Is buyer confirmation of receipt not valid proof of delivery?
I shipped an item which ended up being delayed by the carrier. USPS still has not located the item and have it listed still as a missing mail search...but I have. The buyer confirmed in messages that he received the item. This of course, after he initiated a refund request for item not received, and the clock ticked down to the last minute before eBay would have stepped in. Reluctantly I approved the refund, only to be told a day or two later that he received the item.
Cue my call to eBay customer support, who initially were very receptive about the prospects of appealing the refund under seller protection, and collected all of the details, including a message attached to the item transaction from the buyer themselves that they received the item.
Imagine my surprise, then, today when I received a message from support that there was insufficient evidence to proceed with an appeal, citing lack of "valid proof of delivery". Multiple back and forths with support have not been helpful, and I'm genuinely unsure if I'm misunderstanding, but I have valid tracking scans, I clearly shipped the item, the buyer themselves said they received it, and I can't get payment.
What am I supposed to be doing differently? I've paid hundreds of dollars in seller fees in the past couple of months - what kind of seller protection is this?
The irony of the pinned thread in this Shipping forum (eBay will work with sellers for carrier delays and item not received requests) is not lost on me...
mtgraves7984
·8 months ago@mm3131398
Silly question, but has your buyer requested to repay you? You can provide your email and they can PayPal you.
mm3131398
OP8 months agoThanks for the advice - I'll try the USPS route and hopefully that will be the end of it.
I do still feel pretty disappointed that eBay would not step in and approve the appeal in this case. I just don't see how the responses I've gotten from CS thus far are appropriate given the circumstance.
mm3131398
OP8 months agoThe INR case was closed when I was forced to provide a refund. As the item appeared lost in transit at the time, I didn't really have a choice. If I hadn't approved it, eBay would have stepped in and done so anyways.
So, if the buyer reported they received the item themselves, how is that not more authoritative than a carrier scan? Like confessing in an interrogation room while being recorded, "Yes, I killed that man" but nobody saw you do it so you're not guilty? "Sorry, confessions aren't valid proof of guilt".
Messages and conduct in them are regularly reviewed and included in CS interventions - this is no different. What's different is the content isn't "good enough" for CS to do the right thing. If I don't have any alternatives, it is what it is.
I've been on eBay for 15 years, but I won't miss it if this is what happens when I finally need them to do something for me.
mamacassidy
·8 months agoWhat you need to do now is file a claim with USPS. If they can't show "delivered" in the tracking, then they will refund you. (I have done this on a couple of occasions, and once I got a refund check in the mail, and once it was magically updated to delivered.)
If somehow your claim gets USPS to mark the item delivered, ebay has a new policy where they reimburse you if an item gets delivered after an INR refund.
kensgiftshop
·8 months agoThe only valid proof of delivery is a delivery scan.
If the buyer received the item, ask them to close the INR case.