SHIPPING DELAYS RESULTING IN CLAIMS

[shootoutliquidation]

Hello 

To All Sellers I hope your all taking good care of yourselves and loved ones . Is anyone shipping from canada to the usa getting alot of requests for refunds due to  items not arriving within the ebay stated time? 

[cottagewoman]

And no, with ChitChats shipped via USPS directly (not buying a label through them but from eBay) I've made several claims for insurance (priority mail) directly with USPS no problem. Those claims were for damaged items.

[recped]

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@cottagewoman wrote:
Would also like to know how to get paid - one claim after 3 weeks via USPS parcel select (I use ChitChats). Refunded buyer 29.99. Buyer contacted me 4 days later got package would like to pay. I can't send them a PP invoice because their email address is now removed in the eBay transaction (after 14 days). Don't want to ask for their email in an eBay message and incur the wrath of eBay police thinking something nefarious nos going on. Sent them my mobile number in a message but haven't heard back yet. Any suggestions? tyler@ebay an ideas?? Thx.

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If you have the original "your item sold" email the buyer email addy is there.

If you have the original PayPal payment notice the buyer email addy is in there (it's in the headers as the "reply to" field).

If you go to PayPal and "send invoice" you can enter a buyer name as well as their email address, since you had a transaction with the buyer it should auto-complete as soon as you start entering the buyer name.

[ricarmic]

I think it was mentioned that too much time had passed to be able to get the email address (in either location). This has happened to me as well.

What I have done is create a new "special lot for partofbuyername" ebay item that they can just buy again. You will lose the ebay fees again but that is about as close as you can get as far as I know.

As a note, my new "refund" process involves me writing down the email address and phone number when I refund for this very scenario. That served me very well for the MIA repayment from Toronto today, I had the written down email address from when it was still available.

[shallow_karl]

From the BBC's website:

Stuck at home amid the virus outbreak, many Canadians are taking their shopping online. Canada Post says it is processing and delivering parcels at levels only experienced during the busiest weeks of the Christmas season.

On Monday, the national postal service delivered more than 1.8 million parcels to Canadians.

It is now warning of delays as the surge in demand collides with new safety measures meant to maintain social distancing within processing facilities.

[cottagewoman]

Thought about the special listing idea - but if PayPal is used then the item has to ship. Can't enter the tracking for the original shipment eBay won't allow duplicates. How do you keep from getting a no scan strike? Thx.

[ricarmic]

Tracking isn't required to avoid a late shipping charge.

I only send a small portion of my items tracked.

If you list a special listing for the buyer, when they buy it and pay, you can just mark it as shipped at that time (use "mark as shipped" in the drop down options in seller hub for the item instead of using "add tracking"). The only way it would count as a strike against you is if the buyer later says that it never arrived by XXX date. They wouldn't do this because they already have the item, unless they are confused by the situation, but I think that would be a pretty small risk.

I think that you don't even have to ever mark it as shipped, but then you'd probably be getting messages from ebay about it being late etc for a while in the seller hub.

[tyler@ebay]

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@cottagewoman wrote:
Would also like to know how to get paid - one claim after 3 weeks via USPS parcel select (I use ChitChats). Refunded buyer 29.99. Buyer contacted me 4 days later got package would like to pay. I can't send them a PP invoice because their email address is now removed in the eBay transaction (after 14 days). Don't want to ask for their email in an eBay message and incur the wrath of eBay police thinking something nefarious nos going on. Sent them my mobile number in a message but haven't heard back yet. Any suggestions? tyler@ebay an ideas?? Thx.

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Hi @cottagewoman - if you aren't able to find the email address the way that @recped suggested I think there's another way too. Was the buyer's message a brand new one or was it a reply to the transaction thread? 

If it was attached to the original transaction you and the buyer should be able to exchange contact information without incident (because we can tell you had a transaction in the past). Even if it was triggered for review it would be clear what you and the buyer were doing and no violation would be assessed on your account. 

Thanks!

[recped]

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@ricarmic wrote:

I think it was mentioned that too much time had passed to be able to get the email address (in either location). This has happened to me as well.

