---

@bikeden wrote:

Made our first claim for lost item in transit today and discovered some recent changes.  As the seller you are only entitled to the wholesale cost of your item plus the postage paid.  If the items wholesale cost is over $50 you need to provide copy of invoice from your supplier as proof of cost.  If the wholesale cost is under $50 no invoice is needed and your claim is processed via verbal confirmation of value.

 

Some time ago eBay started adding codes to Australia Post labels and I suspect that enables Australia Post to track back the correct value if you ever made a claim with inflated value.  (We have always removed this code and the item number from the label).

 

I did a little investigating a few weeks ago to find out exactly what is encoded into the QR codes and barcodes AP uses. There's nothing in there that indicates the value of the item.

 

"As per the terms of the service you have used, compensation is available of up to $100 towards the contents plus the postage. As you have advised wholesale value is over $50, please reply to this email with a copy of your wholesale invoice as a proof of value. If the $51 value happens to be the retail value and the wholesale is under $50 please reply advising the wholesale value along with the best contact number so that we may then call you to process the compensation for you".

 

I honestly don't see how this is supposed to work - if I buy an item from the shop for $100 as a present for a family member, and it gets lost in the post, how are you supposed to claim it back? You don't know the wholesale value, and you will have insured it for the retail value anyway.

 

I foresee a lot of very annoyed customers when AP accepts payment for a certain value of extra cover, but only will only pay out for a wholesale amount, assuming you can prove what that is.

---