Am I just over cynical?

FiftyPents

Does anyone else, when getting a message from someone saying they've yet to receive their item, just think 'yeah right!' Or is that just me?!

Hopefully this thread doesn't cause arguments like a lot of my threads lately seem to do , but it seems so suspicious that I'll send off a batch of 10-11 parcels at the post office, all with return address posted on the back, yet one person will claim they have'nt received their item. Where would it go? If its not delivered, it'd come back to me. i can only assume it's delivered to the wrong person and they keep it, or it 'falls off the back of a lorry'?

Oliver14

Well parcels get damaged by Royal mail. The addresses can be wrong. Postmen leave them in stupid place. If RM are unable to identify they end up in Belfast.

If you're getting more than the odd one going missing there is something wrong with either your systems, listings or Royal mail so you should look at that. Ive only had 1 parcel in the last 500 go missing and that's more than normal.

If you think all of them are out to scam you maybe you ned to rethink using ebay.

fred7777

Depends.

Was it 10 or 11 parcels and is that in total or are you saying for every 10 parcels 1 is claimed to have been lost?

In my experience I would expect losses of around 1 in 100 letters or parcels. One in ten is very high but if it's the first ten parcels you have sold via ebay you may just be unlucky to have losses in your first batch.

I may be cynical but I think it's far more likely that post is delayed, buyers claim and then don't return the refund when the parcel arrives.

Also return addresses don't help when the parcel is delivered to the wrong address or person or in the case of one of my parcels delivered straight to the return address rather than the delivery address.

FiftyPents

fred7777 wrote: »

Depends.

Was it 10 or 11 parcels and is that in total or are you saying for every 10 parcels 1 is claimed to have been lost?

In my experience I would expect losses of around 1 in 100 letters or parcels. One in ten is very high but if it's the first ten parcels you have sold via ebay you may just be unlucky to have losses in your first batch.

I may be cynical but I think it's far more likely that post is delayed, buyers claim and then don't return the refund when the parcel arrives.

Also return addresses don't help when the parcel is delivered to the wrong address or person or in the case of one of my parcels delivered straight to the return address rather than the delivery address.

I think i'm just a cynical person in general. I've heard of people doing scams through places like play.com where they order a game, it arrives, they wait 21 days then claim they've not received it and get a refund. Play have no way of provind this since they send their games through the post without recorded delivery. Since it was a game i sold through ebay, I just worried this was happening to me!

Like you say, far more likely its just an honest case of the item not turning up, just my cynical side taking over.

Percy1983

I always have a dount when I get a not received message, with that I can't prove they have it so don't fight it.

On the flip side I have had a few missing items when buying so know it does happen and when I send the same message to the seller hope they do take it at face value.

Its a calulated risk based on value, I use record or special delivery as prices go up but for smaller items the costs to protect from a few scamming buyers or royal mail losing stuff just isn't worth it.

soolin

If my losses started to creep much above 1 in 500 or so items i would panic . Yes the Post office lose things or they go to the wrogn address, it happens. If I honestly thought every lost parcel was a scamming buyer I would no longer sell online at all.

chancesare_2

fred7777 wrote: »

Depends.

Was it 10 or 11 parcels and is that in total or are you saying for every 10 parcels 1 is claimed to have been lost?

In my experience I would expect losses of around 1 in 100 letters or parcels. One in ten is very high but if it's the first ten parcels you have sold via ebay you may just be unlucky to have losses in your first batch.

I may be cynical but I think it's far more likely that post is delayed, buyers claim and then don't return the refund when the parcel arrives.

Also return addresses don't help when the parcel is delivered to the wrong address or person or in the case of one of my parcels delivered straight to the return address rather than the delivery address.

1 in 10 is way too many.

Almost all of my mail goes tracked (not recorded) and I only have loses on first/second or airmail, but that is at something like 1/600 or so.

Crowqueen

Percy1983 wrote: »

I always have a dount when I get a not received message, with that I can't prove they have it so don't fight it.

On the flip side I have had a few missing items when buying so know it does happen and when I send the same message to the seller hope they do take it at face value.

Its a calulated risk based on value, I use record or special delivery as prices go up but for smaller items the costs to protect from a few scamming buyers or royal mail losing stuff just isn't worth it.

This sums it up for me - there is no point in accusing the buyer of lying, all it will do is end badly for you.

Someone has paid something for an item which they never get and seller accusations just add insult to injury.

While there are probably some scammers out there - more in some markets, there is a particular problem with wargaming miniatures, apparently - it has never been a problem for me; in fact trying to disclaim you take no responsibilities for loss (and breakages) in the post just makes the scammers more likely to target you as they know that you don't send recorded (where you at least have some proof, at the cost of 75p on postage, which is unnecessary a lot of the time and only likely to inflate the cost of cheap items) and they know you will be able to do nothing about a claim. In fact, RD is not a cast-iron way of getting proof of delivery anyway as RM do not assiduously ensure a signature is collected. The number of times I've had RD items just put through the letterbox is uncountable. So take advantage of RM's insurance on non-tracked (or RD) items and keep your certificate of posting to claim from RM if something gets lost, or alternatively model a self-insurance item into your prices in order to cover losses yourself.

If you genuinely try to help buyers when approached and have a decent returns/losses policy buyers seldom take advantage and are more likely to be honest with you.

In six years of selling I've had one INR as a seller, and in eight years of buying have had a couple of items posted late (both of which had only just been posted when I emailed the sellers to ask), one item that got lost at my end for which the seller sent a replacement and I paid for the replacement as it was something I could always give as a present to someone, and one item that got lost in the Christmas chaos; the seller offered "to arrange" a replacement if it hadn't turned up after two weeks and then didn't contact me, meaning that at the end of the third week I filed a dispute and left a neutral - only to have the item (it had been dropshipped from HMV ) turn up a day later. I did repay but I was pretty annoyed at that seller's behaviour and meanwhile she was accumulating negs and neutrals for poor comms.

In short, communicate properly and responsibly with your buyers. It's an occupational hazard of shopping online. Just because it hasn't happened to you the other way around, doesn't mean it can't or will never happen.

grunnie

I had a buyer say an item went missing, I sent another which also went missing and then gave her a refund. Then she left me my only negative( you can see I am still mad ). I watched her items for 2 weeks and she sells both the items I sent her. But then that is ebay.
As a buyer I didn't recieve an item when we had that bad snow so the buyer then said he sent another and to date I haven't received either of the items he said he sent.
And to top it all I have acquired a stalker who watches all my items within minutes of me listing stuff.:eek:

nursingthepennies

i think a few people took advantage of postal chaos over xmas to try their luck at claiming non-delivery. i was amazed to have 3 claims, never having had any before and they were posted at very different locations and going to places not that snowed in.

lovinituk

grunnie wrote: »

I had a buyer say an item went missing, I sent another which also went missing and then gave her a refund. Then she left me my only negative( you can see I am still mad ). I watched her items for 2 weeks and she sells both the items I sent her. But then that is ebay.

Worth having a chat with ebay customer services about this - they might consider removing the neg for you.