buyer scams

[anake1951]

If you send a small cheap sticker or 2 to a buyer just using first class cheap stamp in a postbox ...Beware they say they never recieved item want money back.You cannot prove you sent it .

best bet from now on is to mark postage up add tracking all bells and whistles so a cheap item is now costing 3 times as much due to postage costs etc etc. only way to go all my item even 0.99p will now cost a mint posting due to Scam buyers we have on ebay and they always side with buyer who is spending money and Not making money like a Seller .Even if the seller is in right after 21 clean years service.

So Now look to buy items wit no tracking or proof of posting do same back.

[vinylscot]

...and, without tracking, how do you KNOW your buyer didn't received the item?

It's always been your choice. If you don't want to pay for tracking, chuck 5p into a jar for everything you send. It soon mounts up, and will more than likely be enough to cover the small losses which do happen, from time to time.

[rjwilmsi]

It's always been the case that for an online sale the seller needs to be able to prove delivery to the buyer. This hasn't changed.

I have sometimes had items marked as dispatched by an eBay seller that never arrived. So things can happen to items in the post - whether lost, label damaged so undeliverable, wrong address on label, delivered to wrong address, returned to sender, held because of underpaid postage etc.. Though it could be as you say that the buyer has received the item and is committing fraud. You can't tell.

As a mitigation if you buy a Royal Mail Large Letter label (as opposed to a normal Letter) then the service includes a scan on delivery (Delivery Confirmation), which counts as Tracking for eBay purposes. However the scan rate is 80-90% not 100%. For 100% rate you need the Tracked 48 service, which as you allude to adds about £2 to the postage cost compared to a 2nd class stamp, which may not be feasible for low-value items.

[tommystrezures]

ITs all about balancing the risk, as others have already said its an individuals choice. However if its a 99p item would we put tracking on it, no. If it was a £20+ item then probably yes we would kindly ask our post office to process the letter as a 101gm large letter with a tracked service on it. or as @rjwilmsi suggests use the 16 digit code and hope it gets the delivery scan. Either way or, the tracked services are now more enticing price wise at only a pound extra over say a 1st class large letter at 101gms. The only drawback is obviously you can't use stamps to pre pay the service.

[rjwilmsi]

Large Letters below 100g get the same Delivery Confirmation feature as those above 100g, at least when you print the label at home (perhaps the treatment is different when postage bought at Post Office).

[tommystrezures]

Agh ok thanks for that, yes it is treated differently as at PO counter its a LL stamp up to 100gms. There is no facility to print the label, or rather when you go through the process it wont allow you to print the label and the system tells you to apply a stamp.

[plpmr]

adding to the advice already given -

If you increase your post charges you could increase your problems as buyers already think your postage is unreasonable as indicated by your low DSR.

[insidethe93]

Maybe consider incorporating the price of postage (and packing?) into the item's price and offer free postage? That way you're always in total control how you send it e.g. with regular buyers you could continue using untracked with more confidence than with new buyers. No editing, if any required, whenever Royal Mail changes postage rates. You can change your shipping depending on time of year e.g. faster in the run-up to Christmas, Valentine's Day and Mother's Day.

If you went for "free postage" you could automatically offer the option at check-out for faster shipping e.g. by allowing a buyer to pay extra for 1st class (get proof of posting) or tracked. If a buyer says they haven't received it as fast as they'd like (often nearly instant if you believe eBay's fantastical EDDs) then they should've opted for faster shipping,

To a buyer "free postage" is head v. heart - it feels convenient and no having to do postage maths (heart), but you expect the seller to have factored in postage (head).

[signs_and_vintage]

Not that quite honestly if it was me I'd continue to use stamps and pop that metaphorical  5p in the jar as suggested - but isn't the barcode feature on stamps due to become a tracking code 'soon'?

[tommystrezures]

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@signs_and_vintage  but isn't the barcode feature on stamps due to become a tracking code 'soon'?

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who knows! I think the capability is there already and many European nations that use similar have offered some form of tracking from the ‘barcode’ I presume at present (and I don’t know if this is the case) that rm must use that barcode of sorts to see if stamps are being reused?

@signs_and_vintage