posted on March 26, 2001 05:10:37 PM
I just received an email from a Canadian customer who bought a plate from me. Auction ended in November, plate was shipped December 19. Now she writes and says she never received it.
I guarantee delivery of my items, but this seems like a long time to wait before she let me know it didn't get there. I know shipping to Canada can be slow, but doesn't it seem she would have let me know before now that she hadn't received it?
posted on March 26, 2001 08:34:58 PM
Just about 3 months later she claims no parcel? I think she should have contacted you a long time ago. Any Insurance? I know that a lot of folks will say "oh just refund". You will have to do what you're comfy with. This late in the game I would tell her to talk to her post office.
Or maybe she just forgot she got it?
Oh yes, No refund. Where does it stop? Six months One year five years?
[ edited by gs4 on Mar 26, 2001 08:44 PM ]
posted on March 26, 2001 08:45:01 PMOr maybe she just forgot she got it?
It's possible. I placed a special order on an rather high ticket item a couple weeks before Christmas. Between the hysteria of the last minute ebay & website sales & the hoopla of the holidays, I finally remembered it...in the middle of February
Chagrined, I called to ask about it & the guy who took the order had forgotten to order it because it was the day of the office Christmas party (probably wrote it on a cocktail napkin or something).
posted on March 26, 2001 10:06:38 PM
Last year I had a customer email after 3 months asking when I thought her item would arrive? I LOL, and then emailed her back apologizing for the incredible delay. I assumed it was lost by the USPS & sent her a refund. She told me she wouldn't cash the refund for another month or so just in case her item arrived, in which case she would then mail the refund back.
Two months after her initial email to me her parcel arrived back on my doorstep. My Postie had no idea why it was returned, or why it had been in the US for five months. It had been stamped by the USPS [I forget what the stamp said?] but it made no sense whatsoever. I waded through a few boxes of invoices, found the high bidders email addy, pulled her contact info, and phoned her. The address on the parcel was indeed correct, and she could not believe the USPS had had it for so long yet never delivered it.
I sent it back to her & told her to keep the refund for her time & aggravation. She received it the second time 'round in less than 1 week.
posted on March 26, 2001 10:34:18 PM
Hi dellastreet
If you don't mind the legwork, I would suggest calling her post office, in Canada. Call 1-416-979-8822 for Canada Post customer service, give them the customers postal code, and they can point you to the correct post office.
I recently had a package lost in Canada and learned that Canada Post keeps pretty good records of packages that are in their system, especially if duty and taxes are due. At least you might get an idea of whether or not the package made it to Canada at all...and then go from there.
posted on April 7, 2001 08:26:09 AM
I'm bringing this back to the top because the problem has surfaced again. I responded to this buyer on 3/26 and asked her to check with Canada Post. This morning I received this email from her:
After reading your feedback and seeing that a few people have also not received things from you, I would, at this point, simply like my money back by April 21, 2001. After I receive my refund, I won't bother to leave any feedback.
I will, as an alternative, accept the item I originally ordered and paid for, shipped by insured post, insurance paid for by yourself, no later than April 21, 2001. In this case, I would leave neutral feedback.
Now, it's been over 3 months since I mailed the plate to her. It's a one of a kind item and I don't have another one. I don't know whether she received it or not, but I can't help wondering why she waited over 3 months to say anything about it.
I have 2500+ feedback, she has 6. In that whole time, I've had only three people who claimed not to have received their item. I know she can no longer leave feedback, the transaction is too old. I usually would refund, but this just doesn't sound right.
Would you refund? Any advice would be appreciated.
posted on April 7, 2001 08:46:41 AM
She did not say whether she has checked with Canada Post or her local Customs office? Before I considered a refund I would insist that she do that first.
I also question why she took so long to get back to you. After this length of time I would doubt that the item is still in the database. So her comments about feedback mean nothing. Besides, no matter what you do it sounds like it won't be good enough for her. Was there a lot of money involved in this?
posted on April 7, 2001 08:56:26 AM
Do you have a copy of your receipt to prove it was mailed? (I keep all of mine for taxes anyway. I find those cardboard priority mailing envelopes work great for keeoping postal receipts inside!)
