Got scammed by combined shipping. How do I avoid this next time?

[heygar1]

  Please don't wag a finger at me. A buyer scammed me, and I accept that. What I want to know is how to avoid this happening again. 

  A buyer purchased a knife from me on day one and another on day two. Btw, these are seperate listings, not quantities of an identical item.  Then I get a buyer request to ship the two together. No problem, (so I think).  Both knives get shipped in one package with one tracking number. Two weeks go by, then the buyer files "did not receive"  request for the second knife.  Of course, ebay sided with the buyer.

 The only take-away I can think of is to never combine shipping. But there must be a way to do this for honest people and protect myself. I'll use this as a teachable opportunity. Thank you in advance.

[clu3]

Under the seller dashboard, select both items to prepare a combined shipment. 

[chapeau-noir]

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@heygar1 wrote:

  Please don't wag a finger at me. A buyer scammed me, and I accept that. What I want to know is how to avoid this happening again. 

  A buyer purchased a knife from me on day one and another on day two. Btw, these are seperate listings, not quantities of an identical item.  Then I get a buyer request to ship the two together. No problem, (so I think).  Both knives get shipped in one package with one tracking number. Two weeks go by, then the buyer files "did not receive"  request for the second knife.  Of course, ebay sided with the buyer.

 The only take-away I can think of is to never combine shipping. But there must be a way to do this for honest people and protect myself. I'll use this as a teachable opportunity. Thank you in advance.

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I'm not saying it's not unfair and thievery, it is, but the question here seems to be where to go from here.  Offer combined shipping or not?  So, honest question:  How often do you think this may happen or has happened?  Do you have many, many more honest buyers than thieves like this?  I generally go by the large majority and don't base business decisions on occasional instances, but that's something only you can determine.

A combined shipping invoice cannot be created if the items were paid for separately (which it sounds like from the OP's post). Even then, a buyer can simply claim that both items weren't included.  I had this happen a couple of years ago - unless things have changed.

[mam98031]

I do that all the time without ever having an issue.  You just need to make sure you load the tracking number onto each sale within your stated handling time.  Or as others have suggested to a combined shipping label in the Ebay shipping system, that one would be the best.

[7198dave]

copy and paste the tracking number into the tracking box of item w/o a tracking number.

[luckythewinner]

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eBay has no way to know the two knives were shipped under the same tracking number. 

The solution is incredibly simple. 

All you need to do is make sure you have manually added the tracking number to all the eBay transactions that were included in the combined shipment. 

[jda03121]

All said above are helpful.....however, nothing can save you from a scammer who files a claim saying the item was not as described or missing in the box. There are sellers who ship empty or "short" boxes and almost always eBay sides with the buyer if he knows how to file. 

[dbeatrecords]

If a buyer pays for item and then purchases another, I have found that you can go to PayPal shipping and are able to combine the two orders into one shipment with one tracking #. Otherwise, you are susceptible to buyers taking advantage of the situation with INR.  

[jda03121]

They can file that you did not send all the items anyway. It's seller beware here at all times.

[a_c_green]

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@jda03121 wrote:

All said above are helpful.....however, nothing can save you from a scammer who files a claim saying the item was not as described or missing in the box. There are sellers who ship empty or "short" boxes and almost always eBay sides with the buyer if he knows how to file. 

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Right, but you're referring to a Not As Described dispute. The OP's problem here is an Item Not Received dispute, which seems to have been won simply because the second purchase did not get manually marked as Shipped, and did not have the tracking number of the first package uploaded to show that the two purchases were shipped together.

On the Sold items page, all the sold items have an option in the Actions column for Mark As Shipped, to let the seller indicate that it was either shipped over the counter at the post office (not via eBay/PayPal labels) or was combined with another item in that shipment instead of its own. The latter is what should have occurred in this case: print the Shipping label via one of the two sold items, which will automatically mark it as Shipped and upload its tracking number. Then mark the other item as Shipped, and add the tracking number from the first item. ("Add tracking number" is another Action available for each item on the Sold page.)

[mam98031]

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@dbeatrecords wrote:

If a buyer pays for item and then purchases another, I have found that you can go to PayPal shipping and are able to combine the two orders into one shipment with one tracking #. Otherwise, you are susceptible to buyers taking advantage of the situation with INR.  

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WHAT?  You don't have to go to PP to do that.  You can do it even easier on Ebay.  You can combine shipments when there are two or more payments on the ebay site.  If you don't know how to do that, please feel free to ask and one of us can give you more details.

@dbeatrecords 

[mam98031]

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@jda03121 wrote:

They can file that you did not send all the items anyway. It's seller beware here at all times.

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Sellers have protections on INRs.  It is the type of claim by a buyer that sellers have the strongest protections.  While a buyer may be able to file one for this reason, it doesn't mean they can win if all the transactions involved had the tracking number recorded on them and the tracking shows delivered.  

[jda03121]

As I said before, everything people are saying is correct...However, true scammers quickly learn how to play eBay's rules and adding or having tracking numbers will not insure that the buyer will not file NAD when they see the tracking numbers and win the dispute. In this case, INR was sufficient but I would bet the buyer would have file NAD if both tracking numbers had been present. EBay has actually allowed buyers to change a INR to NAD. They side with the buyers whenever it's a he said, she said.

[jda03121]

Sorry, that is totally incorrect.

[mr_lincoln]

@heygar1   Did you check the 2nd item (or the one that the label was NOT printed for) for a tracking number?  I have added the tracking number to multiple purchases that come through separately, I just copy it from the one I printed the label for and paste it in the Sold record of the other one(s).

This happens or a regular basis with Immediate payments items and eBay's ongoing never fixed cart that does not allow Buyers to request an updated total for multiple purchases of Fixed priced items ... this is 2020, they can fix this.