Where does a shipper's responsibility begin and end?

Walking Man

Walking Man

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How much responsibility does a shipper have to take and why. If I've shipped an item, and it gets lost, am I responsible? What if the I added delivery confirmation and the package never arrives? What if it does arrive somewhere, but the buyer never sees it, even though I purchased deliver confirmation? (or signature confirmation). Thanks.
 
Walking Man said:
How much responsibility does a shipper have to take and why. If I've shipped an item, and it gets lost, am I responsible? What if the I added delivery confirmation and the package never arrives? What if it does arrive somewhere, but the buyer never sees it, even though I purchased deliver confirmation? (or signature confirmation). Thanks.
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Deal is done when both sides are happy. If something gets lost in shipping as shipper you need to work hard to help your customer get his package.

If in the end you can never get the package to the customer you either need to resend identical goods or refund the money.

Bottom line is your customer came through, you owe him the same.
 
I think most should be on a case by case basis, but for the most part I agree with bigjim. I recently had an item lost in the mail, and shipped the buyer a replacement. Of course, that's easier for me to do when the item is of a low dollar value. I suppose if I was shipping something of more value, I'd probably get insurrance, and maybe even go with a private shipper.
 
The buyer has to receive either the knife or his money back. If the buyer for some reason has asked for the package to not be insured then the seller should ask the buyer to send him an email stating that if it is lost in shipping the buyer takes full responsibility. Other than that, it is the responsibility of the seller, once paid, to get what was paid for into the hands of the buyer.

It sucks when something is lost in shipping, even if it is insured. You have to wait a specified time period before you can file a claim, and there is certainly no guaranty that you will get paid for the claim. I always find it nerve-racking until the package I ship gets to other person.
 
Agreed. Unless the customer specifically refuses to pay for insurance then the responsibility is yours. If an item was lost then you owe them either a replacement or refund.
 
this leads to another question...if the item is insured, who collects the insurance then?

pete
 
Pete1977 said:
this leads to another question...if the item is insured, who collects the insurance then?

pete
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Once the seller has sent the refund, the insurance money is his/hers. Otherwise the buyer would be getting double what he paid and the seller would be out the knife and the money.
 
I try to think of this, don't ship anything I can't "self insure" if it came down to it.

We had the micarta passaround seb come up missing. It was marked as delivered even though he never got it. Turns out it was delivered to a local company. We had to call for almost 2 weeks BOTH the USPS AND the local company to get the knife back.

I'm 100% sure if we hadn't called and harassed the postal persons, we would have never recovered it and we wouldn't have gotten insurance payment since it was marked delivered.

I think this is an overlooked issues, honestly I expect people to get off their butts and actively check with their PO when there's a problem. I think many people give up and are too lazy to put forth any effort if it's not sitting in their mailbox.
 
Don't count on the US Postal Service when it comes to insurance though. They simply try not to pay. It took me over a year to get a partial payment on something they admittedly lost, but just kept inventing excuses not to pay. Finally, they paid it but only when I started going up the food chain and accusing people of theft (which of course is what happened -- let's face it they didn't really lose it). Best bet is to insure with DHL or FedEx and use the next day rather than the ground versions.
 
Okay, but what about the legal responsibility? I am aware that an honest seller should go to length to make his buyer happy, but I'm not talking about a nice Bladeforums transaction. The situation that I am in is one where the buyer has somewhat dubious feedback, and the item was delivered according to delivery confirmation.
 
I think that for this scenario and under these circumstances, that the whole story might be warranted, but I can understand that, if you haven't delved into details by this point, you probably don't want to on a public forum. PM me the details of the transaction (I am assuming it is ebay) if you want. I would like to see the buyer's feedback, that can often be an indication of the person's character.
 
Pete1977 said:
I think that for this scenario and under these circumstances, that the whole story might be warranted, but I can understand that, if you haven't delved into details by this point, you probably don't want to on a public forum. PM me the details of the transaction (I am assuming it is ebay) if you want. I would like to see the buyer's feedback, that can often be an indication of the person's character.
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Sorry, I don't really want to get into specific detail until things get a more laid out. For all I know, he'll never contact me again. We'll see.
 
I ship everything with a delivery confirmation and if its valuable I insure it. It is my responsibility I feel to see that the package arrives at its destination. I take no chances. I ship in Boxes. I print Labels. I use delivery confirmation.

If I ship over borders ( which is very rare ) I state upfront that if the item is stolen by foreign mail carriers, snagged by customs, or just plain disappears. That it is the buyers risk and I will not refund the $$.

So far no problems.
 
BTW, I don't just want to get specific information on my situation, but on many different situtations. What if you had reason to believe your buyer is lying?
 
Most assume that the buyer is at no risk unless they reside outside the US. As a seller It's my job to make sure the items gets into the hands of the customer,,once there,, my terms/conditions take over.

Phillip :)
 
Walking Man said:
BTW, I don't just want to get specific information on my situation, but on many different situtations. What if you had reason to believe your buyer is lying?
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THen I would load my Mossberg Pistol grip 12 ga. with Remington Low recoil buck shot..jump in my car with a clown suit. and Drive to his house ..beat him with a rump roast and then as he is begging for his life take my knife and piss a gallon of mountian dew piss all over his face... then I would proceed to shoot up his house with the shot gun so the walls looked like swiss cheeze and then knee cap the bastard with my ASP baton...all the while cheerfully singing.."We're going to the zoo today we're going to the zoo":D :D
 
notdos said:
Most assume that the buyer is at no risk unless they reside outside the US. As a seller It's my job to make sure the items gets into the hands of the customer,,once there,, my terms/conditions take over.
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Okay, but what is an acceptable level of making sure the item is there? (assuming you don't 100% trust your buyer) Delivery Confirmation? Or is signature or insurance required?
 
If you shipped USPS with delivery confirmation then they have the signature on file. You can get a copy. When you have the copy, inform the buyer that you have a delivery confirmation receipt with his signature on it. At that point your responsibility is over.

I also agree that no delivery service will pay on insurance claims unless you cudgel them over the head with it...

I've made it my standard practice to ship Fedex. It's cheaper, the tracking is better and they have a new policy where their people visually inspect high dollar items... this gives them less weasel room to complain about the packaging etc.
 
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