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Yes it's been mentioned a few times BUT it's not true!

The two places I mentioned (PayPal and eBay emails) contain the email address rather than hotlinks to the email address as found in My eBay or the Seller Hub. They never "go away" unless you delete the email.

I can look at Your Item Sold or You Have Been Paid messages from 10 or 15 years ago and they are there.

For kicks I just checked a couple of messages from 2011, email addresses are included and still there. The only way eBay could remove them is to hack my email server and delete the messages.

[ricarmic]

Well you had me confused for a bit.

I went to the Toronto MIA guy's paypal payment email. There is no email address anywhere in the email that is visible. (the email comes from "service@intl.paypal.com ")

I was about to come back here and report the same when I had the idea to do a "reply" to that email. When I did that, then I could see the buyer's email address, the service@intl must be overlayed to make it appear the email address is not there!

So one learns something every day,  now I don't have to bother writing down all the email addresses of potential MIA folks!!!!

[ypdc_dennis]

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@ricarmic wrote:

I went to the Toronto MIA guy's paypal payment email. There is no email address anywhere in the email that is visible. (the email comes from "service@intl.paypal.com ")

I was about to come back here and report the same when I had the idea to do a "reply" to that email. When I did that, then I could see the buyer's email address, the service@intl must be overlayed to make it appear the email address is not there!

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Not quite.

The actual Return email address is buried in the message header which many email programs hide these days.  For example, it can only be seen in gmail if you select "Show original" which reveals all of the code that makes email work (also useful to look at when you get a suspect email).

And as you discovered, hitting reply will show the return email address.

-..-

[recped]

Yeah I use Thunderbird (Mozilla) as an email client, by default it displays the full headers.

[cottagewoman]

Thanks to tyler@ebay and others! Yes the messages have been based off the completed eBay transaction. I did finally find the buyer email address in PayPal so reached out but no word back yet - I'll send another message via eBay messaging again now I know certain language won't create any issues.

Unfortunately I delete all the your item sold emails I receive - there's such a flood of messages all the time hitting my mail box. I'll have to put a filter in place to move those to a specific folder so I can hang onto them for a while!

[ricarmic]

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@ricarmic wrote:

Well you had me confused for a bit.

I went to the Toronto MIA guy's paypal payment email. There is no email address anywhere in the email that is visible. (the email comes from "service@intl.paypal.com ")

I was about to come back here and report the same when I had the idea to do a "reply" to that email. When I did that, then I could see the buyer's email address, the service@intl must be overlayed to make it appear the email address is not there!

So one learns something every day,  now I don't have to bother writing down all the email addresses of potential MIA folks!!!!

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Well this discovery for me has the potential to make 2 buyers happy! I have a returned package from Dubai ($15) and 2 returned packages from Russia ($200) that took so long to come back that I couldn't use ebay at all to contact them. The "reply" has worked and I've sent them emails to advise I can refund if this email is still the right place to send the money.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

@ricarmic  

@cottagewoman 

Should the procedure to re-bill a customer and a seller get paid for a truly completed transaction really be this difficult? eBay, are you listening?

-Lotz

[ricarmic]

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Well this discovery for me has the potential to make 2 buyers happy! I have a returned package from Dubai ($15) and 2 returned packages from Russia ($200) that took so long to come back that I couldn't use ebay at all to contact them. The "reply" has worked and I've sent them emails to advise I can refund if this email is still the right place to send the money.

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Wow that was fast the Dubai fellow has already replied and advised of an adjustment to the address that might work (this kind of thing happens a lot with UAE destined packages). He is aok to wait until the postal service is opened up again so this one turned out well for us all!!!

[mytimemachine]

Hi. I've been selling on e-bay for about two years now. I frequently mail items from Canada to the U.S.  and in the past  items took about 10 to 15 days to arrive.

I never had any complaints about shipments not arriving until recently. 

Suddenly, I have received complaints that several shipments have still not arrived in the U.S.  even after over a month has passed since I mailed the items. The Covid19 virus situation must be leading to delays. Most of the complaints are from good customers whom I have sold to in the past so I know they're not lying.

