Horror with buyer

[Thisistheday]

Dear friends,

I sold this buyer some stuff and then a month later she opened a case against me.

In the case, she told paypal that she has contacted me through my personal email, have not heard from me, and wanted her money back because she has not received the item. First of all, she has never contacted me. I double checked my email twice and found nothing!
I kindly asked her if she can send me the email she first wrote me, I got no answer from her. I told her that since she did not pay for the tracking, I do not have a tracking number; however, I do have the original receipt for shipping and I will gladly show her. Did NOT hear from her, either. Paypal ruled on her favor (of course)!

Afterwards, I wrote her a nice email, asking her that if she gets her package in the near future, would she please return it to me or put the funds back to my account. I get no answer. It is very suspicious that she would lie about contacting me, don't you think? Sorry, just a rant and a friendly warning!

[SaiJin]

Well, now you know that you need to have tracking no matter what.

I hope this is a cheap lesson for you that you'll never forget.

Also remember.. anything $250 + you need a SIGNATURE confirmation.

[ShadyOne]

What SaiJin said ^ and

Having just a receipt seems to count for nothing when it comes to such disputes on e Bay and Pay Pal. That is why they promote the use of tracking.

Offer a shipping service that provides tracking numbers. Tracking is an important way for you and your buyers to monitor your shipments.

Have you tried claiming a loss from your courier? Don't know how far you would get if it wasn't tracked, perhaps the receipt could help here

What has happened to you is unfortunately life on e bay, unless you take steps to protect yourself.

[ets]

even if i sell a pen for 99pence, i send it recorded signed for. Buyers request sometimes that i sent it normal delivery and my answer is NO.. I send EVERYTHING recorded signed for. Another point is always send to the address on paypal and not to any other address. That will protect you in the future against claims and chargebacks

[ShadyOne]

Originally Posted by ets

even if i sell a pen for 99pence, i send it recorded signed for. Buyers request sometimes that i sent it normal delivery and my answer is NO.. I send EVERYTHING recorded signed for. Another point is always send to the address on paypal and not to any other address. That will protect you in the future against claims and chargebacks

I hope you a joking about sending a 99p pen via recorded delivery

Cause it makes no sense at all :D

If you do, I hope it is not more than once!!

[softwarediscounts]

I feel your pain. Back when I was an eBay newbie, I lost over $375 in one transaction because the buyer claimed he never got it.

I had the original USPS shipping receipt.
I had the delivery confirmation ticket with the tracking number.
I had $400 insurance on the item.

Faxed everything to PayPal.

PayPal calmly says, "No signature confirmation, no reconsideration." My account got drained and the guy got his money back PLUS the item. F*ck that.

[robsut]

E-mail her tell her that you have contacted royal mail, if that is how you sent it saying you are claiming from them for the lost item and telling her they are going to investigate it, and then make the claim, you only need the proof of postage to make a cliam, it pays up to £26 if i am not mistaken but am not 100% sure, 9 times out of 10 they say they have received there item when you issue this warning and royal mail do keep an account of addresses who constantly say they have not received there item and i have heard of prosecutions of fraurd as well. i know people say send receorded delivery but if you way up the costs, sending everything recorded to standard delivery, it doubles the postage costs, then way up your losses for none receipt its still cheaper to send standard

Originally Posted by Thisistheday

Dear friends,

I sold this buyer some stuff and then a month later she opened a case against me.

In the case, she told paypal that she has contacted me through my personal email, have not heard from me, and wanted her money back because she has not received the item. First of all, she has never contacted me. I double checked my email twice and found nothing!
I kindly asked her if she can send me the email she first wrote me, I got no answer from her. I told her that since she did not pay for the tracking, I do not have a tracking number; however, I do have the original receipt for shipping and I will gladly show her. Did NOT hear from her, either. Paypal ruled on her favor (of course)!

