posted on March 18, 2001 11:27:02 AM
Delivery confirmation is useless. It simply
means that the package was delivered...
somewhere...maybe even as close as the
buyers front porch. Then it could be stolen.
As a seller, I always insure anything over
50.00. If any item which sold for less than
50.00 is reported undelivered, I refund
the buyers money right away.
posted on March 18, 2001 01:02:57 PM
I think DC is great! I have had scans show up on the website stating that the item was still at the PO because they could not deliver! Something to the effect of: Attempted delivery, item was returned to PO. Customer may pick up or item will be returned to sender.
That does it very nicely for me!
posted on March 18, 2001 10:57:30 PMwould it be better to just ship UPS since it has tracking and insurance built in?
There are (at least) two goals for the seller in every eBay transaction:
1. Be responsible (and gain respect).
2. Keep fraidy cat buyers from freaking out.
These two goals might seem the same, but they are different. The most responsbile seller on eBay may well end up with a buyer who comes unglued because the package isn't there in 2 days.
Experienced sellers know that things almost always work out ok in the end, but we also know that we have to sometimes guide the buyer to the proper reaction. We want buyer on our side. If the thing really, really never gets there, us responsible sellers will fix the deal, and fix it completely, no bs. But we don't want to fix the fact that the thing is lost in buyer's house, because it got delivered when buyer was at work, stuck off somewhere during a clean-up of the living room. Combine that with a nervous, newbie buyer, and it's Trouble.
The basic defense against this problem is, not so oddly enough, insurance. The crucial process is getting buyer to think about the problem, think about where the thing might be. A requirement that the buyer sign a form certifying non-receipt is crucial to getting buyer to do the search, and, sure enough, lots of packages are found during this process.
UPS is good for those near a UPS site, especially for larger packages.
For small-valued packages, which for me are usually small-sized as well, UPS is a bad deal. I send by priority mail. No insurance unless I buy it, and I don't buy it for packages under about $150, which seems surprisingly high to some. A lot of the decision to set my line at $150 has to do with the kind of stuff I sell. Stuff which appeals to older, generally more reliable people. If I were selling to younger people, I'd set the line lower (and require buyers to pay for it).
Without insurance, a seller has one tool, and it has to be used very carefully. The stall. We want to convince buyer to find the package. We can talk about "putting tracers on the package". We can ask buyer to see if it is at buyer's local post office. We can explain that it sometimes just takes "as much as a month". And we can usually buy a month, but, after that month, we fix the deal, by sending either another one, or a full refund. It happens so rarely, we don't worry about it. Far less than 1 in 100 in the USA. But within 1 in 1000.
posted on March 18, 2001 11:13:00 PM
Like others, I use DC as a psychological deterrent. I have put it on every single item I have shipped in 2 1/2 years of selling and have not had a single buyer claiming a package didn't arrive. For me, that makes it worth every penny. Said pennies are, in any case, paid by the buyer as I include the price of DC in my shipping quotes.
Can you give the name of even ONE seller who has lost a lawsuit or been successfully charged with fraud when he/she had proof that:
1) The item was shipped (delivery confirmation)
2) Insurance was offered to the buyer but refused
If you do have a name, please share it. You keep posting the same mis-information in thread after thread and it's still just as incorrect as it was when you started.
I have been down this road more than once. I have NEVER been determined to be at fault (liable for monetary damages or fraud) in court or otherwise. I sell high-dollar items that I cannot afford to ship twice. I offer insurance to the buyer. If he refuses it, it's his loss if the postal service screws up. And the courts and the postal service have ALWAYS agreed (4 times actually).
[ edited by dubyasdaman on Mar 19, 2001 06:41 AM ]
posted on March 19, 2001 09:56:53 AMCan you give the name of even ONE seller who has lost a lawsuit or been successfully charged with fraud when he/she had proof that:
I can't give you the name of one eBay seller who has won a lawsuit, or lost one, over an eBay case. Would it follow that eBay sales aren't covered by statutes?
Lawsuits are expensive; the vast majority of eBay sales contracts regard value 100 times less than the cost of a lawsuit. Notwithstanding, eBay sales contracts are covered by the same laws which cover any sales contract.
We've analyzed this many times before.
The law is very clear, buyer must deliver payment, seller must deliver the stuff.
Several cases have been cited, on this forum, regarding lawsuits between buyers and sellers. One relevant case regarded building materials delivered to an unsecured site, where they were stolen before buyer arrived at the site. Seller lost the case, the materials were judged to have not been delivered to buyer.
Again, it's as clear as day, for any sales contract. Buyer must deliver payment to seller. Seller must deliver the stuff to buyer. Buyers and sellers often contract with 3rd parties to carry out their duty, but retain full responsibility.
Criminal fraud is a whole other story. I predict that proof of shipment IS reasonable defense against a charge of criminal fraud. Criminal fraud requires intent to defraud, and I don't imagine that any seller who actually ships the stuff is intending to defraud.
posted on March 19, 2001 11:02:45 AM
So what I've gathered out of all of this is that we, as sellers, should not even give our buyers the choice! We should just automatically add insurance to all sales that we would not want to have to repay. Guess we would have to list that in our auction terms because if we did not list that insurance would be added they could say we had changed the auction terms. Has anyone had any luck doing this - stating that shipping will be shipping cost plus insurance cost?
I did have one buyer who kept bugging me and bugging me that she had not received her item when I knew I had shipped it - no insurace, no DC (it was only a $5 magazine) but it had been shipped. Finally I went back and checked my feedback and she had left glowing comments about what a nice magazine (gosh - she did get it!). When I emailed her this information, she started looking around her house and found it in with a box of some magazines she had bought from another seller. Was her face red!!!! She had gotten VERY NASTY with me about not receiving her magazine.
posted on March 19, 2001 12:26:28 PM
Question for Helen:
do you charge your buyers just what the post office charges you to ship or do you add a handling fee to your auctions? From your post I gather that you are absorbing the costs of the insurance, is that correct?
posted on March 19, 2001 12:42:37 PMdo you charge your buyers just what the post office charges you to ship or do you add a handling fee to your auctions?
Here's how I do it.
"$5 for Priority shipping in the USA" -- self-insured
"$6.50 for insured Priority shipping in the USA" -- I buy USPS insurance
The auction has ONE of the above lines, no decision to be made by buyer. I made the decision when I listed the item.
(for a small package, the $5 one I expect to sell for under $100 or so, the $6.50 one I expect to sell for $200..$400)
posted on March 19, 2001 03:05:29 PM
Yes, I absorb the cost of insurance when
necessary. I sell modern first edition
books and usually they do not sell for
over 60.00.
If you are selling big buck merchandise,
SgtMike's advice above would make more sense.
But relying on the customer to pay insurance
just doesn't work. When the package is lost
in the mail you will be on the spot...justified or not.
posted on March 19, 2001 03:21:38 PM
paintpower - for those two auctions you mentioned yesterday that ended so high, if the buyer refuses insurance you might consider a new service the PO is offering - for $1.75 you can require a signature upon delivery. I can't remember exactly what the service is called but there's a big poster in my PO advertising it. I'm not sure if there's another option that might be cheaper, which would require confirmed delivery w/signature (certified, etc.)
