Item not received ? Again ?

[starterforeight]

I've sold about 100+ items in the last 8 weeks, made a nice amount of money after ebay/p&p costs/paypal etc.

However I've now had a fifth person open an "item not received" case against me. (Direct contact first would have been courteous, no ?)

Surely Royal Mail can't be that inept to lose 4% of all parcels ?

Am I being scammed by buyers ? It's not high value stuff, second hand kids clothes/shoes, kids dvd's. It's packaged well (experience of receiving damaged parcels myself has taught me to package securely) , clearly labelled and has sender details on the package. Where am I going wrong ?

I'm switching to recorded only or courier so I have evidence of delivery but really, have I just been unlucky or stupid to start with perhaps. I've bought 500 + items on ebay and not once has the item got lost.

I've got proof of postage for all 5 items but Royal Mail will presumably think I am scamming them if I claim for so many lost parcels.

[butterflybuttons]

which is why I send everything with Hermes - online proof of delivery every single time. Even RM signed for isn't v reliable as I find many times postie doesn't bother obtaining a signature.

[AutumnDragon]

Freebay
Buy 1 get 1 Free bay
Shoplifting on Ebay

Are all terms I come across regularly on Ebay discussion boards.

Thanks to the way Ebay reward Buyers, Item not received (INR) claims are rocketing.

I sell roughly the same amount on Amazon as I do on Ebay. Slightly less on my own website. I get at least 2 INRs a week on Ebay, and have had none on Amazon or my website. They are all packaged and posted identically, so there is no way anyone in the postal system could be cherry picking just the Ebay ones.

The good news is that Royal Mail are getting fed up with all the claims so are now recording all the addresses involved and are flagging those that come up more than is normal. They are starting to report these to the police and Action Fraud so hopefully these scamming bastards buyers will soon be taught a lesson.

[peggyundercrackers]

I will only send stuff registered now or by courier as too many people seem to think it's ok to report something lost in the post when in reality they are just being thieving gits.

[SisterMoonshine]

I recently wanted to contact a seller personally to see if there was a problem as I'd not received an item yet.
But the way you go through the 'contact seller' process on Ebay, you are sort of made to open a case.

[AutumnDragon]

Sister this is so that EBay can then give the seller a "defect"

There is an option for "Other " I believe, that should just contact the seller. Or you can click on any of their listings and Click on the Ask Seller option.

Ebay's reasoning re the opening of a case was allegedly to catch the scamming buyers - they never followed up on it though and then just started to clobber sellers with it instead.

[PenguinLordsMum]

OP you have my sympathies! This has just happened to me for the first time (like you I've sent 100 or so items).

I have provided proof of postage but is that going to get me anywhere or will I have to refund in full?

[4littleones]

I Had this. Sold a huge bundle of baby clothes and the lady complained that they were dirty and covered in baby poo! They were all immaculate and already dirt cheap for what was there. There was about 85 items so I am open to the fact I could of missed a stain on one item or something but there is no way what she said was true. But as usual, ebay sided with the buyer. She refused to post them back too - funny that!

[GloriousGloria]

Well I bought a pair of shoes this week and I never received and the seller used collect plus (apparently)

When I asked her to chase it up she kept telling me she was waiting for them to get back to her however, that took nearly two weeks. I just asked for a refund in the end.

[alltoomuchrightnow]

ah 4littleones this ties in with one of my threads. She refused to send them back… please don't tell me Paypalr refunded her?
did you ever get them back?

[Tryharder]

I would email the buyer and ask them to send you a written confirmation with their name and address on that their parcel has not been received and that you will be passing it onto Royal Mail for their own investigation. Open up a claim with RM and if the buyer is a scammer with form for losing parcels, RM will action as the poster described above.

I've had buyers back down at that point as they have clearly done this before and are frightened of appearing to lose too many parcels.

