Last week I ordered a GPS on Ebay. Payed for it with PayPal. I e-mailed the seller today to ask when it would be delivered and she sent me a USPS tracking number saying it was delivered at 12:04 pm on Saturday, 6/7.
I was home at noon on Saturday and the postman never knocked on my door. There’s no key on my box indicating a package in one of the parcel boxes.
I’ve sent the seller another e-mail telling her that I did not receive the item but I find that I don’t really know where to go from here. Should I contact the post office? I printed the tracking sheet but it doesn’t show a signature or the address to where it was delivered, just the tracking number and date. Will the PO have that information.
Guess I could double check the mail box and make sure there’s not a key way in the back or something. (we have a community mail box because I live in a condo, if you have a parcel that’s too big for your letter box they put it in the parcel box and leave the key).
I think there’s going to be a strong tendency for PayPoo to just accept that the delivery tracking proves the item was delivered and settle any dispute in favour of the seller. The eBay discussion forums, for all their faults, are not a bad place to ask for advice about this.
How does the parcel box thing work? Are there multiple keys? What would happen if a parcel arrived and there was already something locked in there? Are they the sort of keys that someone could easily have duplicated?
I sell quite a bit on ebay and usually ship USPS Priority with delivery confirmation. That .65 - .75 cents confirmation has saved my ass several times. Before I would just eat the shipment, but claims of non-delivery have gone way down since I started using it.
If I was in your seller’s position, and you (as the buyer) had not made specific arrangements for receiving a costly item when you’ve got a relatively insecure community mailbox situation, I feel I’ve honored my end of the transaction.
Delivery confirmation is merely the postal worker’s personal certification the package has been delivered (it also tracks the packages route) . No one is required to sign. Call the local post office. I’ve had one DC certified that was still in the postal truck and I had to call the PO to rouse them to find it.
I would definitely take that tracking number and delivery notification down to the post office. I get my neighbor’s mail from time to time; it’s possible the postman made an error and someone else got it.
A buyer once contacted me about a magazine that had not arrived although the electronic records indicated that it had been delivered to the major mail station in a city near his. For quite a while we thought it was just buried somewhere. Many days later, he got it.
These things sometimes get bogged down. Give it some time.
This has happened to me. I never received the item, but there was delivery confirmation. No matter that the delivery was confirmed at a different Zip Code! Nope, S.O.L. If the tracking info says the item was delivered, eBay and PayPal won’t do anything. You’re out the money you paid. No one is responsible for delivering it to the wrong place.
I called the post office with the tracking number. Explained my sad story. They looked and low and behold my package was right there on the shelf. Apparently a postal worker was scanning some packages my neighbor on the other side of the building was picking up and since I’m in the same building (same street address, different apt. #) mine was right next to hers and he scanned mine as well.
They caught the mistake before she took the package home but didn’t undo the “delivered” scan so it showed as being delivered and signed for by her on 6/7. It probably would have sat there forever if I hadn’t called. :rolleyes:
I got to talk directly to my mail carrier who was really quite helpful. I ended up asking her to leave the item at the post office for me to pick up since it required a signature.
The item was a Garmin 350 GPS btw and I used it on a gig last night. Worked like a charm.