canada post says item delivered but I never got it

[redqube]

Sorry,  pressed post to fast.

This is my message:

I bought an item recently from a seller in Vancouver. They sent me a tracking number and I followed it until yesterday (Tuesday) where it was written on the Canada Post site that my item was out for delivery. I didn't get it yesterday and today Canada Post says delivered !  I never got it. No note in the mailbox to say that it is at the post office either. This is the first time this happens to me.

Canada Post says wait 24 hours and then let seller know the item wasn't delivered and they have to complain to Canada Post.

Anything else I should do ? If seller starts a claim with the post office, how long can it take before a settlement is reached ? I wouldn't want to lose any money in this. Thanks.

[pinetreecottage]

If the seller didn't buy "signature required" when delivered, the postman may have left it at your door.  Tracking is not the same as proof of delivery.  Ask the seller how they shipped it.  Good luck.

[reallynicestamps]

Go to your local postal outlet and ask for it if you don't actually get it tomorrow.

The carrier may have forgotten to leave the usual notice or it may have blown away.

And make a careful search of the area where the carrier is likely to have left an unattended parcel. Inside a storage bench for example.

If neither of those works and no one in your household remembers bringing it in and putting it where it couldn't possibly get lost, then report the loss to your Post Office (not the outlet). The postmaster needs to know if there is a problem either with a porch thief or an employee.

In addition, especially if the purchase was valuable, get a police report. Again, even if this doesn't retrieve your parcel, it helps the police to know there is porch theft going on.

And the police report will be useful when you make a claim on your household insurance.

But if the PO tracking shows delivery, neither eBay nor the seller will refund your loss.

[redqube]

Thanks for the replies. I look in the box late last night and it was there !  I know for sure that it was left there by somebody who had it delivered at their door. The truck never passes between 6 and 10 PM.  So it was left somewhere else and whoever got it had the decency to leave it at my door. This happened at least 3 times in the last year with regular mail.

And no, the sender did not request a signature.

[afantiques]

That is as it should be, a little help. But the downside of tracking stuff is the way the buyer gets the sticky end of the dung shovel if there is any human error at the delivery point.

It may be my age, but I'd rather believe the buyer when they say that an item showing delivered did not arrive, and although I'd suggest the simple checks above, I'd refund the buyer. People do mess up. The computer system is fed by error making humans (and even occasionally by error making machines) and in my experience most people are pretty honest.

I occasionally despair at threads on the US boards about similar situations where the poster's assumption is far too often that the buyer is liar and that sellers should ignore their cries because ebay will take the computer's word for the truth.

[reallynicestamps]

This is why I am so grumpy about buyers who get their knickers in a twist about tracking.

Tracking is a Seller Protection.

If the shipment shows delivered the seller wins the NotReceived claim.

It doesn't move things any faster.

It doesn't protect from damage in transit.

All it does for the buyer is cause anxiety when the item shows delivery before he actually has the parcel, or worse, he sees a shipment moving by 'hub and spoke' forwarding.