Am I liable for USPS international return to sender costs? | Selling

unborderedlife · 2024-10-03T09:07:11.971000Z

Hi, I am new to selling on eBay and the other day a guest buyer with zero feedback bought one of my items (a plushie). The buyer is in the US and I am in Japan. I looked up his address and saw it was an apartment so messaged him to ask if he could provide a room number if possible. I got no reply, and after reading online that some apartments in the US have a central mail room I thought that might be the case, and okay to ship. I didn't want to cancel the order unnecessarily as I read it affects your eBay seller rating. I sent the item via registered airmail (Japan Post) which also had tracking. Lo-and-behold a week later when USPS attempted delivery it came back with an "insufficient address" error and said the item had been returned to sender. I have not reached out to the buyer yet, and I have not received a single message from him since the start of the transaction. Once the package returns to me, I plan to refund him minus the shipping cost, given it was not my fault he could not provide a valid address and has been unresponsive. My question is, will I be charged by USPS for the return shipping costs since it is international mail? I was not given a choice to abandon the package or anything; the tracking just shows it was returned to sender after the attempted delivery failed. If I will be charged, is there anyway I can refuse to pay and choose to abandon the package given the item is not even worth as much as the postage in the first place? Thank you in advance.

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Am I liable for USPS international return to sender costs? | Selling | eBay Community