Fraud, I believe.

[stewdelta_rw]

Customer purchased from me. It was delivered Dec 10, but customer sends me a message that a package had arrived but only the Shipping address, the packing sleep and a We do care from postal. Package and contents completely gone. Where do I go from here?

[ebooksdiva]

The buyer needs to open a not as described case. Because what they received is not what they ordered. 
What is a package sleep? 

[inhawaii]

"customer sends me a message that a package had arrived but only the Shipping address, the packing sleep and a We do care from postal. "

What does that mean?

[buyselljack2016]

it means that USPS lost the item that was shipped.

Envelope (likely) went in one direction.

Contents went in another.

All that "postal" found was the packing slip.

[redlinear]

That's a tough one.
I would probably go ahead and refund and be done with it (unless the buyer is being a jerk). 
Might ask them if they can send you a picture of the shipping label AND the usps message/note.
That would show the buyer is probably on the level.

[evelyb30]

Packing slip, I believe.  The package was damaged/opened in transit by the USPS Football squad, aka automated processing. The stuff that was inside fell out en route.  

All the OP can do is refund the buyer and file a claim ... which they'll lose since the USPS will claim they delivered something.  

[tsme35]

Probably means slip, the package got tore up and contents fell out, the PO usually puts that note in a envelope when they delivered whats left of the package.

 Ask the customer to send you a photo of what they received from the PO, ask them to open case for refund and then file a claim with the Post office.

[redlinear]

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@evelyb30 wrote:

Packing slip, I believe.  The package was damaged/opened in transit by the USPS Football squad, aka automated processing. The stuff that was inside fell out en route.  

All the OP can do is refund the buyer and file a claim ... which they'll lose since the USPS will claim they delivered something.  

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UNLESS, it's a savvy buyer that goes straight to Return This Item.   Then the seller loses

[12345jamesstamps]

A photo will be more believable but just saying package was damaged or missing the item can be hard to believe.

I did get a postcard once in a plastic bag where it only had my address on a quarter of the post card from USPS stating item damaged...only missing 3/4 of the post card...LOL

I would kindly ask buyer for a photo(s) for a 'quicker refund'....even though buyer doesn't have to send a photo maybe the words 'quicker refund' might work.

[evelyb30]

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@redlinear wrote:

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@evelyb30 wrote:

Packing slip, I believe.  The package was damaged/opened in transit by the USPS Football squad, aka automated processing. The stuff that was inside fell out en route.  

All the OP can do is refund the buyer and file a claim ... which they'll lose since the USPS will claim they delivered something.  

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UNLESS, it's a savvy buyer that goes straight to Return This Item.   Then the seller loses

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Seller already lost by default.  The only one getting paid in this case will be the post office.   I think the buyer is honest for once; I've had this happen to me before.   More than once I've gotten an empty mailer with a Whoops note but no contents except some of the original junk contents.  Automated handling does the damage. 

[tobaccocardyahoo]

I have received packages from Ebay sellers which were marked as damaged by USPS and had no contents.

The remains of the original packing material indicated that the seller was totally at fault by packing inadequately.

Got my refund though Ebay. Had no sympathy for the seller who clearly was not going to collect any insurance.

[buyselljack2016]

does not seem that the "tracking portion" was delivered. May not be a delivery scan unless USPS extracted that # from the packing slip and manually entered the #.

[johnrj1226]

Agree clear as mud  from here -  tried to decode the text with my  rather old (1950s) Captain Midnight decoder ring and came up empty.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvKlqMjfk1Y

There are some for sales on eBay

[yuzuha]

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@tobaccocardyahoo wrote:

I have received packages from Ebay sellers which were marked as damaged by USPS and had no contents.

The remains of the original packing material indicated that the seller was totally at fault by packing inadequately.

Got my refund though Ebay. Had no sympathy for the seller who clearly was not going to collect any insurance.

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Yep, I once had a seller try to ship me a shirt in a manila envelope. It ended exactly the same way.

[mam98031]

If this was shipped USPS, they are pretty darn good about putting a note on the package when there has been damage.  Ask for pics.

Also you can check with USPS directly too.  Besides depending on the buyer, do some of your own investigation.  USPS does take pics of a package as it moves through the system.  See what they have available and maybe they can pinpoint when the damage happened or that none actually happened at their hands or machines.

If they open a Request for Return due to damage, they will have to upload a pic.