Me (UK buyer) won two auctions (£410 / $541 from a UK eBay seller with 15 positive feedbacks)2) eBay automatically created the invoice for me to pay for combined postage. I paid.
Seller sent via ‘Royal Mail Signed For’ (insured up to £50) !!!
Two days later, it was delivered according to RM tracking. But I didn’t receive anything.5) Contacted RM, they said it may be a rare scanning error. Wait for a few more days.6) 1 week later, nothing shows up. I went to my neighbours on my street and asked if they have my package. Nada
Explained the whole situation to Seller. They refused to help out / resolve and said that I have to deal it with Royal Mail.
I contacted Royal Mail again, explained everything and they said they’ll start an investigation / e-mail me with their results.9) Still waiting for that e-mail at the time of this writing.
I’m completely baffled about why the seller didn’t use an express service? Why not use ‘Special Next Day’, insured up to £1K/2K? That service only costs a few quid extra. When I asked the seller about this. Their response:
“You only paid for standard postage - so I’d tracked and signed for, and you didn’t stipulate before posting you wanted it next day delivery, to which I would have sent you an invoice.”
Not sure what to do at this point other than waiting for Royal Mail’s investigation results via e-mail.
Has the seller shown you proof that they sent it to your address? I’m assuming Royal Mail have the house number and post code from their tracking system, but it would be good to get confirmation from the seller.
I’m purely guessing, but what I expect will happen is that Royal Mail will either find it or admit they’ve lost it, in which case you can maybe go to ebay with that evidence and make the claim that you have not received it. The only concern is they might say you should have told them sooner (hopefully having already messaged the seller qualifies as raising the issue?)
The day when the tracking shows delivered, I immediately notified the Seller as well. I have not opened a case yet because I have nothing to prove that it was actually delivered to a wrong address / Or it was lost. I genuinely thought the scan was just an error and so I waited for 1 week.
Scarily enough, I’ve just found out this scam where people actually send to different addresses on purpose (or accident?)… Not saying they did it or not, I don’t know. But I had asked Seller for proof of postage after 1 week of tracking showing delivered. They did not provide anything useful.
I really don’t know why the seller didn’t show proof of postage, unless they threw away the receipt. I think the best course of action is to call ebay and explain what has happened and why you did not already open a case, and how you want to wait for Royal Mail’s investigation before doing so, though I don’t know what they will say to that. Probably worth mentioning that the seller hasn’t been co-operative and has not provided proof of posting it to the correct addess.
Actually opening a case now would likely be useless because they just go off the tracking number.
I couldn’t imagine, as a seller, getting a price that high and not wanting to spend another £5 on shipping to ensure no problems. What an absolute nightmare, hopefully everything resolves itself.
edit: have heard about this scam a lot recently so maybe ebay are aware of it, probably best to try and get onto their support and escalate to a supervisor if you can.
I’ll breakdown how I would look at this situation.
You are an eBay customer, the seller is the Post Office’s customer. You are the recipient of the Post Office.
If you purchased an item on eBay and you don’t receive the item you are entitled to get your money back. It may take some time however, eBay/PayPal will no doubt pay out.
You can have correspondence with the Post Office to help get your item to you however, you did not pay them to do so. Unfortunately the responsibility falls to the seller to get the item from them to you. Their the one who is entrusting the Post Office to do so. Which currently they haven’t.
If you have been patient, especially at this time of year. Have messaged the seller and asked for proof of postage. If the seller is not cooperative or fails to do so. I don’t see any reason to not open a case and make a claim via eBay/PayPal.
I don’t necessarily think the seller is trying a scam and it’s highly likely it’s the Post Office’s fault due to the time of year.
If I were in your position and to get it settled I’d get my money back and move on. If the item shows up, be a good soul and message the seller and send them the money. Simple.
This happened to me fairly recently and this is the course we took. Seller refunded me (without me opening a case) and once I received the item months later I paid them again.
“… After further investigation and as per our GPS coordinates, the item looks to have been misdelivered in error. Regrettably due to the service used may I respectfully request that you contact the sender for further advice…”
And forwarded that to eBay, case closed in my favour.
And here I was thinking that Portuguese mail was bad. Damn, delivering at a wrong address is super severe, and, sometimes, getting a refund is way worse than getting your items, especially if it was a good deal
Not sure if this is the same, but i had something marked as delivered. Then i did the same Steps and still nothing.
Found out that sometimes they ship it to your next nearby Post Office so you can pick it up.
Was kinda suprised but others confirmed thats something that happens.
