Item I sent not arrived

[Nearlycooked]

This is the first time an item I have posted has not arrived, (£8 value). Buyer contacted me to say so. What happens next? Do I refund her?

did you send it recorded?
how long ago did you send it ?
And yes you will have to refund and claim from the post office normally 15 days after it was posted it is counted as lost :(

did you get this resolved? I have got the same problem. I sold something and sent it out and the buyer has not received it. I said on my listing that I will provide proof of postage from Royal Mail and am happy to pass this on to the buyer if it gets lost so they can look into it/make a claim. The buyer is not willing to accept this and is saying they want a refund. I emailed ebay and just told me to phone the woman and talk in a friendly manner to resolve the issue. I am loathe to refund as I had specifically said I would give her the proof it was sent to her so why is it my responsibility to chase the claim rather than her. I sold the item, I posted it .... and I said I wouldn't take responsibility. However, do I have to refund to avoid bad feedback? Is 15 days an official time for refunding and claiming?

If you refund then there is nothing to protect the seller from people saying they havent received the goods when they really have!

This happened to me recently too. The buyer contacted me 4 weeks after the auction end said she had not received and wanted a refund. She had a huge number of stars which made me wonder why it had taken her so long to contact me. Within a couple of hours of emailing me she opened a case against me and Paypal immediately put on hold the amount including postage so against my better judgement and to avoid negative feedback I felt I had no choice but to pay up. As sellers cannot leave negative feedback you have no idea if the buyer has done this before.

its so frustrating isnt it?

bodiddly - You are responsible for claiming from RM you can't decide you are not, you should refund if the designated time for delivery has past, i think it's 2 weeks then claim yourself from RM.

ona - maybe she was giving you the benefit of the dobt in allowing time for the parcel to arrive

Oh and this is why you are supposed to send recorded, if you have online proof it was delivered, you wont have to refund remember proof of posting is not the same as proof of receipt.

It is sellers responsibility to claim.

I just had a not received item. I was the buyer. The seller refunded straight away and she made a claim as she has the proof.

You have to claim the value back from the P.O.

you say the seller isn't protected from the buyer just saying they haven't received but then if it was the other way round the buyer isn't protected then either are they.

This happened to me last month (First time since joining in 2004!)

Sent stuff not recorded. Buyer claimed not received.

I refunded him before he opened a case. I successfully claimed back from PO.

Everything I send now is recorded.

Such a PITA and I think he was a scammer as his feedback indicates he said 'item not received' to someone else. I got in touch with the other seller and he's trying to reclaim from PO too.

You can claim back full amount from RM if you have proof of posting, financially it makes little sense to send everything recorded (however much you suspect timewasting fraud ).
When does Ebay say it should have arrived (last possible day)?
If it's less than 2 weeks since you sent it I would nicely ask the buyer to wait a bit longer.

Onadifferentplanet - the only reason I realised my buyer had done this before was in the 'follow up' feedback section. I had already left feedback saying 'Fast payment received, many thanks', then put another line saying 'Seller claimed item not received, full refund given'.

When this reads next to the other seller saying pretty much the same thing, it does show what has happened (without accusation).

buyer claimed...

If you read the selling rules you will see that you are in fact the one who has to claim.

You are right that your buyer could have and are able to get a refund and the item but as you have not sent recorded you will never know this.

I once had an item sent to me in a cut up bin bag that ripped and the address has been writen on a bit of paper with one tiny bit of sellotape. It arrived quite torn and with the label bit literally hanging off. If that had come off before it had got to me then the buyer would have had proof it had been sent (it was not recorded) yet I would not have received it so why should I be out of pocket when they seller can't pack something correctly?

I once sent an item recordced and it took almost 2 weeks to arrive but my buyer was very understanding as when she logged into the online tracking she could see it still said 'pending delivery' or something like that so she knew I had sent it, it was just RM trying to work out where it was!

This has just happened to me, but the thing that is odd is that the buyer left feed back during the week, when I looked again, because I was surprised that he was saying that it had not arrived, the feed back had gone! So what is the best thing to do, I have answered his question saying that the parcel was posted and I have proof of posting, and that I had assumed that it had arrived because of the feed back. Just glad it's only a small amount, but hate the thought of being taken for a ride.

bodiddly,

though you say that you are not reponsible for loss or breakages in post; it is not technically legal it is always the sellers responsibilty to get item to buyer safely, so it is always you who has to claim, for second class I would give refund 7-10 days after posting you can not claim until 15 working days but if you make buyer wait that long you risk bad feedback,

I would leave that statement out of future listings

yes they might be scamming but on the other hand it might have gone missing... not their fault.

I think royal mail loses a small percentage of mail, it is relatively simple to claim from them.