Nervous about Insured package

[antkoz44]

*UPDATE*

**tracking in the second order updated, and is en route!*

Hi all!

I’ve been selling on eBay since August and buying for a little over a year. I recently made two transactions that make me nervous 😕

The first sale was $690 - I insured the package and signature upon delivery. The tracking has the mail carrier with “No Access to Delivery Location” and they left them a Note. This was on Saturday. I have not heard back from the buyer after numerous attempts to reach them.  It was a small USPS First Class box, and the buyer has 100% positive feedback but only 4 since they joined last year. 

The second order was $300, and I insured that one (but no signature). I dropped it in one of those Blue USPS mailboxes since it was Thanksgiving Thursday - I should have just brought it in person.  Whoever picked up the mail did not scan the letter and now tracking has it as “USPS Awaiting Item.”

I’ve gotten no tracking updates since then… just praying that it arrives okay.  It was in a Bubble mailer. This buyer has 99.9%  positive feedback and sold over 740 items. 

Has anyone been on a similar situation?

thank you!

🙏 

[tobaccocardyahoo]

If the item is not delivered, you are not "golden", even if Ebay does not make you refund.

Most intelligent buyers pay with a credit card. Credit card issuers are far less likely to rule for a seller based on tracking. The buyer is their customer and their policies and the credit card networks' policy are biased to the buyer and the buyer's rights under consumer protection laws with a greater emphasis than Ebay policy provides.

Even a signature may not be accepted as proof of delivery if the delivery address is other than the billing address for the card. If a chargeback dispute goes against you, the reason for the dispute may or may not trigger Ebay to pay the refund on your behalf.

If you sell online, sometimes you will lose the payment for a sale.

[mam98031]

@tobaccocardyahoo 

"Even a signature may not be accepted as proof of delivery if the delivery address is other than the billing address for the card."  This is something I've never heard before.  So you are saying even if there was a signature by the buyer accepting the package, if the delivery address on the Ebay payment, in which the item was shipped to is different than the address different than the billing address on the Credit Card, it could be a problem for the buyer if a Chargeback was filed?

Please explain more.  This isn't anything I've ever heard before.  Not saying it isn't true, just that it is new to me.

And if this is the case, then accepting credit card payments are far more dangerous than any I was certainly aware of.

And as a buyer, that has items shipped to their kid at college, a parent in a different state, directly to a friend, etc.  You are saying we can file a Chargeback and win simply because the delivery address isn't the same as our billing address on the credit card?

[tobaccocardyahoo]

@mam98031 

The manual for credit card merchants is quite large and available online with the rules Mastercard and Visa expect merchants to follow. They are not necessarily in line with the practices of Online Marketplaces.

Merchants in order to have proof of delivery to a cardholder need to ship to an address in the card network's Address Verification System and have a signature.

This is not consistent with the needs of online marketplaces. PayPal created its own system of verified addresses to limit its exposure to address fraud and its seller protection plan costs. It was initially coupled with an attempt to recover lost chargebacks from the buyers. The credit card networks threatened to stop allowing PayPal to take credit cards if the punished buyers who won chargebacks.

Sellers who ship to an address which was not PayPal verified were not protected. Neither PayPal nor Ebay or Amazon used the credit card AVS since it would not allow shipment to one's work address or shipment of gifts unless the cardholder added those addresses to his card account.

If sellers had any protection it was provided by PayPal or the marketplace if the transaction did not have a qualified proof of purchase. Hence Ebay's requirement that sellers ship only to the address on the order. And EBay's requirement for a signature if the order exceeds $750.

Often the protections a marketplace offers for stolen credit cards or unauthorized purchases provide protection for the seller, but not always.

Enforcement by the issuing banks has become inconsistent as online marketplaces have proliferated, but the rules have not changed. A persistent cardholder can reopen a chargeback dispute and win if the bank rules improperly for the merchant.

There are risks we as sellers or merchants take when we let our marketplaces make some key decisions which we might not chose to make ourselves.

If you, like I, believe people, especially our buyers, are honest AND you do not sell items which attract the worst of humanity, the risk is small and manageable. But there is still a risk.