posted on March 31, 2003 07:38:34 PM new
A few weeks ago I had a bidder win three of my auctions - a record album and two cds. She asked if she could combine shipping, and I said no problem, shipping all 3 in the same box. On March 18 she posted positive feedback for the record album.
Today she emailed me asking where the CDs are. I wrote back and said that they were in the box with the album... but I'm sure you see where this is going. She wants a refund for the cds. Opinions?
posted on March 31, 2003 08:13:40 PM new
Don't refund until you have done a few things. Did you keep your postal receipt? if so...
Weigh the Album, 2CD's and the identical packaging to see what it weighs. If it weighs the same as the package you mailed then you can email your buyer that the CD's were in the package. I would also weigh the album and packaging without the CD's to see what the postage would be for that. 2CD's weigh about 1/2 pound. Album I don't know.
posted on March 31, 2003 08:18:15 PM newShe asked if she could combine shipping, and I said no problem, shipping all 3 in the same box.
In one word ,no! Tell them to check the box and if they tossed it out then I would think thats their problem and not yours.
How did they pay? If via paypal I hope you have d.c. or tracking to prove shipment or your done for.
Again, no refund.
posted on March 31, 2003 08:35:18 PM new
I did save the receipt - that's a -great- idea for the weight of the package. I will do that and post back to her. I don't think this is my fault as she did ask (and pay) for these items to be shipped together. I certainly sympathize with her, but... you get the idea.
posted on March 31, 2003 08:48:58 PM new
If she asked to combine shipping, did she ask via e mail? If so, include a copy of her e mail asking to combine shipping!
posted on March 31, 2003 09:11:14 PM new
Hi
If you know that you included the CDs in the same package then you did your part, so why should you give a refund when you did ship them to her...............checking your weight is a great idea but not always a sure thing, ....................I had a customer that wanted to return 4 game tapes, I said sure, send them back and I will return your purchase price, .........The envelope came with 5.40 shipping cost which shows that the game tapes were inside the envelope.
But when I opened the envelope it was empty, nothing inside not even a note..............I told my customer that I can not return her money because I did not receive the tapes back,.......well bottom line is..........she gave me a Neg. and then she claimed lost item with the post office since I had asked her to insure the package when she sends it back to me.
But to this day I still dont understand what happened to the tapes, because I was the first one to open the envelope, and it was not opened before I got it, this is strange, but still I did not feel I should return her money because I never got the tapes...........
posted on March 31, 2003 11:14:07 PM new
I had a bidder in Australia win 8 items. When he received the box he said only 6 were inside.
I told him I put them all in the box and checked them off on his invoice prior to sending. I did refund for the two he stated he never received and he left me a nuetral anyway saying I did not send item he had won.
He paid with Paypal and I just didn't want the hassle.
posted on April 1, 2003 06:27:34 AM new
Not gloating, honest...but we never have this problem because we never combine auction items.
You see what combining leads to: he-said/she-said disputes.
Even so, I still get people claiming they didn't receive items that DC says were delivered. Maybe it was stolen out of their mailbox. Maybe their housemate made off with it. Or maybe they're just plain crooked.
Remember this: It costs them nothing to keep sending you email, bugging you about a "lost" item. But it costs YOU to keep responding. Make one definitive response, and sh!tcan all subsequent email on that topic.
I keep thinking someday I'm going to buy 10 items from 10 different eBay sellers, pay for them, and then claim that I never received any of them. I'm curious what percentage will send me a refund and how many emails it will take.
(Of course I'd return the refunds...)
--
"I'm thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said `I drank WHAT?'"
posted on April 1, 2003 07:33:08 AM new
Hello
Near all of we sellers have been through this. I kindly suggest you first consider your sales volume (per week) and the number of times this has happened in the last year.
It happened to me about two years ago to the point that I was headed for serious trouble.
I installed some checkpoints in my post sale system where I had to initial that I had made double checks of all shipments prior to shipping. Like you I combine a lots, which increases sales. My problem then went away until yesterday when a lot was not received by a customer. I checked, lot was here, in my haste I had broke my own rules. The result was an error. I have found in my world anyway, that errors are near always mine not the customer. However if this is the first incident in years with a volume of 10-50 lots going out a week then perhaps the above don’t apply but post sales processing is an area where most sellers who fail, fail in. Good luck to you.
posted on April 3, 2003 07:44:27 AM new
Well, this ended easier than I thought it would. The buyer still had the box around that everything was sent in, and sure enough when she looked in it - surprise! "The cds -are- in here. Thank you!"
posted on April 3, 2003 08:18:06 AM new
I had the same experience with a buyer but I was lucky enough that the buyer call and wanted to know where the other items were, I told her they were all in the same box, as luck would have it she still had the box and packing and they were still in there. Where did you put the CD's in the box at the bottom or?? Could they have not seen them and they got tossed out??
posted on April 3, 2003 12:52:45 PM new
I too am happy to combine shipping. I often mail items like decanters with lids, or things with other small parts which I wrap separately in bubble wrap. I always inform the buyer of the number of pieces in the box, as it is easy to overlook something small. That way at least they know how many items to look for among all that packing material!
posted on April 3, 2003 02:40:40 PM new
I had the record in the middle of a long/tall Priority Mail box, and then on each side wrapped in foam-wrap was a cd, and the rest was filled with peanuts. They were all packed well, but it sounds like she pulled the album out and didn't fish around in there. I'm glad it ended well.
