Nothing posted in AusPost red box has arrived yet

[justajunk]

I sell second-hand DVDs on eBay, which I post as letters for either $1.40 or $2.10 depending on weight.

Last Saturday, I sold 32 DVDs, 28 of which paid by Sunday afternoon. Hoping that the DVDs would get into mail sorting early, I posted all 28 on Sunday afternoon in my local AusPost red box.

I have used the local red box for almost 4 years now, and have never had an issue. Stuff that I post there on Sunday afternoons tends to arrive at interstate metro locations by the following Tuesday, and interstate non-metro locations by the following Wednesday. A fairly good turnover, given that I am posting the DVDs from Perth.

What concerns me is that NONE of the 28 DVDs that I posted on Sunday have appeared to have reached their destination yet, and it is now Friday morning. While I haven't actually contacted any of my buyers to check whether or not their DVDs have arrived, I usually receive feedback for at least 20% of my sales by the following Wednesday, and as mentioned, it is now Friday. I have also had one buyer just contact me to let me know that it hasn't arrived.

I'm not quite sure what the logical next step is from here. From my own experience as a buyer, I hate being harrassed for feedback, however, I am thinking about carefully selecting a few buyers and contacting them either tonight or tomorrow morning to ask whether they have received their DVDs yet (would that be too soon?). If all reports are negative, my plan is to then contact the rest of the buyers and explain the situation and that I will be speaking to Australia Post on Monday.

Of course, I don't expect Australia Post to be particularly helpful since none of the letters were sent registered, but maybe they could tell me if there was some incident with the mail on Sunday.

The weird thing is, I know that it is not a problem with the red box itself. I posted a DVD there on Monday afternoon, and it arrived at the interstate buyer's location by Wednesday evening.

All signs would seem to indicate that Sunday's mail was lost, or misplaced, or stolen, or I-don't-know-what.

To cut to the chase, what I am wondering if whether anybody else has experienced a similar issue to this. Have you ever had an entire lot of mail posted in a red box simply vanish in the mailing system? Has such mail ever shown up later?

Either way, it looks like I might fall victim to the defect system sooner than I expected. If I get defect for refunding ever single one of those 28 transaction, I will be well over my 5% defect rate, on the path to never being allowed to sell again on this ID that I have carefully built up 1000s of feedback on over almost 10 years.

Advice? Thoughts? Comments? My apologies in advance for the extreme length of this message. It's good to vent.

[justajunk]

Thanks for that, mbselections.

It looks like the issue has resolved itself.... within 1 hour of the buyer claiming Item Not Received !

It would seem that the mail was delayed rather than lost or trashed.

At least now I have something to tell other buyers if they ask. I mean, if Capital City to Capital City is taking 5 days (rather than 2), it would probably be safe to assume that the ones that I didn't send to metro addresses will arrive on Monday or Tuesday.

Thanks again.

[zelly888]

Do you put your own address on the back?

If you do then this also happened to me a couple of years ago,and what happened was all of my mail was stolen because there was a whole bunch of mail all together and someone found out that the mail had something of value in them so they decided to steal the lot.

I was then informed from a vast range of people that I should from then on post items in a smaller volume and not put the whole lot into the box together as not to get anyone attention.

I send registered now all the time as I won't take any chances.

This is what happened in my case but this may not be the case for you,fingers crossed this isn't the case,goodluck.

[justajunk]

Hi zelly.

Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, the stuff that I sell is worth so little that registering them really isn't an option. One of the DVDs that I sold only went for $2.75 (with free post as per eBay's hammering)... so it would cost more to register the DVD than the funds that I received from the transaction!

The main issue that I was worried about was 28 defects = suspension. From the looks of things, that isn't going to be the case, now that my Item Not Received customer has suddenly turned around and claimed received. It's still a defect, I assume, but hopefully that means only 1 extra defect and not 28 extra defects.

Oh, and yes - I put the return address on what I send. I have had one item in the past 4 years come back to me marked Return to Sender because the buyer used the wrong address when paying for it!

[zelly888]

No worries hope they all turn up.

And for a suspension on your account I was told that 8 defects will make that happen from 3 different buyers so you only need to worry about the first 8 and the rest is history as they say.

[2106greencat]

Give it time, it has been crazy over Xmas, and even though it is over now and most people assume all is normal again, it takes time for the backlog to be cleared.

Don't advise buyers, but be patient and understanding if they contact you.

[Anonymous]

None of us can control Australia Post so to receive defects is just a joke.  I have a defect because Australia post was late although the tracking number showed same day post,  I have 3 defects from cancelled transactions because the buyers clever children bought the item, Australia is breeding some clever toddlers.  The fact that you would refund the customer and do the right thing you should be the only thing that matters. 

[aps1080]

Just

I sell DVD's (having a clear out) as well and the variation in time taken to get places Enormous.

Some quick, then others 4-5 days melb to sydney.

So I would wait until Tuesday.

[i-love-my-sheep]

I had a concerned buyer send me a nice message a few days ago saying her item that was sent on Dec 22 hadn't arrived yet. Central West NSW to northern rural Victoria.  Normally would take a week to 10 days. I replyed saying that AP has been VERY slow getting items to Victoria and SE Qld since Nov (which they have from here). A few times it has taken 3 weeks to get to Victoria. 

I mentioned that we could basically write a week off due to the Christmas break and then asked her if she would be prepared to wait until Friday next week. If it hadn't arrived by then, I'd give her a full refund. I got a very relieved message today saying it finally arrived and she left great feedback. Thankfully she didn't open an INR dispute, she just sent me a courtesy message to let me know.

[aps1080]

Sheep

Northern Vic or North East Vic like Swan Hill and Mildura has always been a black hole, even from Melbourne.

Wagga is another even mainstream town that takes and extra day or two.

Either way, that is still very slow indeed.

Because feedback is the only way I know a DVD has arrived, I find buyers not leaving feedback a bit of an issue.

[i-love-my-sheep]

This place was Myrtleford, so probably another black hole. It's in the sticks compared to Melbourne, but not really that far off the main highway.

I know what you mean about Wagga. It took a parcel over a week from my friends mum in Wagga to her here in Orange. You can get stuff from China quicker than that!