posted on December 7, 2000 02:29:28 PM
Hey All,
Need more help... where would I go if you guys aren't here....
anyways, here's the story. One of my winning bidders paid within 24 hours of close of auction through paypal. My auction description specifically states that I ship via UPS. Also, at the close of the auction, I also require that the seller send me the shipping address, and phone no. This guy paid and provided me with a PO Box shipping address which ofcourse cannot be serviced by UPS. I have sent him over 5 mails in the last 3 days but no reply. I even called at that no. First there was a lot of giggling on the phone and the next time, somebody informed me that I had the wrong no. and there is no such person. Now I am in a dilemma.. I have about $170 sitting in my paypal account while the buyer does not respond to my emails/phone calls. Surprisingly, the PO box that he has provided is that from a big university in Texas !! I do not know what to do in this case, .... I need some advice soon. I had already sent him a deadline email y'day giving him 24 hrs to respond but to no good. I think I am going to report this to paypal ASAP before anything else happens.... any suggestion would calm my desperate soul.
posted on December 7, 2000 03:00:40 PM
Calm down and do nothing.
Eventually he will come looking for his money or his goods. He could very easily of paid you and left town, never giving the PO box a thought , noticing the UPS thing, or having it register.
On the phone number if I bought something from you I would not give you my phone number. I would consider your asking to be invasive. If you insisted I would give you a bogus #, so that could explain that.
Just relax and when he checks his email (some people have dozens of emails too) and sees there is a problem he will post you. It sounds like a good buyer to me, and I would try to keep the $170 sale.
posted on December 7, 2000 03:16:56 PM
I am puzzled why you would ask for a persons phone number? If you haven't run into a problem with that requirement, you will. People are very private, and do not like to give out anymore information than is necessary to carry out the transaction. I require a persons delivery address in my EOA notice. This is done to assure the person lives in the U.S., as I do not ship out of the U.S.. But even more importantly, I can match up payments with auction wins if I receive a payment with no return address, name, or auction number included. It does happen occasionally.
Even with the reasons I just gave, I occasionally run into a buyer who will ask why I need their address? Even though it is stated on my auction page, and EOA notice. I simply tell them, again, and that I will need it anyway to ship the item. I would never open myself up to the problems it would bring me by requiring a persons phone number. I do not mean to criticize your doing this, but you will eventually run into a buyer that will make you wish you never required that.
posted on December 7, 2000 04:40:17 PM
I have had similar things happen. People pay and forget to give me their address.
I just wait after sending an e-mail every few days for a week or so and eventually they will ask if the item has been shipped, at which time I will very gently say that I need their address so that I can ship their item right out so that they can begin enjoying their purchase a quickly as possible.
They have always been kind and apologized and sent the address promptly.
posted on December 7, 2000 06:54:07 PM
From my previous experience....
If the PO Box is located on a college campus, UPS *may* service it as it is not actually run by the postal service (similar to UPS delivering to Mailboxes etc). If you have a UPS account with daily pickups it also should not be a problem sending it. In this case, when it arrives in the destination city, UPS will mail a post card to the PO box address giving the bidder a certian time period (7 days?) to call them and give them a street address for delivery. This would also work if you ship over the counter if you could get them to accept it....which is questionable, but might be worth a try.
posted on December 7, 2000 10:59:22 PM new
Hey ! Thanks you all for the suggestions and opinions,,,
Ok, to clarify few things:
1) Why I ask for a phone no.: Well the reason I do it is for the buyer's benefit. I provide that no to UPS which in turn calls them up and leaves a message about the arrival of their package. I use a UPS software which *requires* that I enter the destination phone no. I have found this to be quite useful in my auctions since I tend to sell high-tag items which gross over $200 a piece and so the buyer is quite concerned with his/her buy. The phone no also helps me verify the buyer...since I wish to avoid bidders who intend to claim fradulant CC charge after I have sent the package.... this has been happening a lot these days. Also, a couple of times, the buyer wants me to contact him by phone and let him/her know about the status of shipment.
2) The other suggestion is about waiting till the buyer contacts me back... I just checked the ratings on this buyer and he has 1 good and 1 bad rating. What I am fearful is what if I keep his money TILL he contacts me ... and if he never does, I leave mysefl vulnerable for being proclaimed as a fraudulant seller - to both paypal and yahoo.
anyways, as most of you intend to suggest, I will wait for few more days.... *sigh*
