Issues with USPS

[karlscollections]

Hi there, so I'm curious if Ebay offers any support for issues with the postal service.  I sold an item, and shipped it on Jan 23rd.  About 10 days later, the buyer left me neutral feedback, saying they never got there item.  I immediately reached out to her, and asked for 1 more week.  I tried all I could with the postal service, and nothing.  I gave her a full refund on Feb. 14th, as the tracking showed the item still in transit.  Thankfully, she changed the feedback to positive, but on Feb. 18th, the item arrived, and now i'm out the money.  It took almost a month for the item to get from Maine,  to Mississippi.  Is there any way to not allow buyers to give back feedback when the issue is all within the postal service?  This is not the first time this has happened, when I had to give a refund to make things right with my buyers, but then the item eventually arrives, and shocking, the buyers never offer to send it back, or pay for it.  I just feel I shouldn't be left bad feedback, when the fault all goes on the postal service.  Any advice out there?  Thanks in advance

[mr_lincoln]

Hi @karlscollections 

Sadly, this is one of the biggest drawbacks to selling eBay and their limited time claims for items delayed in shipment.  If they were paying attention they would know that in this day and age 4 days is NOT enough time to allow packages to reemerge from getting misplaced by carriers, especially USPS.  

The other issue of course is eBay NOT "holding" the Buyer's funds for a 30 day period like they do for New or Low Activity Sellers on paying them.  They could easily do this since the Buyers all agreed to pay for the item when they initially purchased it.  This would most likely cover most of the scenarios you have experienced where a delayed shipment is refunded through the 4 day claim period and then gets delivered within a week or two later.

We read about this on a very regular basis here.