BEWARE people who say the package never arrived!

Interesting thread. I am always reminded of my own experience with the Post Office. A knife maker shipped me 2900$ worth of knives and (due to limited cash on hand) only insured it for 2000$. The knives disappeared (read ---were stolen by a Postal employee) and it took me a full year and a half to get the 2000$ back. They try very hard to not even pay off on insurance. If you must use the USPS (motto: well, Wal-Mart wasn't hiring so we had to get a job somewhere) for valuable items, the ticket is Registered Mail. That is the only service that gives you a shot at nailing down the crooks.

The knifemaker send in FedEx now and some government thief has two Ralph Turnbull customs he is probably using to cut cardboard boxes with.

So, while I don;t know if your guy is honest or not, I do know the potential for crooked postal people (plus accidental errors, theft by others, etc) make it possible that he is telling the truth..... Good luck getting it resolved.
 
Anthony, I hope it all works out on your package / your buyer etc, but possibly, possibly, it may be an error to loudly accuse the buyer publicly on a forum by name before enough pieces of the puzzle are on the table to "know pretty much without a doubt" what the deal is.

This happened to me just TODAY, actually it began 3 days ago:

Delivery confirmation signed, no delivery at my buyer's place.

2 days of juggling around and different stories from different people, the package ended up sitting in his neighbor's living room. Substitute driver on the route, regular guy on vacation.

I'm also into high end pellet guns (Olympic accuracy scuba filled $1,000 plus), and I sold a high end airgun to a guy in Houston, shipping from Oregon. I was a day late getting it out so I bit the bullet to pay for Priority Mail instead of UPS ground, cost me $54 for the Priority Mail (ouch). Was supposed to arrive on Friday. No package arrives.

Buyer chases down the postman's truck in the neighborhood, "don't you have a big Priority Mail package for me today?" No.

I, the shipper, check things out from my end, they claim they left a "we tried to deliver" notice!

No they didn't. And they didn't even bring the package out.

My buyer had to go into the post office and argue with the management face to face, they ended up FINDING THE BIG BOX right there in their post office. They were demanding he produce a delivery attempt sticker before they'd look etc, they never even left one.

Again, it may be premature to have busted this guys name as a cheat on a public forum, when this kind of thing "does happen", happened to me twice just in the last few days, as a seller. Hopefully it will all work out.

You may find the package gets returned to you as undelivered, who knows, but I'd literally get the manager of the delivery point's post office on the phone, see if the regular driver was working that week etc, "talk with them".

The buyer may actually "be" what you feel at this point he is, "maybe so". My opinion, it's the seller's job, pretty or not, to try and dig in and see what really happened, and to talk with the buyer and coordinate on getting the string pulled tight.

Personally, I would NOT ask a buyer to have to file a police report "first thing first off" and hold them accountable with suspicion of guilt if they don't, just due to the fact that so often there IS a post office (or UPS) screw-up. If you can get dialog with the actual delivery guy via their manager etc, it will narrow things down, and THAT'S what should have happened "right away", while it was fresh in everyone's mind (like, on one of mine, the driver literally said "a young woman signed for it", leading us to find the package at a neighbor's house...)

Good luck, and post an update when / if it resolves, especially if events clear the seller's name...

Frank H.
 
1)The buyer has all the postal and deliverey confirmation information. It is up to him to call the PO and talk to the mailman, etc. face-to-face, as they service his area.

2) I think the best thing anyone could do if a package is reported delivered but never recieved is to call the local PD and file a report as well as the postal inspectors office.

From my end, 1000 miles away it is a sign of good faith and I do not believe anyone would file a fraudulent police report over a $100 knife.
Now, I realize I may have been a little quick to reserve judgement although my gut is pretty certain, so I deleted the guys name and will keep it off the web until there is some closure here.
 
I don't know, I ship thousands of things each year via the post office, most are insured, Priority.

Delivery confimration is really pretty much worthless, it doesn't mean much, is not proof of anything, and has no teeth to get anything resolved.

If you, as a seller, want to be protected, you always fully insure what you ship, I believe that as long as the package is insured, the seller is responsible for the package until the buyer signs for the package, which he will have to do if it is insured. If he has signed for it, then yes, that's proof he got it, if the post office cannot produce his signature, then the seller files a claim and should get his $ back at some later date.

If you ship uninsured, well, you are aksing for trouble, like I said, DC doesn't prove anything or help much because the item is not signed for by the buyer and only with insurance, and the required signature, can you prove anything and file a claim to get your $ back.
 
