eBay

daisyloveslily · ‎09-22-2017

An item I sold was sent out 10 days ago. At day 3, the tracking was updated with "No Access" instead of delivered. When I looked up what that means, it implies that their mailbox was blocked or something along those lines. The buyer opened a case right away about item not received. I told her to contact the post office to see if they have the package or if they can re-deliver it. She requested re-delivery a couple days later and it has been in "re-delivery" status for 5 days now. She requested it again 2 days ago. Still not delivered. So, it is now on day 10 since the shoes were shipped out and she told me she wants a refund because the post office is not delivering the item. Is this something I have to take responsibility for and give her a full refund? Or is this in the buyer and post office's court? Any suggestions on how to proceed are appreciated.

*eponymous* · ‎09-22-2017

Call the carrier unit - not the 800 number - even if you have to get the local number from the buyer. Call at 4 or 5 AM. That's the only time you will get through, the rest of the time the phone just rings off the hoook. Ask for redelivery. You don't know what the buyer's redelivery request said, e.g. "redeliver in 3 weeks".

As far as the case goes, an attempt to deliver, to eBay, is considered "delivered". This is a case that should NOT be ruled in buyer's favor even if the buyer does escalate it. It's suspicious that the buyer doesn't even bother to call on her own.

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage. ~ Anais Nin

a_c_green · ‎09-22-2017

@daisyloveslily wrote:
She said she has been on the phone for hours and no one can tell her why the package is not being delivered.

Oh, bologna. I can't see her spending "hours" to make one local phone call to her post office. That's ridiculous. I think you'll need to be pro-active here and get your own answer from her post office as to what's going on with your package. You might need to enlist the help of your own post office, if you can't reach them directly, but hopefully it won't come to that.

roadking5555 · ‎09-22-2017

@a_c_green wrote:
@daisyloveslily wrote:
She said she has been on the phone for hours and no one can tell her why the package is not being delivered.
Oh, bologna. I can't see her spending "hours" to make one local phone call to her post office. That's ridiculous. I think you'll need to be pro-active here and get your own answer from her post office as to what's going on with your package. You might need to enlist the help of your own post office, if you can't reach them directly, but hopefully it won't come to that.

That was my first thought when I read the buyer spent "hours" with the local PO and no one could tell her where her package was.
It takes no more than 5 minutes to get an answer and if there is a problem they will call you back. Hopefully the OP got an answer from them. It also took the buyer 2 days to ask for a redelivery and then waited 5 more days? Hopefully this turns out with a good ending, I suspect not.

retrose1 · ‎09-22-2017

Many PO branches do not have enough employees working to answer the phones, wait on customers, sort the mail and stock the areas. The branch I go to has only two people working in it at any given moment, often only 1, and so the phone answering is the first thing they ignore.

And besides, what will the OP calling the buyers PO do for them? Will it extend the time on the case - no. Will it stop ebay from auto refunding if the OP waits around because the PO says to - no. Nothing the PO can tell the OP will help her in any way.

The OP needs to either recall the package OR get ebay to extend the time - before time runs out and ebay auto refunds the buyer and gives the OP a double whammy, account destroying defect.

(*Bleep*)

a_c_green · ‎09-22-2017

@retrose1 wrote:

The OP needs to either recall the package OR get ebay to extend the time - before time runs out and ebay auto refunds the buyer and gives the OP a double whammy, account destroying defect.

No doubt, but from my own experience, I would not trust Package Recall further than I could throw it by the leg. If the package is deliverable, it will get delivered, and it does not seem that the carrier either sees or understands a recall notice if one pops up when the package is scanned.

In this case, it's not clear whether there's a genuine problem with the package or its delivery, or whether the buyer is hoping to run out the clock on the INR dispute. That's a risk anyway, of course, but the OP might gain some useful insight (and possibly the package) by making at least one attempt to call the buyer's local post office to find out what the heck is going on down there. I agree that the INR dispute needs to get extended by eBay as well, while this all gets sorted out.

yuzuha · ‎09-22-2017

I would call the buyer's local PO. If a redelivery attempt is initiated, it should be redelivered the next day, and if it isn't redelivered, there should be some sort of scan indicating exactly why. My local PO clerk has told me that when a package goes out for delivery, it needs to have a scan update by the time the carrier returns to the PO, either as a "Delivered" scan or as a scan indicating why it could not be delivered. It should not be showing "Redelivery" for days on end.

daisyloveslily · ‎09-23-2017

UPDATE: I called the main USPS line yesterday and they opened a case for me and said a supervisor from the buyer's PO would call me in 2 - 3 days. I actually got a call this morning already from the supervisor and she said she is going to have it delivered today or the buyer can pick up within 15 days. I wrote this info to the buyer. Then just to be safe, I called eBay and told them the situation. They said since they see progress and I've done my part, they're closing the case in my favor. Right after they closed the case, the package was delivered. I guess everyone is happy! Thank you everyone for your responses!

a_c_green · ‎09-23-2017

Excellent! Thank you for updating us with the good news.

castlemagicmemories · ‎09-23-2017

Yes, an extension is a good idea.

roadking5555 · ‎09-23-2017

Happy to hear it worked out for you.

I am curious....did the PO supervisor give any explanation to you on the reason why the tracking said "no access" and why the redelivery the buyer asked for never happened?

Just wondering why you got some action where the buyer could not, if indeed they spent "hours" on the phone with them.

daisyloveslily · ‎09-23-2017

No, I didn't ask. I should have! My thoughts are that they couldn't locate it right off the bat so they just didn't care until a case was opened. But now I know the buyer was definitely lying about "no one knowing anything about it" becuase they would have opened a case for her.

castlemagicmemories · ‎09-23-2017

@daisyloveslily wrote:
UPDATE: I called the main USPS line yesterday and they opened a case for me and said a supervisor from the buyer's PO would call me in 2 - 3 days. I actually got a call this morning already from the supervisor and she said she is going to have it delivered today or the buyer can pick up within 15 days. I wrote this info to the buyer. Then just to be safe, I called eBay and told them the situation. They said since they see progress and I've done my part, they're closing the case in my favor. Right after they closed the case, the package was delivered. I guess everyone is happy! Thank you everyone for your responses!

This is GREAT!! SO glad you called Ebay and they closed it in your favor.

Cngrats!

auctionpet · ‎09-23-2017

Just curious as to where this was shipped. If it was Florida, the no access would have been hurricane related. Glad you got things squared away!

daisyloveslily · ‎09-23-2017

It was in NYC

the-book-monster · ‎09-23-2017

My day job is being a supervisor at a local post office. I have worked for the USPS for 14 years.

No Access can mean many things, but most importantly it means it will sit at the post office in question for 14 days and then be returned to you unless it is claimed.

I can also tell you the only system used to schedule redelivery is far from perfect and many times the carriers do not get notified properly or in a timely fashion, which means the customer gets even more frustrated.

The best thing for your customer to do is walk into the post office and see if it is on the shelf waiting for them to pick up.