If that doesn't work, refund the buyer but leave positive feedback, saying something like "buyer paid quickly but sadly item lost in post so I refunded in full". They really will not want too many of these comments on their feedback list. I once refunded a woman who had lost at least 3 parcels recently according to her feedback comments and so I reported her.

[butterflybuttons]

I don't think asking a buyer to send written confirmation will worry many scammers - they will just refuse and open a case and probably neg you and trash your stars too.

[starterforeight]

I've just had another one !

The parcels that "aren't received" have predominantly been addressed to male e-bayers........ Sensing a pattern here.

[butterflybuttons]

you need to send with proof of delivery to protect yourself - like I said earlier, Hermes are good. £2.98 if under 1kg and the courier collects from you. It is a no brainer tbh.

[starterforeight]

Yes, I've been using myhermes for bigger stuff but sod it, it's all going myhermes (£2.78 if you drop off yourslef at the drop shop which is on my way to work) or recorded from now on !

[butterflybuttons]

RM are not reliable though - half the time they don't get a signature with signed for stuff. Hermes is much better.

[LiquidCosh]

But the other side of the coin is that Hermes are very slow for the buyer. I have been waiting on a package that was dispatched from H&M to Hermes 9 days ago and the tracking info still says being sorted at hub

[shotyourfox]

It is true that hermes car be slow.
I recently sent an item and it must have caught all the connections as it was sent on a Friday and arrived on a Monday. Ihave had other packages take over a week. However, I sold an item and charged 3.78 for postage when other sellers were charging 9.10 for RM. Buyers are getting a bargain with the postage so have to accept it may take a while.

[butterflybuttons]

I don't find them any slower than second class.

[Badvoc123]

Is collect plus better?

[butterflybuttons]

no - they are more expensive, and no quicker.

[millymae]

I would be very reluctant to blame Royal Mail based on my experience. I have bought and sold hundreds of items that have been posted with them and (I'm touching wood here) not one has ever got lost.

I post everything first class (if buyers don't like the £3.20 I charge that's tough - as I charge my buyers only what the P.O charges me) and looking at my feedback the vast majority arrive the next day after posting.

The 1 problem I had was down to the Postman forgetting to put a card through my door to let me know that there was something to be collected from the sorting office. I was refunded by my Ebay seller but several weeks later he contacted me to tell me that the item had been returned to him. When I went to the sorting office to find out what had gone on - sure enough the item was listed in the book. When I hadn't collected it, it had been returned to the seller via the central point which is in Ireland (I think) so even then it hadn't gone missing, it was simply human error.

My Hermes on the other hand I wouldn't touch with a barge pole- I bought something that took 8 weeks to turn up. Tracking showed that it had been despatched, but then the trail went dead until a couple of months later when there was a knock on the door and there it was - smelling as though it had been lost in a farmyard.

Sadly OP I think at least some of your buyers are telling porkies!

[starterforeight]

I'm sure you are right there millymae. At 5% loss rate no-one would use Royal Mail would they ! I mean there'd be sheds and sheds of stuff "lost" for some reason by the end of each year, it must go somewhere .

[QueenYnci]

A buyer opened an 'item not received' case against me last week (without any previous contact). As it was a week late I refunded straight away. Even though the buyer left positive feedback thanking me for the refund I ended up with a defect on my account. I think they were genuine but there seem to be a suspicious amount of losses in certain categories such as clothes and toys that maybe attract the scammers?

Royal Mail are getting very unreliable and as pp said don't always get a signature for Signed For items (3 items in the last 2 months that still come up with 'we have your item' on the tracking when they have actually been received, and I don't sell a lot).

[19lottie82]

my loss rate is about the same! I think it is a mixture of royal mail being useless and buyers trying it on.

[starterforeight]

What makes me so suspicious is that having bought 500+ items since I joined ebay in 2004, not one single purchase has been lost in transit to me and I am not in during the day, so always finding red cards on the floor behind the door to then take down to the local collection office to pick stuff up so lots of potential for lack of "we tried to deliver" cards etc but I've never had anything not reach me eventually.