Item Not Received (INR)-Buyer Fraud-Local Australia Market

[aussiesellershop]

Anyone else got some good ideas or help. There is a growing major problem (in my business anyway) with Item not received (INR) fraud in Local Australian Mail. I do not expect that ebay will take any action over this, as unfortunately, due to poor performance of bad sellers in the past by scamming and not sending items, this will be have to be past over as a cost of doing business on ebay,but this is now a cost to my business that is no longer sustainable. Next time someone claims they never receive an item from you, dont be too sure they didn't. read on. Understand that I run an ethical business, with 5500 feedbacks at 99.5% TRS. Every item that is paid, is sent. My Letter’s Addresses are printed with 20point Arial font, and marked with a printed return an address. Ensuring accurate delivery. After consultation with Australia Post advising me that in general 1, and at the outside, 2 letters are lost per 1000. I am currently at 1 in 15 items are now being claimed as not received. 1 in a 100 would be considered a poor target and unacceptable. But 1 in 15 is just disgusting Standard procedure for Australia Post is to return items that are not delivered, I have not received even 1 item back , that is a 0% return rate. Australia Post advised me. This is most certainly fraud. This means that even allowing for a few extra missing items, the vast majority of people claiming are lying. These grubs, buys one of my items, goes this is alright, its only $6, they won’t mind. I’ll just say I never received it, and I’ll get a free spare one. These people never/ won’t open a claim, just send a message, and never leave negative feedback, as this would bring unwanted attention to themselves. Note: this is not the majority of consumers, but unfortunately, this minority is now growing rapidly, 1 in 15 is not a good statistic.. The problem is these people probably do not know the severity of mail fraud or the damage to a good standing micro business, all it takes is for the local postman to say they remember delivering the item(most of my items are distinct in appearance) and that person then can be charged with mail fraud, which is a federal offence. No international travel ever, over a $6 item. But that is their choice and risk. But unfortunately for me it has made a once very good business. Looking at closing the doors. At today’s figures, I have to sell 98 items to recover the losses to date, I sell maybe 200 items per month, This is no longer a sustainable business model , so I have 2 choices. 1/Close shop, cut losses and another good ebay store is gone, I wouldn’t be the first or the last. 2/ introduce free registered post shipping (need to keep this otherwise lose benefits/ search standings ) remembering that most of my items are between $2 and $6 this will increase prices a further $5 (registered label plus fees for additional cost). I already offer express and registered post shipping as an option and maybe 1% use the registered post option. This will in effect be pricing my products out of competitive standings. Estimate selling approx.. 10% of what I do now. Close shop, not enough turn over. The only way to combat this problem, is firstly block the person. Then refund the money, I was advised that resending an item is “enabling the criminal” and exactly what they want, in a couple of rare cases I have had people claim they never received the item twice!!!!, double the free stuff and a refund. And with them blocked they can’t buy from you again, which you really don’t want untrustworthy people buying from your store? Any other options?

[aussiesellershop]

Yeah Audio, I think that is a partial problem, but once again items haven't been returned if given to wrong address. Remember 1-1000 AP lost, even if allowing for errors wrong letterboxes etc say 1-100. But I'm talking 1-15

[audio-spot]

Yes, more than likely the 1 in 1000 is mail placed into wrong letterboxes. In my experience I would say it is closer to 1 in 500.

In your case of 1 in 15, definitely most of your buyers are stealing from you.

My advice is to take a photo of the envelope once it is ready for posting. Email the buyer to advise them it is posted, and attach the photo. I'm sure this will reduce your theft rate, but it will be interesting to learn by how much.

[davidc4430]

they are with all the single socks and thongs that go missing.

[phorum_junkie*]

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@davidc4430 wrote:

they are with all the single socks and thongs that go missing.