I would dig through your stuff and tell her it was sent and she needs to check with her customs/post office, and see if you can send her a scanned copy of the receipt.
By the way, what value did you put on the customs form? If it was over $40 it for sure got customs fees incurred-- maybe she doesn't want to pay them!
I know this won't help you now but for the future here's some advice:
I've sent alot of stuff to Canada/other countries and rarely insure it because it costs so much to do so-- you also have to ship "air parcel post" versus "small packet air" to be able to do so. Air parcel post costs almost double of small packet air. Small packet air cannot be insured... But if the item is fairly high value and small, you can ship it small packet air REGISTERED and it is automatically insured!! It's even safer this way as it has to be signed for all the way. I always spell out ALL the options to the buyers. I tell them I cannot be responsible if they do not insure/register it and it does not arrive, and I will produce a receipt for them if they decide NOT to insure it to prove I sent it. This gets you off the hook.
By the way, I must have had at least 200 international transactions-- most to Canada and England but also Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Germany,Portugal,Spain,France,Israel, Switzerland,Netherlands,Belguim and Cayman Islands. The only non-show was a Canadian package, which by the way, came back to me 3 months later and was marked unclaimed by recipiant!
sabreena20
posted on April 7, 2001 09:51:52 AM
It wasn't a lot of money, less than $20 including shipping. And I didn't insure it but I may still have the PO receipt. The condition my office is in, I'm not sure I could find it though! I put $10 on the customs form so I don't think that would be the problem.
I don't ship much to Canada. In fact, I specify shipping to US only. I only sold this to her because she emailed and asked first.
I have a feeling nothing I do will please her, and there's really nothing that I know of that she could do if I just ignore the email. I just don't like feeling like I've been accused of being a con.
posted on April 7, 2001 10:11:30 AM
I would look for the receipt --that would be your way out to prove to her you sent it. Keep them all in a priority mail folder in the future- only takes a second to drop them in!
I know what you mean about being accused. I had one a few weeks ago that took the cake.
I made a mistake and sent her the wrong size, I offered to send the correct item and all the priority mail fees back. She insisted I pay for UPS which not only was double the price but I have no means of accepting as noone is ever home and I have a po box. She also mentioned her husband does it from his business so i think she was probably scamming the business for the uPS fees. When I refused to do this, she demanded I pay for her time to return it. Every sentence started with "if you would have sent me the correct item, this would not have happened." I finally told her I checked with Ebay (which was true) and the seller sets the shipping terms. I also told her what I would refund her but I decided not to send the correct size because she was so difficult to deal with!
I would look for the receipt --that would be your way out to prove to her you sent it.
posted on April 7, 2001 10:26:07 AM
Please don't assume that just because an item is shipped UPS from a spouses business that they are "scamming" the employer out of money.
My hubby ships UPS from his work, and we do pay for it.. Larger businesses pay less than normal people, and some owners do allow employees to use the service (as long as we keep on paying for the packages). Until today, I never thought anyone would think we were con artists/thieves... Hopefully nobdy has..
I hate to be the one to rain on your feedback parade, but .......
If an auction page is "bookmarked" via your browser, not only can they go back to November, but I was able to easily bring up several auctions of mine from as far back as October.
And here's an eBay "test" auction that I found that goes back to Sept 25th.
I discovered this some time back. As long as the person can bring up the auction page, feedback can indeed be left.
edited to add - Mod Squad, before you go getting trigger happy on that link, the seller & high bidder are simply "test dummies" and neither of those ID's are used for anything other than eBay "tests".
posted on April 7, 2001 11:41:07 AM
Ok, it looks like the cut off is August of last year.
In case any of you are wondering why in the hell I'd be saving auction bookmarks from that far back, I was doing it for just this reason. I also save to disk certain files & folders just in case of a major HD crash, like I went through 2 weeks ago.
And here's the REAL kicker.
