Is there a courier service which picks up your parcel verifies the contents then seals the box and

[dfernand101]

In the UK is there a reasonably priced courier service (or similar) which picks up your parcel verifies the contents ( say with a photo) then seals the box and takes it away to be shipped with tracking ?

I'm asking as there's someone on ebay UK who has randomly contacted me stating they're interested in buying 9 items from me that are valued in total north of £850 and that's a tad too big in value and risk for my liking to ship with just insurance and me sealing it and dropping it off at a drop shop - what if the receiver gets the 9 items and just turns to ebay and says 'well I didn't get any of the items, only this paper filler and then keeps the items and I have to refund ?  The persons profile seems to be trustworthy and it's a decades old account but you never know.

I'm Googling right now and I can't find any serviced which verifies contents being shipped at the point at which the seller hands over the parcel to the courier.

Any advice is much appreciated.

[jma2815 · Accepted solution]

I can’t, of course, be 100% sure but no - I don’t think such a service exists. Why on earth would it, and if it did it certainly would not be reasonably priced. 

I agree with your feeling that a sale of nine items for £850 in the same box is too risky and I wouldn’t allow it to go ahead. It has red flags all over it already and cancelling orders is very dimly viewed by eBay so I’d block the buyer now and not look back.

Your stuff will sell individually just fine and while every sale is a risk, you won’t be risking so much at once.

There’s a saying that you shouldn’t sell anything on eBay that you can’t afford to lose, which I think is worth remembering. 

[dfernand101]

Yes,  I agree,  a few years ago when I was living abroad outside of the UK and had a different Ebay seller account registered in an EU country I got a buyer from the U.S. with  only a 2 month old Ebay account put in an order for lots of similar items to a value of around 950 euros, completely out of the blue. I then checked his ebay account reputation and there wasn't any and he had a few scrappy small spare parts sales item, real low value bits and pieces but of the same line/type as my items which he bought which were the complete sets and much higher value. I also noticed that his ebay registered name and address were completely different to the delivery name and address, I suspected it was a scam and the guy wanted some 'free stock' to sell on and he would attempt a refund but keep the items so I cancelled the order immediately and didn't send him the items. When I cancelled he immediately removed all the scrappy bits and pieces he was selling as if to 'disappear' from ebay and didn't reply to my ebay messaged ; so I think I rumbled him.

Just a point of interest, to the recent UK potential buyer who wants to buy the 9 items worth £850+, I suggested that I split up the order and send off the grouped items on different days so as to minimize shipping risk and so far I've received no reply ....

[jma2815]

Thanks for choosing my answer as solution!  I replied as when I was a new seller I was glad I’d done my research before listing as I almost immediately had a message from someone saying they wanted to buy about ten of the 12 or so listings I had up for what would have been about £700 (fairly high end clothing). They wanted to know some very odd and specific stuff about the quality of the items first though and told me some story about just moving house and having to feed a puppy early every morning. 

I asked for some time to consider their questions, blocked them and went to have a look at their feedback, which sure enough was full of negs on a green dot about scams involving false returns and large orders. Bullet dodged.

As I’d already been involved in messaging with the person they were still able to contact me through the button on one of the listings that they’d used before. Of course they’d tried to buy all the items using the basket without waiting for combined shipping and the next message was full of foul abuse. I was advised by CS just to ignore them, which I had to do for a full month before they gave up. 

[papso22]

Even if there was such a service I doubt ebay would take any notice of the evidence in the event of a claim.

[eastern-lights]

As a seller of collectibles I sometimes notice buyers being wary of placing multiple orders with me. They will buy one thing, receive it, check it out, buy the next, receive it, check it out and so on. I applaud their caution and am comfortable with it. And I would be suspicious of buyers that did not exercise such caution.

[crg_music]

You could go through gsp, might even be cheaper. I'd imagine they would be checking the contents especially on such a value. After all you are covered once they have it, I'm sure knowing ebay were handling the shipping scammers would be wary. Otherwise use a premium service. UPS to US are unbeatable in my experience. Pretty much next day as standard.