I haven't received my item/ or Item not received case: the form letters I use

[ricarmic]

I've seen a number of newer folks asking questions, and I've posted these in bits and pieces before so I thought it made sense to put them out there altogether.... (the old timers here will have seen these before)

Note that I sell in the stamp category, different categories and types of material may have to be handled differently.

While they won't work for everyone, I've adjusted these over the last 15 years and for me they tend to work reasonably well in most situations.

If you find any of these wordings of use, please feel free to re-use whatever wordings work for you in your situation.

A couple of my general rules:

-My main goal in creating these as form letters was to avoid writing what I want to write back, because it is frustrating, the buyer may not have waited very long or whatever the reason. By using the form letters, it helps make sure I write something professional and it makes the process more consistent from my end.

The note when the  buyer has already opened a case:

Hi BUYERNAME! Your stamps were mailed as promised on DATE MAILED. They do not have a tracking number, to have had one would have added an extra $15 to the shipping cost!. I am refunding your money out of my own funds now. If the stamps do eventually arrive, just let me know so I can send another invoice so you can pay for them again (small lots like this are self insured so I am out 100% if they do not show up). It is very rare for packages to never arrive, over 99% of the time they just take longer than one would expect to get there. Sorry for the frustrations around this lot, hopefully it will still show up. Have a great day!

The note when the buyer has sent an "I haven't received my item" or a regular email message asking - no case yet:

Hi BUYERNAME! THX for your note! Your stamps were mailed as promised on DATE MAILED. Unfortunately they do not have a tracking number, to have had a tracking number would have added another $15 to $35 to the shipping cost! I certainly understand your frustration awaiting their arrival, it is a frustration to us both! Unfortunately there seems to be no way to predict what letters will take longer than others! My personal belief is that it is customs that adds the unpredictable delay. Please note that you are covered if your stamps do not arrive so you do not need to worry, if they do not eventually show up, you will receive a full refund. It is unfortunate, but not uncommon, for lots like this going to BUYER COUNTRY to take 3 or 4 or even more weeks to arrive. If it gets to the point that you think it has been long enough, please just let me know via another message like this and I will refund your money out of my own funds. Assuming the stamps do eventually arrive after that, just let me know and I will send another invoice so you can pay for them again (small lots like this are self insured so I am out 100% if they do not show up). It is very rare for packages to never arrive, over 99% of the time they just take longer than one would expect to get there. I would appreciate it very much if you are ok waiting another couple weeks before we believe the package is lost. Please confirm you are ok with this when you have a chance and thank you very much in advance for your patience to date and continued patience while they make their journey! Have a great day!

[briar_rose_pixie17]

This totally helps me out. I'm horrible when it comes to wording. I am not a professional seller and don't do this for a business, just pay, pack, ship, receive, silence. That's all I want/do. Query: how to tell if buyer is lying about receiving cheap $3 item with no tracking? 9/10 times they get money and item so what was the point of going through eBay?

[ricarmic]

Hi Briar... Different  selling categories have different risks of bad customers. If I recall, you received some suggestions in a different thread on this board regarding some of your lots (picturing groups where only one is for sale) and some of those selling styles may have frustrated the buyers, which probably would help encourage them to misuse the system. A current lot (Byzantine stuff) shows a bunch of items and in the description it mentions that they get to only pick 4. In my experience few people read the written descriptions anymore, remember many buyers, and likely lots of yours, are buying stuff  via their cell phones and it is a lot of work for them to even see the description. So assume the buyer is buying based only on your title and pictures and that they have not read anything else.  If they buy it and discover the difference after they receive it you'll get "item not as described" or false "lost in mail" type situations....which will cost you time and $$$$.

To cover valid losses, you may have noticed other posters talking about "cookie jar insurance" which is simply adding a bit extra to each lot to help offset the losses in the mail.

Hopefully this helps, I suggest you change the Byzantine lot to only picture only exactly what the person actually gets....

[femmefan1946]

ricarmic- Those are excellent letters. I hope you don't need them more than once or twice a year.

My only edit would be to lose the exclamation marks, but that may be because I write for government publications and we are not supposed to get excited.

[ricarmic]

Hi Femme, sadly I use these 2 to 3 times a month, I have a lot of buyers from Latin America, Asia, Middle Eastern countries and the need for these is a fairly common situation.... regarding the exclamation marks, that makes me chuckle, I tend to be exclamation mark crazy, it is all I can do to restrict myself to using them only one at a time! In the olden days I'd have had between 2 and 5 exclamation marks where you see only one now!!!! 😉 (In seriousness it is a good suggestion I will keep it in mind)

[realjazz-123]

Nice letter which should help in problem cases. In my opinion, an important change would be to say NOT insured instead of self insured.  In reality self insured means NOT insured in terms of source of $$ paid for loss. Also it is less confusing.

[ricarmic]

Realj: that is a good point. Self insured is more a "seller to seller" conversation term than a "seller to buyer" term. I think I will change it as you suggest and see if it makes any difference, I doubt it will. My main emphasis always was the "so I am out 100% if they do not show up" part so the buyer does not think that if I give them their money back, I recovered it through insurance from CP or whoever, which means they would be much less likely to let me know they got the package as they'd assume I wasn't out anything.

[ricarmic]

Ooops I see upon re-reading my "if it makes any difference, I doubt it will" may be misinterpreted, I mean that I don't think it will make the response to it any worse, if anything it will make it better...