Afterwards, I wrote her a nice email, asking her that if she gets her package in the near future, would she please return it to me or put the funds back to my account. I get no answer. It is very suspicious that she would lie about contacting me, don't you think? Sorry, just a rant and a friendly warning!

[ShadyOne]

@robsut, check the country the OP is from, you are talking about the UK.

What you are saying has some good advice though, the idea of following it up with the courier could eventually lead you to the item somehow, though without a signature their is no proof the recipient got the package.

This does happen far too many times for us to just accept it

[Tansey2]

In the end, buyers have us by the balls. Luckily, most people are honest - that is, they receive their item and that's the end of it. They don't attempt to open up unjustified disputes to try to get their money back. If that were the case, none of us would have a chance.

You have to expect that a dispute is going to be opened every once in awhile, though, and I'm sure all of us have a horror story or two. It's just part of the game. That's why (like most people, I would assume) I would never attempt to sell high priced items. Seems to be me that people are far less prone to be dishonest / open an unjustified dispute if the item is not high priced. (Lower than $100.)

That's the way I look at it, anyway.

[KingRay]

I sell smaller items that can go in small 1st class international packages for $4-7 usually. The items normally are between $10 and $35 in them.

I send about 25-30/month to Canada and the UK. about 1 in 30 packages seem to not ever arrive according to the buyer but always seems to be a new buyer that I can almost assure you is just ripping me off. The honest ones have a large feedback number. (in my opinion). just seems every time I get ripped off its someone with 0-5 feedback or so. They just dont know that they only get so many of these before they get looked at by ebay.(if they really ever do I would be surprised though).

Most of the time I tell them I will refund them the money and if they get the other one please contact me. From there you just have to worry about saving your feedback and DSR's. Its worth more to me than a $30 tool or what ever else I may be selling.

I do lose one now and then yes but nearly all of my competitors simply dont ship to other countries because of 1 or 2 small deals like this that went south. That simply gives me all those missed sales. If I lose one then so be it. I used to be so pissed and take it out on everyone around me but now I just say the hell with it. block them and go on. You cant win ANY cases without delivery proof so we have to go with it and hope they will be more honest.

[jeffweico]

I don't understand why there seems to be so much resistance to using tracking numbers. If you use Endicia, Stamps.com, PayPal or Amazon to print shipping labels, then you usually get the commercial base pricing which is cheaper than the retail rate to begin with and then tracking is only 19 cents.

For 19 cents, it adds a layer of protection to both the transaction AND your stealth account. Of course, it is not absolute. But let's say you have 10 orders on Amazon, on a new account and you DO use the tracking. One buyer claims "not received". You have the tracking number to help prove your case. Not only that, but if Amazon loses confidence in you, they could look up the other tracking numbers in their system to see that you are actually sending the items.

Is saving the 19 cents REALLY that important?

BTW: My heart goes out to the OP, and I am NOT judging. I just see a ton of posts like this one, and the heartache could be SO EASILY AVOIDED...

[KingRay]

Originally Posted by jeffweico

I don't understand why there seems to be so much resistance to using tracking numbers. If you use Endicia, Stamps.com, PayPal or Amazon to print shipping labels, then you usually get the commercial base pricing which is cheaper than the retail rate to begin with and then tracking is only 19 cents.

For 19 cents, it adds a layer of protection to both the transaction AND your stealth account. Of course, it is not absolute. But let's say you have 10 orders on Amazon, on a new account and you DO use the tracking. One buyer claims "not received". You have the tracking number to help prove your case. Not only that, but if Amazon loses confidence in you, they could look up the other tracking numbers in their system to see that you are actually sending the items.

Is saving the 19 cents REALLY that important?

BTW: My heart goes out to the OP, and I am NOT judging. I just see a ton of posts like this one, and the heartache could be SO EASILY AVOIDED...

I dont see such resistance to tracking information anywhere here. He just said that he didnt on that transaction and was asking about it. My whole post was for international shipping which is a whole other situation.

Everyone knows tracking is cheap and if they dont use it then its their problem.