Recently I've discontinued the DC and added the pink signature one to insured packages. I get a variety of DC/insured packages and I'd say I've only been asked for signature on insured packges 50% or less often.

I recently had a Mo sent to a PO box lost. :grumpy:
 
In the last nine months, three Delivery Confirmation packages were left next to my rural mail box -- out on a public road 500+ feet from my house and screened by trees. One was there for over two weeks until the snow melted some and a corner was exposed (thankfully wrapped well in heavy plastic bags).

That does not count the ones left sticking out of the box for any driver-by to see.

On the other hand, Insured Packages actually get handed to me or I have to go pick them up.

I conclude that Delivery Confirmation is totally worthless to seller or buyer.
 
UPS and USPS never hang around for a signature around here, even when they are supposed to.

This whole situation brings up a question that I have often wondered about. When an individual to individual (not business to individual) sale takes place, when has the seller completed their reasonable duty to get the package to the buyer?

Is it really the sellers responsibility if the package is stolen off the porch? Why should the seller take all the damage in that situation if they have made the effort to use a major carrier and sent it insured? The seller can show a receipt to prove when, where, and how the package was sent, but must rely on the word of a stranger that it wasn't received. That seems wrong to me somehow.
 
Good points you bring up there Paul. In my opinion, especially when it's person to person, there's usually a care aspect that the buyer was happy etc, and of course there are varying degrees of that care factor from seller to seller, and some buyers you wish had never bought from you...

But in a perfect world, both sides communicate. I'd get on the phone with the buyer. You can generally tell by voice how genuine the "claimed problem" is.

I look at it like, "if I was sitting there as the buyer, and really, truly, no package ever arrived here, really actually it didn't", how would I feel being called a liar, just because "some buyers might have that motive" to defraud.

The absolute worst thing to do is acuse before you are certain, in my opinion. Especially knowing that sometimes (as made clear by the experiences of many on just this one thread) the claim by the post office or UPS that "it was delivered, our computer says so" doesn't mean it's true. Especially during the summer vacation season with so many temp drivers etc, that's when you get the absolute worst service with lost packages and lazy delivery and falsified records of delivery.

If a package was received by the girlfriend then "disappeared", if a literal signature can be produced (like with UPS when you have to sign their little "etch-a-sketch" thing at delivery), then yeah, it's 200% the buyer's problem.

If I have the least feeling that it's possible the guy on the recieving end could be telling me the truth, then I make it my problem and try to fix it. In fact with a problem I had with UPS last week, which I'd paid for insurance for, the buyer told me after he called UPS (computer showed online it had been delivered), that they WOULDN'T talk with him about it, they'd ONLY talk to the sender, the party who'd paid for the insurance, that meant "me".

So anyway, it comes down to a gut check, to a person to person communication, to looking to see where the daylight is, and hopefully, two people working together to nurse the dang box home. Just today I got word that a shipment (lost and claimed delivered etc) via the post office WAS grabbed by my buyer, out of the post offices back storage room, he and I had to work together on that one.

I can guarantee he never felt I felt he was a theif during the process. And fortunately he wasn't. Though that's an option. It's a judgement call, every step of the way.

Frank H.
 
Anthony, I feel sorry for you, but painting you buyer as a liar and a thief if he is not willing to prove himself a liar by filing a police report swearing the package was stolen, when he has NO proof what-so-ever of that and when it is FAR more likely that the package was unintentionally misdelivered by the Post Office is almost funny.

Delivery Confirmation is just that, it confirms that the item was delivered, NOT that it was delivered correctly. It costs a bit more, but a Return Receipt gives you much better proof of WHO actually received the shipment since it must be signed by whoever accepts the package.

From my perspective as a buyer, it sounds as if YOU freely chose to save a few cents by shipping the item(s) the way you did. If that is the case then YOU assumed all risk of loss. A seller has EVERY right to charge me for secure shipping, or allow me to choose to save money and assume the risk, but if that CHOICE is not offered, then, as far as I'm concerned, the item belongs to them until it is in my hands.
 
Deacon.
The buyer doesn't have to swear anything. I want a police report showing that an item claimed delivered by the post office was not recieved by the sender. I want the buyer to contact the post office and file a report. I want copies of these reports.

There should be no hesitation in this matter on the recievers part unless he is full of crap.
 
