Anyone else having issues with USPS Delivery Confirmation?

[Doug]

Originally Posted by t206hound

I was alerted to an item that never got delivered when paypal withheld funds from me. It was a full month after shipment. Looking at USPS (even now), I see only the following:

Status: Processed through Sort Facility
Your item was processed through and left our [removed] facility on May 03, 2010. The item is currently in transit to the destination. No further information is available for this item.

I'm a bit confused as to what happened in this situation. Did PayPal take the money because the buyer reported the card as not being received or was it because the tracking number showed it as not delivered? Considering delivery confirmation doesn't seem to be too reliable I'm hoping PayPal can't just take money from you because the tracking number says it wasn't delivered.

[t206hound]

I didn't get a single message from the buyer. At exactly one month after shipment, the funds associated with the purchase were withheld. I can only assume that the buyer opened a case with Paypal.

Personally, I keep track of all of my purchases, and if something didn't arrive within 10 days, I would contact the seller. It was odd to me that it was a full month after the shipment. It almost appeared as though the buyer trolled through all of the paypal confirmations looking for instances of the DC not stating 'delivered'... but that's the conspiracy theorist in me. It's just as likely, however, that the individual typically wins several items and does a month end reconciliation on items purchased and received.

Originally Posted by Doug

I'm a bit confused as to what happened in this situation. Did PayPal take the money because the buyer reported the card as not being received or was it because the tracking number showed it as not delivered? Considering delivery confirmation doesn't seem to be too reliable I'm hoping PayPal can't just take money from you because the tracking number says it wasn't delivered.

[Doug]

I was wondering from the way that it sounded as if PayPal has some kind of system that alerts them if an item is shown as not delivered within a month after it was shipped and they just take your money. If your buyer did open a case for an item not received I thought PayPal would have to contact you and try and see what happened before they just go taking money from your account. It doesn't seem like there's a lot of protection for the seller to keep a buyer from filing a claim on you even if they did get the card as long as the tracking number shows it as not delivered.

[t206hound]

Originally Posted by Doug

It doesn't seem like there's a lot of protection for the seller to keep a buyer from filing a claim on you even if they did get the card as long as the tracking number shows it as not delivered.

Agreed. If there was a DC, and it never gets scanned as delivered, then the arbitrator (Paypal) will always side with the buyer if a case is opened.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by t206hound

Agreed. If there was a DC, and it never gets scanned as delivered, then the arbitrator (Paypal) will always side with the buyer if a case is opened.

I'm pretty sure I don't have to worry about a case being opened since the buyer emailed me that he received the card and left me a positive feedback, but from your other post it seemed like they took the money from you without the buyer even opening a dispute since nobody ever contacted you about it. I tried calling them and getting an explanation as to if they will take money from your account if you have an item that shows as undelivered for so long and they didn't give me a straight answer. In fact they suggested I call USPS and tell them change the delivery status to "delivered" which I'm not sure how that would even be possible since I assume they need the bar code off of the already delivered package to scan it.

[mcap100176]

I don't do delivery conformation. I do insurance for over $50. The post office can track packages through the insurance. Protects me while providing tracking. I also never do the Ebay/PayPal shipping label. I take it to the Post Office.

[camlov2]

Can someone give us the exact amounts for delivery conformation and for insurance?
I think DC is 70 cents while $50 of insurance is about $1-2.

It sounds like delivery conformation is useless and it would be a better choice to just insure every package for the minimum amount.