Three packages sent through Royal Mail-Maybe lost

isayoldchap

I am the seller on ebay.On the 19/10 I despatched three different packages.
One UK std.The other two were sent surface mail to USA and Sweden.I have put in three claims as I believe they are all lost.These have no huge value.
The USA package was three 'hello kitty' wallpaper borders.The value final bid on ebay was £3.20.I have no actual bill of the value when I bought them but they were more than that.Royal Mail has only paid £3.20 and not the postage of £2.97.I had offered a 0.71p insurance to my customers.
Am I liable to pay each customer the full amount they paid through paypal?
Of course the £3.20 I will be happy to pay,but as the surface mail can take up to 8 weeks(according to the website),how do I know that the customer is not lying and has received the package.

Oh and maybe you can comment on whether Royal Mail are allowed to not credit the postage for a service they have not done.

masonic

If your buyers started a claim through paypal, they would be awarded a full refund, so you should really do the same if you don't want to risk them doing that.

Surface mail is very slow. As with all non-recorded delivery services, there is no way of telling whether a buyer has really received an item. That's one of the things you just have to accept when you use a cheaper postal service.

And as for royal mail and their refund system, it seems that when you send an item of mail, you are not paying for it to be delivered to the recipient in a timely manner; you are just paying for the hope that one day it might find it's way there. :rolleyes:

tomstickland

I post loads of things via Royal Mail and evert month or so something doesn't arrive. I just refund the buyer and move on. It's like selling cars - keep moving at all costs, 20 steps forwards and 1 step back is still 19 steps forwards.

Contains_Mild_Peril

isayoldchap wrote:

Oh and maybe you can comment on whether Royal Mail are allowed to not credit the postage for a service they have not done.

I did wonder about that when I learned that they do not give postage refunds on lost items. Unless there is some legal loophole of which I am unaware which excludes them from the normal laws of commerce, then, like any other company who takes money for a service which they then fail to provide, they would owe the customer a refund.
An eBay customer who orders items to be sent by surface mail should be prepared to wait several weeks for delivery, but unfortunately, some customers have other ideas.
The Royal Mail considers items which have failed to arrive within the UK to be lost only after 15 working days (3 weeks) have elapsed.

bleugh

if you use paypal, their rules state that for you to be covered you HAVE to use AIRSURE delivery to post

unfortunatley, this costs £4.50 extra on top of normal post

its up to you to decide if to do it or not

unfortunatley for me, around 50% of my cheaper international parcels that are paid for by paypal go 'missing' and have to be refunded thru paypal, people are so damn dishonest :-(

(and, yes, they're lying, if they pay by cash/cheque, only 1 has failed to turn up!)

black-saturn

If you posted a USA surface mail parcel on 19th October it won't have got there yet. It takes anything up to 3 months to receive a packet by purface mail to the US.

soolin

black-saturn wrote:

If you posted a USA surface mail parcel on 19th October it won't have got there yet. It takes anything up to 3 months to receive a packet by purface mail to the US.

Also, for overseas parcels the RM will not consider them lost until 20 working days have elapsed and then they warn you when you phone that a claim can take up to 3 months to process.

I never use surface mail for overseas buyers, it is not worth it as most will put in a protective paypal chargeback within a month or so to protect themselves even though the parcel is unlikely to arrive before that. If an item is too heavy to go airmail, I don't offer it overseas.

To the OP, offering optional insurance is not a good idea, the insurance is after all to protect you as the seller not the buyer so any buyer that uderstands paypal will not pay for something they don't need. Paypal will refund the buyer in full, including post and packing, and to protect your good paypal standing it is probably best to voluntarily refund rather than risk losing a paypal chargeback. Unfortunately the RM don't pay out for the post and packing element of the ebay payment (although on occasions they do...but I don't know why!) so yes you will be out of pocket.

Soo

$17mma

I have learnt that if you retain your postage receipt for any Royal Mail item you can claim back the cost of postage and the item should the pacakge not arrive.

Each standard letter/pacakage that is postage is automatically insured for £30 by Royal mail. The claim back process is long as you can imagine by Royal mail, however as long as you retain your receipt you will get the cost of postage and money back.

Anything worth more than £30 should be insured, which is why they always ask you what is in the package.

Another thing offer your customers insurance for their items and if they dont take it and the package goes missing then you are not at fault and no claims can be made!

Hintza

$17mma wrote:

I have learnt that if you retain your postage receipt for any Royal Mail item you can claim back the cost of postage and the item should the pacakge not arrive.



Another thing offer your customers insurance for their items and if they dont take it and the package goes missing then you are not at fault and no claims can be made!

Wrong on two counts here:-

1. The royal mail DO NOT refund cost of potage only the value of the item upto £30. If item is valued over £30 then you will also carry the can because you used the wrong service. Why as others have said do they not pay the Postage charge I do not know and I think that is a disgrace.

2. Insurance is a waste of time if item paid by PayPal as the seller has to PROVE delivery. I never take insurance and would fully expect to be covered by PayPal.

The thing that really annoys me are the sellers that insist in small print that you take out insurance. That is just a scam if they offer PayPal as a method of payment.

princessmoneysaver

I must say I HAVE got the postage back more than once when I have put a claim in, HTH someone.

Yvonne

BoltonMinx

So what happens if you offer free postage ? Your invoice will show £0 P&P, so shouldn't the PO refund you the full amount of the invoice ?