Anyone Else Experiencing A Ridiculous Amount Of INR Claims ?

[bb_cool_stuff]

Haven't been on here for awhile.

 INR Claims are now over the top, Four INR Claims in the past two days. Seems a New Angle is filing direct through PayPal for unauthorized purchases.

 Clothing is a razor thin profit category & Canadian Sellers just cannot afford the 17.00 tracking expense & feel US Buyers are taking advantage once they see no tracking number submitted.

 Very frustrating as once I refund these four claims I will have refunded 600. cdn with four months left to go in the year.

 **bleep** frustrating.

[supersavingsstore]

Do you ship with Lettermail or some tracked service? I ship with Lettermail (my business would be impossible without it), and INR claims are frequent. Unfortunately, there's almost nothing that can be done about it, as it your word verses theirs, plus Canada Post genuinely loses some letters.

[pjcdn2005]

Hi there, nice to see you!

USPS has been having some issues lately and are quite slow in some areas so that could be part of the problem.   If you use small packet USA, you can enter the URL on eBay and sometimes it will show scans once it is in the US. It must be some sort of internal scan as it won’t show up on either of the postal sites but often shows on eBay.  I don’t know how long It has been doing that but it can come in handy,

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

I have not, but I've also temporarily stopped shipping untracked to the US. If anything, I think Canadian buyers are MORE understanding of shipping delays right now than they otherwise would be. In normal times, if a package takes 2 weeks in province, the occasional customer might panic and think their item is lost. Now, even know lettermail is mostly back to normal, if a package is delayed, people assume it is because of the pandemic, and not because it is lost.

If you want to be covered by not authorized claims, take a picture of your item at the mail box or post office. Make sure the address is visible. Attach it to a shipping confirmation message to the buyer.

You can also consider having the worker at the Canada Post stamp your package with the date, and then you take a picture of the dated package. I don't know 100 percent, but this might cover you in the same way for a Not Authorized case. It seems for Not Authorized, Paypal doesn't necessarily need actual tracking, just reasonable proof of shipment.

If you use small packet air, you can try copying the UR######### code from the label manually into the tracking info. Before the pandemic, this always resulted in the package being tracked. One reason I stopped (temporarily) using Small Packet Air was because some orders were taking 40+ days, and this method of covering tracking stopped working. Buyers weren't malicious, but they generally did not believe that their package wasn't lost when it had been 40+ days, and there were no tracking updates. For what it is worth, when packages arrived, MOST buyers messaged me to repay.

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

I would be interested to hear if Small Packet Air scans are working again. Does anybody know?

They stopped working for almost every package sometime in the middle of the pandemic.

I had way too many issues with Small Packet Air. It got to the point, where the amount of time I was spending on additional customer service, as well as the money I was losing to refunds, wasn't worth the additional uptick in US sales that being able to offer shipping for 5 CAD cheaper brought me. Not to mention, I don't feel right about shipping someone something that might take 40-50 days.

[reallynicestamps]

If you are refunding $600 on four Claims, then the average payment was $150.

Frankly, and I know I am second guessing here, $150 is enough to make $20 or so for tracked shipping worthwhile.

Would you customer balk at $170 with Free Shipping which would allow you to use tracking?

And you can reduce your cost of shipping (but not your labour cost) by using discount postage stamps purchased here on eBay. Combined with SfSB discounts at the PO counter, that can make your $20 shipping cost drop to $15 or less.

In terms of your question, no, and I almost never use tracking unless I am forced to use Parcel rates for a bulky shipment.

But my stamps, books and sewing patterns are a vastly different customer base than yours.

feel US Buyers are taking advantage once they see no tracking number submitted.

The Small Packet glitch, which worked in the favour of Canadian sellers aside, have you tried putting the invoice number for your US shipments into the "tracking" slot,even though it does not track anything?

If the scammers want to scam you, you may as well play them too.

[reallynicestamps]

Putting on my retail hat....

I notice some of your tees have deep deep discounts.

Prices cut from $195 to $97 .

Could I suggest that you not give such big discounts?

You are telling your customers that your items are not worth what you said they were and that you are desperate to move them out.

This attracts only the bottom feeders and that may be the source of your problems.

Raise your prices.

You may get fewer sales, but at a better profit margin and sell to a better class of customer.

And if the "real" value of the tees is the"sale" price of $97, don't pretend they are $195 tees.  It's still a high enough price to attract the "aspirational" buyer. 

Boy, that's a lot of quote marks.

[travis7s]

I haven't had any INR this year and the majority of my shipments are untracked these days. One thing I did since the pandemic broke was change all my shipping options to "economy" which gives a much longer wait time before someone can file a claim. 

[travis7s]

One more thing, if you are shipping with Small Packet USA, input the "URxxxxxxx" tracking into eBay. There is a good chance this will win you those cases!

[marnotom!]

I’m confused. Are you getting hit with Item Not Received claims, or Unauthorized Purchase claims? You seem to be referring to both, but they’re different things.

[recped]

---

@travis7s wrote:

One more thing, if you are shipping with Small Packet USA, input the "URxxxxxxx" tracking into eBay. There is a good chance this will win you those cases!

---

You can only "win" if that tracking number actually shows delivery and if your tracking is showing delivered then you won't have any INR claims to worry about!

As far as the OP's question, depends on what you consider "ridiculous". Since the days of Covid I've had a few INR claims which is unusual since I rarely get even one per year in normal times. On the other hand when the international air transport systems are in chaos and postal systems are both overloaded with packages and suffering from manpower issue due to infected employees you just have to expect many more delivery issues than normal.