From what I can gather, if I was to leave feedback on a deadbeat from way back in October via my browser bookmark, they could only leave me a neg in return if they too had saved the auction link via their browser.
The auction # link on the feedback page won't work.
Did you know UPS charges it's "service fees" based on how many items it picked upper week? There is no way to audit this without calling UPS and haveing them break down the bills. I just went hrough this for my Dad's account about a month ago so I am very familiar with it.
And how does the business go about doing the accounting/bookkeeping for this. At my dad's business, freight charges are set up as a separate account and I believe you have to list this separately when filling out the IRS forms. By having employees' personal transactions on there, the actual freight charges are being inflated.
I think by this woman wanting to charge me "for her time" was proof enough something is fishy with her. I left out alot more- like it took her 2 weeks to return my email, 2 more weeks to send the check, then she complained that I didn't send it right away and waited 7 days for her check to clear, then she emailed me about the mistake but never answered my email for 2 more weeks, then complained about "all teh time that went by".
Oh, and she had a bunch of negatives and neutrals about how difficult she was to deal with!
sabreena20
posted on April 7, 2001 01:08:59 PM
Just tell her you have put up with all the threats and intimidation you are going to and do not wish to hear from her again. Then do not answer any more of her emails. Even ebay would draw the line after a certain period of time.
posted on April 7, 2001 05:58:32 PM
Not to be a U-PIC booster but insurance up to $100 to Canada is only 60¢.
I'm not certain what the time frame is for filing but I believe 3 months is the limit on the green tag insurance through the USPS. This buyer has waited way to long.
posted on April 7, 2001 06:52:43 PM
I guess reddeer just shot my "database" theory full of holes?
I have some old auctions saved in a folder. Just now I tried leaving feedback on a couple of them from November but when I hit the "leave comment" button it brings me to a page that says that the item is no longer in the database.
This works different if it is bookmarked via your browser? I have deleted my older ones but I always thought they just said that they were no longer in the database after a couple of months.
I'm still mulling it over. I've never refused a refund before, but this one just sticks in my craw. I agree with vvalhalla that it's just been too long. I would have believed her if she'd emailed me a month after I'd let her know the item had been shipped. But over three months is just too much. You know the old if it quacks like a duck thing.
But, I'll probably give in and refund. I'm a wimp when it comes to customers.
posted on April 7, 2001 07:15:52 PM
Hi
I would definitely check with the Canadian post office before a refund.
It sounds like what she is doing is "feedback extortion" and that is also against e-bay rules.
after this long don't let the buyer set a time limit on YOUR response.
She definitely waited a long time. You should also be given ample time to respond, through all the proper channels
It sounds like you have plenty of positive feedback behind you and she is evidently new.
E-mail her very nicely and tell her your policy and ask her towait.
posted on April 7, 2001 09:46:02 PMShaani ........ I just tried to leave a neg for a deadbeat from an auction that ended Dec 9th, and it was a no go. I used the link on the auction page & got the following message after hitting submit.
The item you requested (518453258) is invalid or no longer in our database. Please check the number and try again. If this
message persists, the item has expired and is no longer available.
Damn, back to the drawing board ........
dellastreet
IMHO over a $20 deal that went bad, I'd refund in a heartbeat. If you read my first post to this thread you can see that "sometimes" things like this happen. My high bidder never asked me about the item until after 8 weeks had passed, and in the end for reasons unknown, the parcel did arrive back here in Canada after 5 months.
Who knows?
If you clearly state in your TOS that refunds expire after a certain time period then I wouldn't refund, but if you don't then you really don't have much to fall back on.
posted on April 7, 2001 10:46:04 PM
Thanks for explaining, reddeer. I thought you had come up with a secret way of doing things. I had two semi deadbeats that finally paid up and even though they made me wait and didn't have the decency to even let me know they had received their items after I held them for so long I was going to give them a positive feedback four months later. So I used them for my experiment. Too bad for them.
dellastreet, my opinion on this one is that your bidder should have taken more responsibility for this transaction. She should let you know if she has contacted her post office and Customs. She could have contacted you earlier also.
