Wrong confirmed shipping address provided - what to do?

[g0dzi11a]

Hoping someone could lead me in the right direction.

I sold an item last week. Buyer paid via PayPal ... shipping address in PayPal and eBay matched. I shipped the item on Monday, just to see that it was returned to my post office today, unable to deliver.

I contacted the buy to confirm the address, he tells me the apartment number is missing.

I don't personally feel that I should shell out 20$ in shipping because they did not put in the apartment number in both systems. I don't want to lose money because of them.

What to do? Does eBay cover for things like this? Or maybe PayPal?

Any help / suggestions would be great - thanks.

[ricarmic]

Ebay or paypal will not cover any of this.

Personally I cover this under CODB (Cost of doing business).

Others will suggest cancelling and or asking the buyer to pay shipping again, or pay half of shipping again.

A lot depends on how much you depend on return customers. Return customers are about half of my sales, so I see covering the 2nd re-sending cost as a customer service.

I have some excellent repeat customers that were problems like this the first time, the excellent customer service they got (Ie didn't have to pay the 2nd sending) impressed them enough they keep coming back.

This may not be true in your selling areas domains though....did the buyer give any indication they would help with the resending costs in their responses?

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

Sadly, not much you can do other than "hope" customer will be willing to cover the replacement shipping. If you didn't have to pay for the return shipping...Bonus. In my case, I was on the hook for it.  It was a new customer who didn't bother to include the apartment number when they set up their account, also. The item went to the property managers office who "didn't bother" forwarding to the tenant. Personally not sure why they wouldn't. Part of da job you would think. Customer refused to pay for the return shipping and I got dinged as my fault, even though it was clearly displayed in the tracking details what exactly happened. If eBay chooses to hold you accountable, you can attempt to square things by calling. Really depends on the rep you talk to how they will decide. Unfortunately, maybe an eBay life-lesson learned. 😞 Going forward, what I have started doing is Google Mapit before shipping to confirm the address is valid.  Streetview can be your friend!!! Any doubts, I email prior to completing the shipping documents. Best of luck! Hope all works out in your favor!!

-Lotz

[brettjet38]

https://www.ebay.ca/pages/help/pay/shipping-problems.html

The item was returned undelivered.

It's the seller's responsibility to ship the item to the address registered on the buyer's eBay account.

It is the buyer's responsibility to have the correct address on his or her account.

If you shipped the item to an address different than the one on the buyer's account, please contact the buyer to confirm the correct address. You'll then need to re-ship the item at your expense. When you ship an item, be sure to use tracking and email your buyer to let him know what the tracking number is.

If you shipped the item to the address on the buyer's account and it was returned, please contact the buyer to work out a solution. If the buyer still wants the item, he or she will need to reimburse you for the second shipping. If you'd like, you can send the buyer an invoice in PayPal for this cost. When you ship an item, be sure to use tracking and email your buyer to let her know what the tracking number is.

The buyer is at fault, not the Seller.

[femmefan1946]

It is the seller's responsibility to ship to the address in Paypal.

You did that.

It is the buyer's responsibility to provide a correct address for shipping.

Your buyer did not do that.

You don't have to do anything. You delivered (tracking will show that) but the address was wrong.

Now, ethically, you can't have both the money and the item.

Refund the selling price (not the shipping price *) when the item is returned to you.

Then if the buyer wants to try again, with a useable address, you can decide whether or not that is acceptable.

If the buyer leaves negative feedback, you can Respond.

The most effective feedback or Response is calm and factual.

"Gave wrong address returned by post office refunded" for example.

*which went to the shipper not to you-- and the shipper did his job in attempting delivery.

[musicyouneed]

For new buyers, I always google the address just to verify that they don't live in an apartment building leaving off the suite #.  It has happened to me a few times so I always check on newbies.  If they have 20 or so feedback over a couple of months, I don't bother.  I even have called a couple of people.  

I had a couple of CD's returned to me that was sent to the correct address and he lives there.  There was a problem with a particular postie, the buyer paid for shipping for the 2 CD's that were returned, but hey it was only $3.00 x 2.    It wasn't only my parcels that were returned but all his mail, he was ticked.