I offered a buyer an option to ship with tracking, he refused and a week later filed a case for item

[ballistico01]

Shipping from Canada to US... I offered my buyer tracking at extra cost and he refused..a week or so later filed a claim for not receiving his item. In my experience items being lost from Canada to US are very very rare... Ebay decision went against me including all emay fees. Grossly unfair practise.

Shipping from Canada with tracking to anywhere other then Canada is quite expensive and if all Canadian sellers shipped with tracking ( im talking lower value items) no one would ever want to buy anything as shipping fees would be way too high. ebay knows this I am sure..

[pacificwinds6875]

I am sorry to hear this has "bitten" you.  We all have seen this happen and we all have had to cough up the money and feel that a great injustice has happened.

I have always wished that there was an option for buyers - that WANT super cheap shipping - to be able to click a button and the deal would be- you get the very inexpensive shipping method for your purchase BUT you waive all your rights to claim for late or undelivered item.

 I know this is a ridiculous wish and I'm sure that would just create so many more problems than it would cure.....but I have some low priced items too and there is no way I would feel right telling my German, Croatian or USA customer that their $9.99 clarinet screws will cost $12 to a whopping $48 to ship!!! I just hope, cross my fingers and feel great when they let me know that they received their item.

For those that do open a case and "win", I refund, BLOCK them for life and move on.  

I had to stick to my guns today and LOSE a $85 sale due to the fact I would NOT send that item to Israel on Small Pack Air (not trackable and not insured). He/she didn't want to pay the shipping cost that it really does cost - so - cancelled the sale. I have been burned on high priced items so never again, ever! FYI: I have "lost" more packages to Israel than any other country using non-trackable services. All the trackable ones get there and quite quickly too. weird

The postal system globally loses about 1% of all packages for real.

[aubreyclay56]

ive lost a few item that way trying to be a nice guy only to have someone email and ask if i had tracking on the item and as i didnt they jumped on it and opened a case for two items,wow such nice people give them an awesome deal on shipping and they want all there money back,oh well only lost 40.00 bucks and what i didnt like was ebay gave me two defects nice of them to jump on the wagon and double screw me hard to believe but yess be carefull giving cheap shipping and shame on ebay for giving defects when you refund on scam artists

[momcqueen]

As a seller, the choice of how and where to ship is yours and yours alone. Don't allow yourself to be browbeat by buyers who are well and fully aware that untracked means, potentially, free. There are now very few items or locations to which my store here is prepared to ship untracked and that for me is less about theft and more about defects gained for items marked Shipped Late when they were in fact shipped same-day but without an acceptance scan or tracking to prove it.

The ebay members who are too, ahem, thrifty to pay for tracking tend also to be the ones who are also too impatient to wait for their item to be delivered or, worse, more than happy to file an Item Not Received when they realize you, as the seller, have no way to prove they received what you sent. Just don't go there, don't leave yourself open to that kind of abuse. If you can, find a way to bundle your items to increase the value of the purchase so that paying for shipping seems logical or try to roll in the cost to your asking price and offer free shipping. 

Also, set your blocks so that buyers with 'reports filed against them' are prohibited from purchasing from you. I have no idea whether this function actually works or not but at least it's something, even if a placebo effect to make you feel better. And use that Report button on anyone who you think is trying to swindle you. If enough sellers do so and the buyer is indeed a swindler, eventually it has to catch up with them, right? 

While it is true that parcels are rarely truly lost, they are often held in Customs for no good reason or just inexplicably delayed. I've had some tracked orders show odd delays lately, both to the USA and abroad. And there has been a few instances where mail trucks had accidents, or whatever. If you have a low tolerance for risk, as do I, tracking and insurance is best. 

As a fellow seller, I feel your pain. But remember, it's your stuff, your items that will be lost, your money that will be gone if the order is INR so it's your choice whether or not to ship tracked. You are the Captain of the Ship. Pun intended. The buyers who don't like that are probably the ones not worth keeping. 

Best of luck as you carry forward.

[femmefan1946]

Shipping from Canada with tracking to anywhere other then Canada is quite expensive and if all Canadian sellers shipped with tracking ( im talking lower value items) no one would ever want to buy anything as shipping fees would be way too high.

I disagree.

Most Canada Post parcel services include Confirmation of Delivery at least to the USA.

https://www.canadapost.ca/cpotools/apps/far/business/findARate?execution=e1s1

For example; a parcel 30x25x15 cm and weighing 625 grams

would cost

$16.65 to the USA (BC to CT) by Small Packet.

$20.19 by Tracked Packet

$29.62 by Expedited mail. (Which is too expansive unless the buyer needs it yesterday.)

These are counter rates. Paypal shipping labels give you discounts from 5% to 17% off counter rates depending on the service.

All three rates give you delivery updates and Confirmation of Delivery.

https://www.canadapost.ca/web/en/pages/parcelscon/default.page

And remember with the weak loonie, both Small Packet and Tracked Packet cost less than the $13-15 USD Flat Rate you are charging at the moment.

I agree with mjwl, who ships internationally some very bulky stuff, by the way, check her listings, that you should never allow a customer to demand a cheaper and less secure shipping service than the one you have chosen for you own security.

I rarely use tracked services, because my cheap paperbacks don't warrant it, but I do practise Cookie Jar Insurance.

This just means adding a few virtual pennies to my asking price (some sellers include those pennies in the shipping and handling instead).

The virtual pennies go in a virtual Cookie Jar.

If I get a claim, and as you say, transit losses are vanishingly rare, I take the refund out of the Cookie Jar. Some sellers even find they make a little money on this self-insurance, just like real insurance companies.

Certainly we save on shipping costs, which may mean we get more sales.

I do sympathize with your distress over this loss. It's always painful-- even with a cookie jar.

[femmefan1946]

Israel is bad for this. Too many American emigres who don't really understand that they are not in the States any more.

Not sure where you get the 1% figure.

I've sold everything from cast iron wood stoves to postage stamps by mail for over 30 years, and I would put the percentage much lower than that to First World countries.

But once you include the Third World (South America, Africa, former USSR, Near East) the postal systems are much less efficient.