ebay lost in the mail question

wondering what others think

if ebay seller has proof (postal receipt) of mailing a cd to buyer
and buyer does not receive
postage was 1st class w/out any confirmation

what is fair in regards to who should take the loss buyer , seller or ?
how does ebay usually settle this?
thanks

 

Just my opinion - but I think the loss should be the buyer's.
The seller cannot be held responsible for the mail.
Especially if the seller has proof that he upheld his end of the deal.

 

Unless it is trackable (with confirmation) then the receipt is not an accepted form of proof that it was mailed.

IMHO it is the sellers's responsability. I believe this is also PayPal's take on it (eBay could really give a ****) but you'll have to start a claim with PayPal around day 43 (before day 45).

 

It's the seller's responsibility. As one, all I can ask for is patience from the buyers and that is often hard to come by. In a related story, the Italian customs are killing me with all these delays.

 

The receipt should show the weight and the zip code along with the date.

 

Oh how I wish eBay made it possible to block bidders from Italy. Currently you can only block all of Europe. I don't know what's going on over there but things are always getting lost or delayed.

As for sellers vs. buyers responsibility, I always take responsibility as the seller. But as ashlee5 says, I try to preach patience on the bidders part. Things very, very rarely get outright lost in the mail, but they do get delayed.

 

paypal will not accept anything but delivery confirmation as proof.

a receipt will not do it.

 

it seems that the only way to get confirmation on international mail from u.s. postal is to send 1st class registered (about 15$ for padded envelop w/ 1 cd)
or to send express or priority $$

if a buyer only wants to pay for 1st class w/ out being registered how can paypal hold seller responsible (no way to prove buyer did not receive)
and it seems paypal is going to holds funds until buyer receives?

 

Some sellers will only sell outside US with 1st Class Registered or better for that reason.

 

Are you totally sure about that? When I called eBay last week to inquire about seller protection, the guy told me that PayPal will back you if you have postal receipts.....but didn't go that next step of mentioning delivery confirmation. My guess is that there's no 'set-in-stone' formula that they follow but rather look at things like your history when making a decision..but?

 

When I ship International, I always state that I'm only responsible if I ship Priority International, so I can track the package. Recently, I've had some buyers more willing to take the risk shipping only 1st class ,because they say it's less likely to be inspected or stolen if it doens't stick out as a "high ticket" item.

My overseas items have been making it, but i haven't been shipping to Italy. I hear, as previously stated, that Italy has issues.

 

postman told me that when there was a postal strike in italy they had a large amount of undelivered mail when the strike ended, so to avoid extra work or theft they burned all the undelivered mail!

 

unless things have changed, yes.

I have spoke with paypal on the phone and I was told only delivery confirmation is accepted.