The exact same thing happened during the Iceland volcanoes about 10 years ago when all air traffic in Europe was shut down for about a month. It also happened in the aftermath of 9/11 but fortunately that was a very short disruption and did not have major impacts.

[bb_cool_stuff]

Sorry late in responding.

 Had never seen a Unauthorized Purchase previously, but was hit with two yesterday within an hour of one another through PayPal, all others are INR Claims through eBay.

 Have tried URL Numbers & picture taking at the PO, none stand up if a claim is launched.

 Pricier items are shipped with tracking, majority of claims are under thirty dollars.

 Has been an ongoing issue since the turn of the New Year.

 Bottom Line, no tracking equals free items.

[reallynicestamps]

Bottom Line, no tracking equals free items.

Yeah. I suspect that is partly your demographic.  My seamsters, readers and philatelists tend to actually like to read and follow directions.

Different mindsets.

Follow up on those Unauthorized Purchases. Often they are an error  (or sonny boy using mummy's card without permission).  Showing what you sold and the address can help, although if you are not tracking, cross all your fingers and toes.

If it is a "without permission" situation, mummy may understand and drop the case in favour of yelling at the kid.

[2nd-time-around-jewelry]

I have actually been able to use the small packet URxxxxxxxCA tracking number on at least 5 items in the last few months to prove that the item was delivered. But it took weeks for the tracking to update.  A few items were held at Los Angeles & San Francisco for 2-3 weeks before moving on to the buyers home. But I can say that tracking number has saved me quite a few times recently from any claims against non delivery.

[teenytrinkets]

It's insane how many US buyers claim an item hasn't been delivered when it has (I've "caught" two trying to pull this on me!). I'm convinced some specifically look for Canadian buyers using small packet air (sometimes paying more than American ebay sellers!) so they can file their claim afterwards. We all know that they can do this as much as they want, and ebay will do nothing 🙄

[esclyons]

an unauthorized payment, is in fact a charge back.  and they are Always filed through Paypal, as they tell their credit card company they didn't o.k. the purchase.. Funny thing is they never dispute that they received the item/s,  and the only way to win the case, is to prove that they received it, then you will at least get covered by seller protection.. if you can prove they received the item you will get your money back, But the sad point is they will get to keep the item, and not pay for it..

[recped]

---

@esclyons wrote:

an unauthorized payment, is in fact a charge back.  and they are Always filed through Paypal, as they tell their credit card company they didn't o.k. the purchase.. Funny thing is they never dispute that they received the item/s,  and the only way to win the case, is to prove that they received it, then you will at least get covered by seller protection.. if you can prove they received the item you will get your money back, But the sad point is they will get to keep the item, and not pay for it..

---

You only need proof of SHIPPING (delivery doesn't matter) to win an Unauthorized Use Claim with PayPal.

https://www.paypal.com/ca/webapps/mpp/ua/useragreement-full?locale.x=en_CA#seller-protection

Unauthorized Transactions additional requirements

To be eligible for PayPal’s Seller Protection program for a buyer’s Unauthorized Transaction claim, you must meet both the basic requirements and the additional requirements listed below:

• The payment must have been made in connection with a transaction where the buyer logged into their PayPal account to complete the transaction. That is, transactions that you complete, on the buyer’s behalf pursuant to an agreement with that buyer, where PayPal is stored as the payment method (such as automatic payments) do not qualify for protection from Unauthorized Transactions under PayPal’s Seller Protection program.

• You must provide proof of shipment or delivery as described below unless the payment was for an item that was listed for sale in a classified advertisement and you completed the transaction in person.

[recped]

---

@reallynicestamps wrote:

Bottom Line, no tracking equals free items.

Yeah. I suspect that is partly your demographic.  My seamsters, readers and philatelists tend to actually like to read and follow directions.

Different mindsets.

Follow up on those Unauthorized Purchases. Often they are an error  (or sonny boy using mummy's card without permission).  Showing what you sold and the address can help, although if you are not tracking, cross all your fingers and toes.

If it is a "without permission" situation, mummy may understand and drop the case in favour of yelling at the kid.

---

Same here! More than half of my shipments are sent without tracking and other than currently under the pandemic I have had more INR claims for shipments WITH tracking than I have had with shipments without tracking.

Tracking only protects you from dishonest buyers, they exist without a doubt but they are not universal as some seem to claim.

Tracking does virtually nothing to ensure actual delivery and given the additional cost it is insanely expensive "insurance" (that doesn't even work).

As far as buyer who claim INR when tracking shows delivery, maybe they have the same situation I have, about 10% of my incoming mail is delivered to the house down the street which has a very similar number (225 vs 255). Fortunately they have lived there a long time and they bring the mail to me just as I bring them their mail I find in my mailbox which happens even more frequently.

A few weeks ago I had one arrive from the Bank Of Nova Scotia, meant for them but it had MY house number on it. Reminds me of the fiasco with Bell when my internet went down, they sent out techs TWICE and both times they were told to go to 225 instead of 255.

[esclyons]

not true, proof of delivery is the ultimate  proof,   to win, not proof of shipping.. i have had proof of shipping, and still had buyers say they didn't receive it,, but proof of delivery did..  you can take that to the bank, because i have had to, a couple of times..

[zee-chan]

Knock on wood, I haven't had any claims opened against me for the past two years. Majority of my sales go with letter-post and small packet air.