buyer says item not received - tracking says delivered - buyer seems genuine - what now? thanks

[thecrimsonlizard]

hi.

i sold an item on sept 14th- tracking says delivered on 16th sept. Message from buyer says its not been received, has checked at post office etc, asked local postie who apparantly shrugged and said he must have delivered it just not to the correct person!  Whats the usual solution in these cases?  Thank you

[rusticrye]

The Post Office has nothing to do with deliveries, so no idea why your buyer asked there...? Deliveries are made by Royal Mail, so it is Royal Mail they must contact, after they've checked with family members and near neighbours (which almost always turns the item up).  Royal Mail will investigate, and if they find they've misdelivered (it happens) but can't retrieve the package, they, Royal Mail will compensate him. You can't be made to compensate him because you can't lodge a claim with Royal Mail for loss - because tracking proves delivery. That's the whole point of tracking.

@thecrimsonlizard 

[thecrimsonlizard]

Thank you for the response. He asked at the post office in case it had been taken there for collection even though no card was left. All turned out good in the end as he has received the package, some strange scanning error occurred and it was delivered 2 days later.

[arkwebus]

The difficulty for the buyer is that what @m25jet says is absolutely correct in that all tracking proves is that it was delivered "somewhere".  

I have difficulty with the concept that it's somewhere else.  If someone delivered something for someone else to my address I'd either give it back to postie, deliver it to correct address if nearby or put it back in postbox.  Who wants random misdelivered items ...

If the item was delivered carelessly by postie then I would make one hell of a fuss at the delivery office, contact customer service - Royal Mail - at Plymouth or even try to get Royal Mail Investigation involved. 

@thecrimsonlizard 

[m25jet]

If the tracking proves successful delivery to the address provided on the PayPal notification e-mail then if you haven't already entered the tracking number against the item in the Sent Items section of your All Selling page then do it now before the buyer opens an Item Not Received case against you.  If you've already entered the tracking against the item then you can relax, as you don't need to do anything else at this stage.

If the buyer does indeed open an Item Not Received case against you then reply via the case, stating that the tracking number proves that the item was successfully delivered.  Quote the tracking number via the Item Not Received case as well so that the buyer can put a trace on it if he/she didn't notice the tracking number entered against the item when you despatched it.  If the buyer is just trying to abuse the eBay Money Back Guarantee by making a false Item Not Received claim in the hope that he/she will get the case decided in his/her favour and get the item for free as a result of eBay forcing a total refund then the buyer is going to be sorely disappointed.  As soon as eBay check out the tracking details and notice that it proves successful delivery of the item to the address provided on the PayPal confirmation of payment e-mail you'll be able to blow the buyer's allegations of non-receipt right out of the water, and eBay will automatically close the case in your favour.  The buyer will not be able to leave you any feedback once the case has been decided in your favour; however, if the buyer leaves you negative feedback before eBay decide the case in your favour then contact eBay Customer Services as soon as possible and ask for the buyer's feedback to be removed, emphasising the fact that eBay decided the matter in your favour and therefore the buyer's feedback should not be allowed to remain.  If you do that then eBay will remove any negative feedback that the buyer may have left for you prior to the case being decided in your favour.

Finally, if you have not already done so, make sure that you add this buyer's User ID to your Blocked Bidders List so as to prevent him/her from purchasing anything else from you in the future and causing you any further aggravation.