I hope that e-bay will make an announcement to alert buyers that shipping times will take much longer than usual.

Regards from,

Sherry

[shootoutliquidation]

Hi Sherry
I’ve gotten a lot of claims buyers wait until the 14th day and file . All you can do is ask that they can be patient . The back log in the postal system is 6x Christmas amount of mail . I’ve been hit with claims and eBay needs to update the shipping times . They have dropped the ball on this . And is the sellers are getting punished . For your own protection you should ship everything with tracking . I started that and state it’s now mandatory until mail starts to flow. I’ve also started using other methods of shipping fedex and other couriers . One great place to use to ship is called chit chats they provide tracking for shipments to the USA and it’s pretty cheap a lot cheaper then Canada post . Also freightcom which I’m currently using for my courier ship outs tracking peace of mind and your money stays in your pocket and not getting refunded by delays . Stay safe all the best

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

Is anybody else having bad experiences shipping letter mail within Canada during the pandemic? Or, have I just been unlucky. 

I've shipped letter mail for months, with very few issues. It has been great because the cost is really low, which means I can price items competitively while offering free shipping, and it almost always seemed to get buyers their packages almost as quickly as regular parcel.

Last week, I had quite a few customers reach out to me about items not arriving. Granted, it was a small sample size, but still it worries me because for every customer reaching out, there are probably more who haven't received their items but are being patient. Most buyers wait 20-30 days before reaching out, and at that point all I can do is offer them an immediate refund with the instructions to refuse the package when it (eventually) arrives, or the option to keep waiting and reach out to me for a full refund when they decide it has been too long. Some choose to still wait. I obviously don't want to be wasting people's time by selling them items that won't arrive. It's just a hassle for everybody. 

It is strange because while a lot of letter mail packages seem to be heavily delayed, based on feedback, I've also had quite a few that are arriving very quickly. So, I'm not sure what to think about the efficiency of letter mail right now. 

I decided to temporarily require tracked shipping, which is pretty much a step above closing up shop in Canada, because most people aren't going to want to pay twice as much for an item that they can get for cheaper from someone else who is still doing letter mail. I figured, I'd keep my listings up for US buyers (Tracked Small Packet Air), and for Canadians who want to take advantage of more reasonable combined tracked shipping. 

I am giving it 1-3 weeks to see how Canada Post has handled my April letter mail orders before I go back to un-tracked letter mail shipping.  I'm getting a bit antsy because I know sales will plummet, but at the same time, even if it is only a quarter of my buyers, I don't want people waiting 30-40 with no idea where their package is because there is no tracking. 

Which is a long winded way of asking my question, how have your letter mail orders been? Have I just been unlucky with a smaller sample size? Or is letter mail (in your experience) causing enough issues to warrant avoiding it for the next few weeks until Canada Post hopefully catches up?

[shootoutliquidation]

Good luck

[ypdc_dennis]

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@ilikehockeyjerseys wrote:
... how have your letter mail orders been? Have I just been unlucky with a smaller sample size? Or is letter mail (in your experience) causing enough issues to warrant avoiding it for the next few weeks until Canada Post hopefully catches up?

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Observed as a buyer (located in southern Ontario) for April lettermail:

40% were delivered beyond the Canada Post standard

Edmonton, AB - April 10 to 21 ( 7 business days)

Gaspé Peninsula, QC - April 17 to 24 (5 business days)

outside Regina, SK - April 20 to May 4 ( 10 business days)

Eastern Ontario - April 20 to 23 (3 business days)

Eastern Ontario - April 22 to May 5 (9 business days)

Laval, QC - April 22 to 27 (3 business days)

Vancouver Island, BC - April 23 to May 5 (8 business days)

Texas, USA - April 5 to 28 ( 17 business days)

Montreal, QC - April 24 to 27 ( 1 business day, registered letter)

....

At this point a little nervous, but still mailing (sending to Sweden & the UK this weekend).  And taking advantage of Canada Post's lower rates (for the next 3 months) for Solutions for Small Business (formerly Venture 1) members. Some of my Canadian sales have been upgraded from lettermail to parcel, especially for the more expensive items.

-..-