I have to agree with The Deacon on this one.
Also in the troble I had a while back(see thread,just lost 100 bucks) I had much better luck in contacting the other persons PO and getting them to do something than he did.
 
Two words, unfortunately too late....


Federal Express.

I do not ship USPS as a rule, period, end of story. Occassionally if no other method will work I will go this route, but Fed Ex gets a signature, does not leave the package unless you okay them to leave it and a signature is available online.
 
Anthony,

My company used to do the same thing on loss claims from customers on Priority Mail. We requested a police report, then refunded their money on their credit card after reception. We eliminated about 40% of the claims (they just disappeared and we never heard from them again). About 40% filed claims, then wanted the refund. 20% just said buzz off....and requested a chargeback from the credit card company. On chargebacks and Priority Mail with Confirmation, you lose 100% of the time (i.e. the customer gets his money back and you get a $25 or so chargeback fee in addition to the original product loss). Mail confirmation is not considered "good enough" to prove your case to the credit card companies. You cannot win, even if it goes to corporate Visa, Mastercard or AmEx (as opposed to the merchant bank clearance). Even signature delivery is not good enough, unless the name on the card matches who signed for the item. If the person signing matches the cardholder, that is the only scenario where you have a chance with the credit card companies. So, that is the mindset of the card companies....Priority Mail with Conf. is worth nothing.

Of the 40% who filed police reports and faxed us a copy of the basic report, there was only one resolution (with thousands of claims). One idiot made the claim with the product sitting in the box in his living room. An alert police officer asked what was on the table and the guy immediately confessed to his crime and the fact that he and his wife were crackheads who needed money. The police officer did arrest the guy and we did provide information for prosecution. This was a very small town, where they had the time for this sort of thing. Postal authorities never followed up and the postal inspectors dropped the ball at every juncture. The guy was sentence with time served and a mark on his already marked up rap sheet. That was one out of thousands. Almost every customer wins the delivery battle.

Postal insurance is a joke...it takes over a year to settle. Like other insurers, they hope you forget about the claim due to the hassle factor or die, so the claim is forgotten. If you have the patience, you eventually get some sort of a reduced settlemant amount based on their rules that are never discussed at the time of insurance purchase (i.e. when the fee is paid for an insurance amount that they will never pay on).

The harsh reality is tha Fed. Ex. or UPS with declared value is the only way to go. They do pay when it is proven that the customer states he didn't get the package and their investigation reveals the same scenario....or at least they can't prove that the person did get the item. Even there, you are in for a lot of telephone work with cargo claims if you ever expect to complete the claim.
 
Anthony, what have you done as the seller to pull the string with the post office etc?

If you think any and every buyer has nothing better to do with their time than to go physically to the police department and wait to be handed a clipboard etc etc (like DMV for cyring out loud) to basically satisfy your demand that they do your requested step to somehow symbolically "prove" they are not a liar, you are mistaken.

I'd consider that pretty snotty if I was the buyer. And a true scammer could happily go spend the time to do that if that's all it took to "satisfy you" and continue the scam. It accomplishes nothing, nothing.

You base this premise on "it must have been stolen". You've read just in this one thread, many cases where something was mis-delivered or never delivered.

What have you done, what action have you taken, with the party you paid to get this delivered, have you actually invested 10 minutes of your time on the phone with the post office?

Like someone else said here, the shipping outfit tends to listen to and work with the one who paid to ship the thing, makes sense, doesn't it?

Like it or not, you've got some responsibility here as a seller, yes a bad thing seems to have happened, ALL THE MORE REASON to break a sweat and try and FIX it, for real, finding the package, getting on the butt of the post office, FIND OUT IF IT WAS A TEMP ON THE ROUTE THAT DAY, do the work, sort it out, so you DON'T have a ticked off buyer still wanting his money or the knife.

That's how I'd look at it, seems many here feel that way. Seems you still see it the way you did when you started this thead, nothing has changed for you it seems, regardless of the advice and the experience given by others here.

Good luck for you and your buyer in this transaction, and if by slim chance the buyer actually is scamming you, may he find his Mack truck. Is he a member of the forum, was it a transaction from the forum? e-bay or something else?

Frank H.
 
I would not do business with you Anthony, based on what you have written here, and the way you have behaved.

I know, no big deal to you, but in my opinion you have continued to handle this problem extremely poorly, and if I was the buyer in question I would have told you to piss off long ago.
 
