaps something along the lines of "available on request".

I find that express works well(ish) where long distances are concerned.

Your express parcel will at least travel by air to the interstate portal (capital city of state).

Regular parcels will travel by road.

Deliveries from east coast to WA or SA will be significantly quicker though most likely not next day.

If the recipient is within the metro area delivery should be the day after arrival in the destination state portal (that bit is overnight).

If your customer is in any other city or town then there won't be a great deal of difference in delivery time (perhaps a day or two).

Typical of eBay to want us to offer this service but have no idea of how it actually works in Aus.

I refuse pont blank to offer it but will use it on customer request after letting them know about the above.

An example of the above:

Customer in a Perth suburb.

Overnight to CBD

She got it in 2 days.

The sorting centre is at Perth airport and she is halfway between there and the CBD ... go figure lol.

[mel1bah]

Bit of a necro but stumbled onto this thread as I'm going through a similar situation. I have another account I use for business and I offer express post on most of my items, so I'm aware of the next day delivery guarantee. I bought an item on this account Tuesday evening, I paid an extra $18.60 to have it express posted (the listing contained free regular post), so I paid well above the cost of postage, as he would have deducted postage out of the standard purchase price.

By Thursday night the tracking hadn't updated and I'd not received the item. I contacted seller, no reponse, come Friday afternoon after 4pm still no reply, no tracking update and no item. I looked at his feedback and noticed postage time was his worst metric and he had previous history of charging people express delivery and the item mysteriously being delayed by Aus Post. Maybe I assume wrong, but this seemed a standard case of purchasing the eBay postage label on Wednesday but not delivering the product to Australia Post.

I lodged an item not received case and requested a refund. I needed the item for the weekend and now had to source it elsewhere at a large premium. Surprise, surprise, seller responds practically instantly, he was rude straight of the bat and of course blaming Australia Post. He also refused to provide any refund, even though I explained we were both within the next day delivery guarantee network and therefore he was entitled to a full refund of postage.

So now eBay has ruled in his favour, because as per usual they don't scratch the surface of a complaint. As far as they're concerned I lodged a missing item and the item was delivered... I've appealed the decision and have requested yet again a refund of my extra postage costs.

It's not the first time I've had to deal with sellers that really should not be in retail. I have not asked anything that is not reasonable yet have been greeted with brickwalls.

[*tippy*toes*]

What exactly did the tracking say? There is a difference between creating a label (infomation received by AP) and lodging it over the counter. Maybe he dropped it in the yellow box and didn't get a lodgement scan? Plenty of sellers do that who use online postage, even though these days it's silly with the defective postage defect system.

I posted an express satchel last week that took 4 days to arrive. I posted within an hour of the buyer paying. Neither of us are in the network, but both in large regional towns. Normally when neither are in the network, it's always taken me 2 days to have one arrive, rather than over night. Sometimes AP just stuff it up and it's no fault of the seller. Thankfully for me, my buyer hadn't paid for express, so wasn't waiting for an overnight or 2 day delivery.

When you sent your seller the message, did you send a calm message, or did you go in guns blazing? Often a calm message gets better results. He has to contact AP to get a postage refund. Maybe he doesn't know that?

Did the item eventually arrive? Did the tracking show delivered? If yes to both, that's why they closed the dispute in the sellers favour. You can't demand a refund for INR if the parcel arrived, regardless of how late it is.

[clarry100]

Its not clear in your post if/not the tracking said delivered. It looks like you never received it at all.

If it did not say delivered then under the ebay MBG they should rule in favour of the buyer because ebay MBG requires proof of delivery which there was not.

However, if the tracking says delivered then they are certainly going to rule in favour of the seller as Tippy has explained. ie you have received your item just not as quickly as you paid for. In this case any refund will come from Aust Post to the seller and it would be up to the good nature of the seller to refund you the express post fee.

Good luck with it all.

[curraone]

As far as they're concerned I lodged a missing item and the item was delivered...