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And don't forget the teaspoons 🙂

[best_buys_oz]

try sending the following message I found on this forum a while back

• I posted it at the local post office so if you don’t get it by Wednesday next week let me know and I will file an Australia Post missing article report which enables them to investigate the case looking for weaknesses in their delivery system. they will need permission to contact you during the investigation

[davewil1964]

I'm with clarry.

From memory, I've only ever had 2 INRs and 1 RTS (not counting the odd ones I have forgotten to address) out of 250+ pa. The last INR was in May 2014, so nothing in the last 2 years.

[*tippy*toes*]

I've had 2 not received in 5 years out of over 1,000 items. Both were untracked large letter of low value. They both had pretty high feedback and nothing to indicate they were scammers, so I gave them the benefit of the doubt. Both have since bought several more times and received their items no problems, so I think mine were genuine. Neither were returned to me.

If you have a Facebook account I would be asking publicly on the AP Facebook page about what happens to undelivered or lost mail. I don't know of anyone who has had lost mail returned, so what happens to it?

I sent a large letter item yesterday and my gut was telling me to send it registered. After I packed it, it fitted through the 20mm slot, but didn't fall through and didn't want them to hit me up for parcel rate at the PO, so just popped it in the box. They've tried that in the past when it fitted through but didn't drop through the slot.

[aussiesellershop]

Australia post return lost mail to return address if labelled, it may take a few weeks, that's there procedure.

[digital*ghost]

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@clarry100 wrote:

From the experimentation I decribed to you in the PM we think about 1 in 1,000 is a pretty accurate real loss rate for large letters in AU.

Anything significantly above that rate and I believe scammers are at work in claiming INR.

Also we have never had any AU Post item returned to us. So what happens to the ones that are said to be lost?

Must be a pretty big store room somewhere that is the dead letter office.

Would love to see that for myself.

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I've had a few returned to me - some completely inexplicably, some marked "incomplete address" (the one with CR and Aus Post couldn't work out what it stood for). Occasionally items are just delivered really (really) late, and even more occasionally 😄 I stuff up. Perhaps interestingly, I have far fewer instances of INR with my international customers, at a rate of around 1:3, which either says something about Australia Post, Australian honesty, or both 

I have had similar results to clarry with the same experiment, but sometimes I think there must be some kind of new story, blog post, You-Tube video.... something, that tempts people, because I can go for weeks and occasionally months, with no INR request / messages, then a sudden spate. In the last week alone I've had 5 after about 2 months with 0.

Of those 5, I believe 1 or 2 (at the very best) are genuine, while one is a proven "mistake" (a nicer word for lie). After doing this for a few years, you learn what the most common "tells" in messages and particular approaches are (I won't outline these in the public forum of course, because I don't want to provide a list of things for scammers to avoid and lessen the chances of raising suspicion. On the one hand, it gives me serious buyer-fatigue-syndrome sometimes and makes it difficult to be at my best when a genuine issue arises  on the other, having had to deal with it too many times has given me the experience I needed to deal with certain issues a little more authoratively, which seems to have improved how often the INR message turns out to be a false alarm). 

[springyzone]

I think you're being scammed but at the same time, I think that 1:1000 rate might be a bit hopeful on the part of Aust Post.

My son's wedding invites were sent out a couple of months back, and 2 out of about 65 never arrived and were never returned.

As they had fancy return address labels on them, I can only assume they may have been placed in the wrong letter boxes and whoever got them just didn't bother to repost, which is pretty poor form in my opinion as they also had a sticker saying 'invitation'.

1: 15 is very suss & I'd say you only have a few options.

-send with tracking, which will bump up the price but you will be covered

-add an extra $1 or $1.50 as someone suggested, to cover the losses. It will mean you aren't quite as competitive but you would still be in the range.

-add the comments to a message as suggested by others, which might put the wind up a few would be scammers before they try it on.

If the scamming is as bad as this for all small items, then you won't be the only seller bumping up your prices, so don't worry.

I'd try tactics 2 & 3 for a while, see how it goes and if things don't improve, move to #1.