I know, no big deal to you, but in my opinion you have continued to handle this problem extremely poorly, and if I was the buyer in question I would have told you to piss off long ago.
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No, you would have filed a police report and I would have settled with you.
Its pretty simple.
In my neighborhood, if you call the police station they will come to your house and file a report. You can file a police report in situations like this. In fact, if I was afraid someone was stealing my mail I would damn sure be filing reports all over town.

Anthony, what have you done as the seller to pull the string with the post office etc?
Click to expand...

As for my actions, I have contacted the buyers Post Office and was told the recepient needed to call in as it is in his hands.

I am waiting on that report also.

FYI, this transaction did not happen on BFC.

FYI, can anyone show me where I have not completed my part of the bargain? I refuse to refund the item in question because after shipping 300 items this year NONE have been missing or stolen and I need something to show me that this person is acting in good faith. Anything. Something.

I am pretty sure I will never see that report...

regardless of the advice and the experience given by others here
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Thanks for all the help!
 
I am behind Anthony here, both buyer and seller need to communicate daily and work together. All Anthony is asking for is a little action on the part of the buyer. Hell the buyer could just call the Police and file a report over the phone.

I think that the buyer has clam'd up and gone to ground REALLY makes it look like Anthony was right and the buyer was trying to pull a scam.

If I send someone a knife and it shows it has arrived and the buyer claims it did not I too would demand the buyer commited himself to the story with the authorities before I Cheerfully refunded his money.
 
I wouldn't expect any seller to just jump up and pay a refund at the drop of a hat Anthony, sorry if I gave that impression.

It's just that the package is "somewhere", and to help make the problem go away (as the seller) I'd pull some levers to find out WHAT HAPPENED, I'd take that on, it's one of your best defenses against a bad thing happening here.

I'd truly get the manager on the phone and find out if a temp was on the route that day or week, that's when many mis-deliveries occur and when falsified delivery reports and lies about "we left a package awaiting for you slip" type stuff happens, again it happened to me twice just this past week. The best outcome here is to find that package. If you persue all avenues there, as the seller, you will have much stronger "proof" or reason for the assertion to the seller that you think the problem is "them".

Re: "I have contacted the buyers Post Office and was told the recepient needed to call in as it is in his hands", you got blown a load of smoke, and it's time to call and ask for the branch manager. They of all people know that the computer showing a status of "delivered" doesn't mean much, it doesn't mean it was delivered, doesn't confirm it was delivered to the correct address, they live with this stuff, they know this. They blew you off. I wouldn't take that red herring. That was the lazy "differ it so we don't have to provide service right now with you" response they handed you. If it was return receipt requested, registered mail, Fed-Ex sign-for etc. as others have mentioned in this thread that would be different.

But the post office saying "it's in the buyers hands now so don't you worry about if we got it there and it's him that needs to call us", they blew a load of smoke. Yes I'd send the buyer there to speak with the manager and have them paw around etc, but I'd be on the phone with the manager first, to fact find as much as possible, again closing doors on the possibility of you being screwed. If you find the package you prevented getting screwed.

If the package doesn't turn up, if by some chance the buyer wasn't conning you, and you don't "make things work out", and that floats along for months or years, you actually still are getting screwed, even if the money stays in your pocket, that's just the way life tends to work out. So I'd take every personal action possible to "make" it resolve, including direct phone contact with the buyer and reading the signals, and yes see if they "go to ground" as was pointed out, whichever way all of this jumps as the seller I'd want a pretty good decree of clarity of outcome.

Pretty SURE the package was screwed up by the post office. Or make it get found, make it get delivered, things like that happen even a month later sometimes. Or look behind every potential door such that you can have dialog with the buyer that you're pretty SURE they are jerking your chain. And of course refunding money is a "very late on the checklist" option, but I'd do the work of that checklist and not leave the buyer's duty to filing a police report, I'm make them do some work to find the package from their end. "Write me back and tell me what the manager there told you", etc, etc, and if the guy goes to ground, now HE'S made a decision, it's not "your bad", and that does matter.

If it's ebay etc, their feedback tends to be a good indication. If it wasn't ebay, I'd maybe ask them if they DO have established feedback on ebay or gunbroker etc, find a way to truly "sort out" if they might just might be a straight shooter.

Then you can take the forks in the road as they become clear, without regrets and without wrongfully getting tagged yourself with the wrong reputation, to me that's more important than the money. I'd work hard for the right outcome for that reason alone. Good luck!

Frank H.
 
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