Return label from USA buyer back to Canada seller

[philestore]

Hi everyone,

If I want to accept a return from a USA buyer back into Canada and print a shipping label (I pay for the shipping fees), what would you suggest? I've seen a few threads and it looked like I can't do this from eBay or Paypal. Is this true? What if the item comes back damaged or the buyer just puts nothing in the box? In this case would I have any kind of protection?

Thanks!

[philestore]

@philestore wrote:

... in the particular case here, we're talking about the most expensive ...

 Talking about the 800$ jacket of course I don't really care about the helmet...

[pjcdn2005]

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@philestore wrote:

@snoopwiz

How did you open your Stamps.com account? I just tried to open one, but they're asking me for a shipping/billing address in the USA. Can I just put some random address there?

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I don't have a stamps account but you should have a US address for your reshipper and use that to open the account?

[pjcdn2005]

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@philestore wrote:

@momcqueen

Yeah... the jacket... 1200 USD full retail, he bought it for 677 and he's still not happy... lol I did not know those things were public 🙂

Well, he's pretending not as described, which is not true. I am planning on calling eBay Monday to cut this short and tell them that he invented this. However, I want to be ready in the case that they take his side and force me to refund.

I am not even sure that I would like him to ship it back... What would I do if it was damaged or an empty box...

@reallynicestamps

I understand the cookie jar insurance concept, and I am usually good at it. This is why very often I even ship without a tracking number... Except that this time, it had to fall on the item that is worth 60 times the average value of my usual listings...

Maybe I am being over-cautious because of many bad experiences in the retail industry...

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You said that you are going to phone eBay but what sort of proof do you have that it is actually a remorse return?  Unless you have something very specific in messages that indicates that it is really a remorse return, they will rule in the buyers favour because it will just become a he said she said scenario. And if you do ask them to make the decision and you lose, you will receive an unresolved case defect.   There is even the possibility that eBay will refund him outright without requiring a return. I don't know how often that happens but it is always a possibility, especially for an international transaction because they can't simply send a label to the buyer if you refuse to do so.

Honestly, the people on these boards don't have tons of experience with this type of thing so it might be a good idea for you to post on the US seller central discussion board with more details explaining what the buyer's original complaint was, what it changed it etc etc. There are many more posters and some are quite familiar with situations like this. If I was in your situation, I would ask for their opinion before I talked to eBay.

btw, tomorrow is a holiday in the US so there might not be many US reps around. - Martin Luther King Day

[philestore]

@pjcdn2005 wrote:

@philestore wrote:

@snoopwiz

How did you open your Stamps.com account? I just tried to open one, but they're asking me for a shipping/billing address in the USA. Can I just put some random address there?

I don't have a stamps account but you should have a US address for your reshipper and use that to open the account?

I just tried this. Almost worked, but they asked for a second address because the reshipper uses a PO Box...

Thanks for all the advice.

[reallynicestamps]

Okay-- try this.

Look for Yellow Pages USA or dot COM.

Enter the buyer's real name and his town.

You may get his street address along with his phone number.

Actually if you phone him (eBay will give you his contact info and give him yours at the same time), you can ask for that information.

Remember you are trying to give him his money back and are searching for the most efficient way to do it.

Also, smoke and mirrors again, it is harder to cheat someone you have had a personal interaction with, even just a phone conversation, than a faceless online ID.

[philestore · Accepted solution]

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS HERE

So I called eBay and did not have to return the item because I explained my point that the buyer's complaint was "remorse" and not "not as described". They closed the case.

BUT, for everyone who will be landing on this post in the future and searching for solutions on how to pay for a return label from USA to Canada, here is everything I found that could work after a few hours of research:

• Shipgooder.com... Did not try it, but it's an Ontarian company and from what is described on the website, it appears that you can buy shipping labels with many carriers and put any "from" and "to" addresses in USA and Canada. You can also buy insurance for the parcel. I asked them a question with the online form and they answered very fast. Seems like a good company and prices seem competitive.
• Secureship.ca... Did not try. Looks similar to Shipgooder. Did not find any street address on the website. Could be worth a try.
• Chit Chats Express, solution #1... If you originally shipped with Chit Chats, then if your customer still has the box and label in decent order and did not throw them away, ask him to write "return to sender" on the shipping label. USPS will bring the parcel back to Chit Chats' US PO Box and then Chit Chats will bring that back in Canada and charge you a 5$ fee.
• Chit Chats Express, solution #2... If you shipped with Chit Chats, but your customer destroyed the packaging and/or shipping label, the you can call Chit Chats and they will create a return shipping label for you to their US address. Could be more expensive than the "return to sender" solution. Forgot to ask them.
• Shippo... Like momcqueen suggested above, Shippo offers returns labels, but you have to have originally shipped with them.
• Stamps.com... Many users on the forums suggest to open a Stamps.com account because Stamps.com lets you print USPS labels with your chosen "from" and "to " addresses. When trying to open an account, they asked me for a US address and they wanted a real address, not a PO Box. I could not put Chit Chats' PO Box for this reason. But with a little imagination, maybe someone can find a US address to open the account, like maybe the customer that is returning the item's address. The last possible problem would be when paying your membership with your credit card, they are asking for your address and there is no field to put in a Canadian address. Don't know if this will end up as a declined transaction if you put a US address that is not the same as the registered address for your credit card. But like discussed a few times on these forums, there is a free Stamps.com account for eBay members... You have to have a promo code I think. Maybe by registering like this they don't ask to enter a credit card. There is also a 4-week free trial. Maybe if you just take the trial they don't ask for a credit card either.
• Accepting returns by default... Like suggested by reallynicestamps, accepting returns could be a solution that would prevent this kind of problem from happening in the first place. If you accept returns (buyer pays return fees), then maybe if the buyer has a "remorse" return, he will be more willing to just pay the return fee and return the merchandise himself and not try to invent a story of "item not as described" that could force you to provide a return label if he wins the claim.
• Chit Chats Express "possible" solution... A possible solution that I did not try and that I really don't know if it would work is the following... With your Chit Chats account, create a shipping label with your own address as the recipient (to) address. The shipping price will be more expensive, because you will be charged International shipping from Chit Chats' US address to your Canadian address. BUT, I am really not sure if this will work. First because I don't know if Chit Chats has to scan the label first to validate it. Second, because the "from" address will be a border city in the USA, and the real "from" address will be somewhere else in the USA. Don't know if USPS will accept a parcel that displays a "from" address miles away from where it is actually dropped. Try at your own risk!

So, some of these are actual solutions that work for sure, and some are untested solutions that have a good chance of working. I did a few hours of research in case my dispute would require me to print a return label and I thought that sharing them could benefit someone with the same issue in the future.

If anyone tries any of these solutions and can confirm that they work or don't work, or if anyone finds another solution to print a return label from USA back to Canada, please reply to this discussion. I think it's worth updating, because by looking at the other forum discussions, this is a recurring issue and the solutions provided are very often unsatisfying.