In summary, I sent a parcel via DPD International from UK to Italy on 11th March 2025 and it's being returned to me today 26th March 2025 because DPD / Italian Import Customs claimed that they contacted the customer using the 'long' ebay email on the Ebay Invoice (format <lots of alphanumeric characters>@members.ebay.com) and they didn't receive any reply / payment of import duties from the buyer and the buyer claims that he never received any such emails from DPD requesting to pay import duties (or any emails).
As an experiment I emailed the buyer today using the (format <lots of alphanumeric characters>@members.ebay.com) long ebay email and the buyer claims that they didn't receive my email (although going to the buyer's order and hovering over contact info I see the message 'email addresses are only shown 14 days after date sold' - so that maybe interfering with me sending any emails to the buyer right now).
My question to you all is 'does the emailing system' even work with ebay, I'm away that it's a 'middle man' / 'intermediary' / 'conduit' email address which Ebay employs in order to filter out communication between Buyer and Seller but is it filtering out DPD messages or most messages and they aren't getting through ? If so it means I cannot use DPD any more for international sales. I know DPD UK have recently changed their website and the format of their Commercial Invoice that you stick on the outside of the parcel (4 duplicates) and I've sent to Italy via DPD before without such problems.
Anyone enlighten me on what is going on ?
Also I haven't asked and will not ask for the private email address of the buyer (as it breaks Ebay terms and conditions) BUT the buyer stated that it's a 'privaterelay apple id' email address. So it sounds like he's using a forwarding email address as his main private email address and maybe that's failing.
So does messaging via ebay long email work for you ?
help ! I'm taring my hair out over this.
