Undelivered Item Claim Placed and Refunded directly through PayPal

[katrkg2612]

Hi all:

Just wanted to share my very latest lesson learnt on eBay, in case it might be of interest or of any help to the community.

I have been on ebay since 2011 and for the first time I encountered a situation like that.

In short: a US-based buyer bought a kids card game from me and the item was mailed to US on August 31 - Air mail with no tracking. Note: I ship to US mainly with no tracking since my items are not expensive and US buyers not much happy about Canada Post tracking tariffs. However, to other international destinations I do with tracking only.

Yesterday when visiting my PayPal account I spotted out a full refund which was made by PayPal to the buyer after he had claimed that item was not delivered.  I do not mind refunding 'undelivered'.  What really amused me was the very fact that a buyer can claim "Item undelivered" directly through PayPal and get refunded.

A tiny note: the buyer opened the PayPal case on Sept 11. it was just 7th business day, since the parcel had been shipped. I always ask the US buyers to allow 10-12 business days to get the item in mail. Opening a case before the end of estimated delivery time already seems as a 'scam" to me.

In other words, no prior communication via ebay, no cases opened on ebay and Bingo, you go to PayPal and get a refund. I always believed that this type of claims can be only satisfied through Ebay.

Results of my communication with ebay agent:

- ebay cannot do anything in case the direct claim was made through PayPal

- report a buyer on ebay

- cancel transaction on ebay to get fees returned

- dispute the refund with PayPal (no success as fact of shipping is not a prove of delivery)

Bottom line: Surprises happen.

[dutchman48]

Doing it through Paypal keeps them off Ebay radar and if they make a habit of it they get away with it longer.

According to Paypal, you can file after 7 days and escalate to a claim immediately, then wait for the refund.

You can ask the buyer to repay when it arrives, but my guess they won't as they want the freebee since they filed so fast.

Sorry you got this type of buyer, but it is becoming more common on Ebay.

[katrkg2612]

Thanks for kind words and sympathy.. I was not aware of this type behavior becoming common on ebay.

I have already reported the buyer on ebay, because off-site transactions are against ebay policy. If my buyer was a "freebie-lover'' at least he will get a warning (I hope so) from ebay and might think twice next time before either scamming other sellers or/and seeking refund directly PayPal. I think reporting is the only thing sellers can do, since it is impossible to get a refund for shipping with no tracking. By reporting buyer on ebay and filing PP cases, sellers may at least draw their (EBay/PP) attention to the increasing trend 

BTY: I filed my claim on PP but alas with no success. It was closed.

[reallynicestamps]

I've been around eBay since 1998 and I don't think it is becoming more common.

US buyers are used to very fast delivery. Anything over two business days starts feeling like forever.

Combine that with a certain geographical vagueness, and unfamiliarity with concepts like "Canada" and ... there's your dispute.

Two notes:

Did Paypal contact you for delivery information? I understand that you didn't have any, I use Cookie Jar Insurance on low value items myself.

I leave FB on shipping with the date of shipment. "Thank you for your prompt payment. Shipped Canada Post 24/9/17 Air Mail." tells my customer she's appreciated, that her purchase is in the mail, and that it is coming from a foreign country. I believe it helps.

[pjcdn2005]

Buyers have always been able to put claims through Paypal and they have 180 days after the purchase to file a claim through them.  If the buyer is fairly new to ebay then perhaps they didn't know that they could file through ebay  If they have quite a few feedback then they may have know that they couldn't file through ebay until after the last estimated delivery date but that they could file through Paypal anytime. It's impossible to know whether or not the buyer was being dishonest or not although when they do file that quickly, I do tend to find that a little suspicious.

Paypal should have sent you a claim when the buyer opened the inr claim and you could have replied to it then. Since you didn't have tracking you would have ended up refunding anyway, unless the buyer was willing to wait longer. But since you didn't reply or refund while the case was open, you may have received an unresolved claim defect from ebay so you should check your ebay dashboard to see if you received one.

I always send a message to buyers once the item has been mailed out specifying that the item was mailed from Canada and give them an estimated arrival date.  Before I started doing that buyers often didn't notice that I was in Canada so they would be concerned if their order wasn't there within a few days. Now they do seem to be a bit more patient.

[katrkg2612]

"US buyers are used to very fast delivery. Anything over two business days starts feeling like forever.

Combine that with a certain geographical vagueness, and unfamiliarity with concepts like "Canada" and ... there's your dispute."

LOL. "certain geographical vagueness, and unfamiliarity with concepts like "Canada" Thanks I liked it.

Two notes:

Did Paypal contact you for delivery information? I understand that you didn't have any, I use Cookie Jar Insurance on low value items myself.

A very good question! Here is the thing: my perception of PP being just a payment tool (in Ebay-PP-myself relationship) played a trick on me: I usually visit PP twice a month - beginning & end of each month (unless otherwise is required by emergencies, which are ve-e-ry rare). The case was opened on Sept 11 and closed Sept 22. Email notifications were sent to mail box, which again I check back twice a month only to clean up (it is a separate one for PP and Ebay only purposes). Since all ebay communications go through ebay email and I felt totally covered by ebay, I did not feel like visiting my email box more often (Smarty-pants LOL).  Another lesson learnt!

.

I leave FB on shipping with the date of shipment. "Thank you for your prompt payment. Shipped Canada Post 24/9/17 Air Mail." tells my customer she's appreciated, that her purchase is in the mail, and that it is coming from a foreign country. I believe it helps.

A very interesting option of leaving shipping details in FB field. I will probably consider it. I leave FB right after the payment's gone through and then I email shipping details to my buyers.

Regards,

Marina

[katrkg2612]

Thank you very much for valuable recommendations.

As for shipping details: I try to incorporate basic info into my item description (sorry for big font size, copied-pasted from my item:

Default shipping options:

- Canada based buyers - Standard Regular Shipping with tracking

- USA based buyers - Canada Post Air Shipping with no tracking. Estimated delivery time within 10 business days.

- Other countries - Canada Post Air Shipping with no tracking. Estimated delivery time within 10 business days.

Canada Post serves as an indication of a seller being located in Canada in addition to Item Location: Canada - on upper part section of listing. However, after your post and earlier post on the thread about "geographic vagueness"  I've started serisouly  thinking if I should include a capital letter heading - CANADA BASED SELLER. LOL

Once item's shipped I always send a TY email (FB I leave after payment was received) to my buyers with shipping details.(Estimated delivery time and date shipping was made). I found long ago, that just changing status to "Item Shipped" is not enough. So, a separate email works best.

Indeed, this was another learning curve for me. 

From now on I will be more attentive to PayPal functionalities and keep an eye on my account, since it is not just a payment tool, but also can be used for claims processing.