Customer says item not delivered, tracking says otherwise

[calico_countess]

I'm a fairly new seller and up until today, everything has been going well. It's definitely a learning curve to get it all right, but I'm okay with that. What happened today is I got a message from Ebay saying one of my sales was reported as not delivered so they are holding my funds. They'd already paid me for this sale, so it's a hold on future sales. Anyway, the tracking shows it was delivered on Monday  (it's Friday now).  I don't understand the process. Doesn't ebay check to see that the tracking showed delivery before opting to hold your funds? 

[brettjet38]

How did you ship the item?

Where did you ship the item to?

Do you have your tracking number?

RESPOND to the request and follow the instructions 

https://www.ebay.ca/help/selling/managing-returns-refunds/help-buyer-item-didnt-receive?id=4116&st=3...

3 min article

Help a buyer with an item they didn't receive

If your buyer hasn’t received their item and the estimated delivery date has passed, they’ll let you know there’s an issue by opening an “item not received” request.

If a buyer opens a request, we’ll send a message with all of the details to your registered email address—it’ll also be available in your eBay Messages.

Once a request is opened, you have 3 business days to resolve the issue. After that time, either you or the buyer can ask us to step in to help resolve the issue.

Resolve an item not received request

[reallynicestamps · Accepted solution]

Put that tracking number into the Claim.

Do NOT trust eBay to do this for you.

YOU must confirm the tracking number and state that delivery has taken place.

You will win the Claim.

Now, customer relations.

Google the address and if it is a house, porch pirates may be involved.

Suggest to the buyer that they check with housemates and neighbours in case the shipment was misdelivered (mantelpiece mail) or carefully put where it couldn't possibly get lost (all too common).

  If it is an apartment, the buyer should check with the supervisor.

And asking at the local post office or postal outlet doesn't hurt, since sometimes carriers will mark packages delivered at the beginning of a shift and then somehow it doesn't get dropped off.  Or the package may have been mis-delivered.*

If worse comes to worst, the customer should be notifying their local police about "porch pirates" operating in their neighbourhood. It won't get the purchase back, but it helps the police build their case.

*UPS gave me a bike like that once. Same house number, bike safely stowed behind closed gate, different street. 

[calico_countess]

It was shipped via UPS to Toronto, Ontario, and yes I have the tracking number. 

I did reply that the tracking states it was delivered.  I can't 'update the tracking info' as it won't allow any changes once delivered, but it wouldn't be a change to the delivery anyway. The other option was to refund, which I'm not inclined to do, and lastly, to 'send the buyer a message'. 

It wasn't a huge amount of money, but still, it's irking me something fierce. 

[calico_countess]

Thanks, I'll give this a go and see what happens. I didn't think I'd need to add the tracking number into the note I sent because I figured eBay would have access to that, but I agree that I don't want to trust that they'll actually look at that. 

[ricarmic]

For some reaseon we have to manually add the tracking number to the case, the "bots" don't do it for us.

You'll need to do this before the end date, 11:59 before the "end date" ie if it says by July 1 you need to do your stuff before 11:59 June 30 as the bots will deal with the case just after midnight on the "due date" (from personal experience).

[pjcdn2005]

In some cases sellers have reported that there is no place to add the tracking as the tracking is already inputted in the request and greyed out.

[ricarmic]

Well that's a good step forward, it makes no sense that we have to put it in manually!!!!

[calico_countess]

Exactly. I ended up sending her a follow up message, putting the tracking number into the message, mentioning that it was delivered, and then suggested she ask her housemates (it appears to be a house with multiple units) if anyone else picked it up. Also suggested she contact the police for a case number, but she responded with 'it says it was delivered, but I never received it. Police won't do anything for something $20 or less'.  I haven't responded again. Time to let ebay do its thing. I can't be held responsible if her item was stolen. 

[recped]

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@ricarmic wrote:

Well that's a good step forward, it makes no sense that we have to put it in manually!!!!

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It makes some sense in two situations, 1) tracking was not entered at time of shipping, either because it just wasn't done OR in my case because the carrier I've used is not integrated into eBay's systems, 2) a rare event but it's possible to enter a tracking number initially and then for some reason use a different tracking number for the actual shipment.

#1 is very common for me, #2 has happened once or twice when a I've packed up an order, the buyer adds another item which required a new label because of the weight change.

[byto253]

And there is no way for you to verify that someone is taking advantage of you.  She should be in a call and trace to UPS. 

[calico_countess]

Thank you. Today was supposed to be ebay's final day to resolve the issue, and today I finally had an option to 'open a claim'. I did as you suggested, inputting the tracking number here and reiterating that the item was delivered and the customer acknowledged same. They closed the claim, with no refund to the buyer. 

[byto253]

Congrats, glad it finally worked out.