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Insurance ?

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Oct 8, 2016
Messages
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I am not understanding who pays for the insurance and who is responsible for the package if it gets lost, stolen or damaged before I receive it.
I was looking to purchase a knife from somebody on BF and he asked me if I wanted to pay for insurance or not, I asked why I should pay for it ? His answer seemed odd to me, He said that once he dropped it off at the post office and it gets scanned that is the end of his responsibility.
I have never heard of this and PayPal doesn't follow that logic either. What gives?
 
I can't say, but all the online knife dealers that I use include USPS tracking and insurance.
Rich
 
Insurance protects both of you, in the event the knife gets damaged or lost there will be just hard feelings if the knife is lost and you have to argue over who's at fault. Split the insurance cost in the middle, I doubt it's a lot of money. That's how I've done it in the past.
 
Paypal buyer protection. I never send anything of value without the very minimum tracking which is included now in USPS shipping. Insurance of any item valued over $50 is a must on my end as the seller.
 
Insurance protects both of you, in the event the knife gets damaged or lost there will be just hard feelings if the knife is lost and you have to argue over who's at fault. Split the insurance cost in the middle, I doubt it's a lot of money. That's how I've done it in the past.
Great Idea
 
Insurance is for and to protect the person shipping the item. They are the one that can file a claim and the one that will be reimbursed. People like that are trying to shift responsibility onto their potential customers. Folks like that are a big reason this software has an ignore function.
 
Paypal buyer protection. I never send anything of value without the very minimum tracking which is included now in USPS shipping. Insurance of any item valued over $50 is a must on my end as the seller.
That's what I do when I sell something. I take insurance to protect myself if need be. It never dawned on me to hold the buyer responsible if he legitimately did not receive it. I'm not sure how I feel about someone who thinks the buyer is responsible just because he dropped it off at the post office. The other thing is that the seller receives the insurance check not the buyer.

I just realized that this whole idea pisses me off. I'm pretty sure that if that same seller bought something from Amazon and had never received it he would be surprised if they tried to make him pay. As I write this post I think that I am feeling as though it is a swindle and I am going to walk away from that Item. In the future I will not deal with sellers that actually think this makes sense.
 
Insurance protects both of you, in the event the knife gets damaged or lost there will be just hard feelings if the knife is lost and you have to argue over who's at fault. Split the insurance cost in the middle, I doubt it's a lot of money. That's how I've done it in the past.
Ummmm - no.
Insurance doesn't benefit the buyer at all. The buyer can't make a claim, the buyer won't receive the money from the shipping company. Insurance protects the shipper (aka the seller) from loss of, or damage to, the item while it is in the custody of the shipping agent. Once the buyer pays, it is the responsibility of the seller to get the item to him/her. The idea that a seller's responsibility ends when he drops the item at the post office is a load of crap. The seller likely knows this, (the rest of that statement is a whole other topic, so I won't go there).
 
Knife is shipper's responsibility until the buyer receives it. If the knife isn't received, that is on the seller, just like if the knife is received not as described, it's on the seller.

You can only file a claim of a missing item with the postal receipt, which only the seller has. Further, if using Paypal, that is how Paypal does it. All in all, insurance only helps the seller mitigate his/her risk.

I tend to stay away from those threads because it shows the seller does not know what he/she is doing. I have purchased from one or two, though, and didn't pay for the optional insurance, as I know Paypal's rules and knew they'd side with me if a problem arose. If you, as a seller, use Paypal (g&s) and don't know the rules and don't buy insurance, that's on you :)
 
Some sellers try to state insurance that way thinking they can claim no responsibility if the package isn't delivered. But when they say once they give it to the shipper they are no longer responsible is just simply not true.

It's the sellers responsibilty if the knife gets lost in transit ... to refund the buyers money and if they don't want to pay out of pocket then they would be wise to pay the small fee for insurance ... because legally they will be held responsible if the package isn't delivered.

simple as that ...
 
I appreciate all the input. I have been on BF for a while and never had this crop up before. I guess that I may have seen it but it never came up with any of my transactions before. I thought that this was a policy on BF
but now I see that people are just making it up. I thank you all for your help and I will steer clear of sellers shipping this way. their is no shortage of people selling on BF that don't have this policy.
 
Ummmm - no.
Insurance doesn't benefit the buyer at all. The buyer can't make a claim, the buyer won't receive the money from the shipping company. Insurance protects the shipper (aka the seller) from loss of, or damage to, the item while it is in the custody of the shipping agent. Once the buyer pays, it is the responsibility of the seller to get the item to him/her. The idea that a seller's responsibility ends when he drops the item at the post office is a load of crap. The seller likely knows this, (the rest of that statement is a whole other topic, so I won't go there).

At least with DHL, the thing is: If a package gets lost or damaged in transit it's the receiving persons problem and he has to HOPE for cooperation with the person sending the item (If it's a private seller to a private buyer). It's different if the package is send from a commercial business to you THEN it's the businesses problem no matter what. So if he has no insurance and the person has no money in their Paypal account and decided to disappear, you're still out of your money. I am speaking from personal experience. But laws regarding that might be different in the states. Personally I wouldn't haggle over a few dollars for a small extra layer of insurance on an item that's a couple hundred dollars, but that's just me. That being said, I agree that the responsibility should lie with the shipper/seller and he or she should just tell the buyer it will cost XX$ to ship and include insurance just so he's on the safe side it the parcel service screws up.
 
Is this a trick question? Of course the seller (shipper) should get the insurance and pay for it, but ultimately the buyer pays as it should be built into the cost of the sale.
No it wasn't a trick question, and I ship the way you described I was just being careful that it was not a policy that BF had in the rules that I had missed. I had sold something on another venue and due to some small print that I was not aware of I got financially penalized even though they had agreed with me it was not righteous the had to do it. Because of that incident I have become wary of small print and now I ask before I do.
 
Is this a trick question? Of course the seller (shipper) should get the insurance and pay for it, but ultimately the buyer pays as it should be built into the cost of the sale.
Obviously, part of calculating the selling price includes an understanding of one's costs. Unfortunately, a good number of sellers here don't grasp that concept.
(I'll also add that buyers really have no place insisting on insurance. It doesn't protect them; and if the seller wasn't factoring it into the price, it is an additional expense that reduces the amount ultimately received from the sale)
 
USPS priority mail shipping is automatically insured up to $50. Buyer is protected by paypal, seller is not protected if the item gets lost in the mail over $50 unless extra insurance is purchased, so logically, the insurance is on the seller to protect himself, not the buyer.
 
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