eBay

12345jamesstamps · ‎03-31-2025

Talk about a Monday...sometimes I hate looking in my mail..

I got 2 returns today...as if I don't have enough to do on a Monday.

Did look up addresses on google...one address was a highway in Georgia and nearest thing was a car wash.

Other address has like 6 people living in a house...LOL

Hopefully, they contact me...almost all never do.

I did get a decease(dead) on one returned a while back...that would have been awful contacting whoever answered.

12345jamesstamps · ‎04-01-2025

The house was currently 'up for sale'...by a realty.

gurlcat · ‎04-01-2025

@toysaver wrote:
You'd think somebody that collects stamps would know more than the average person about how to present their address.

Question is, how do you know they didn't give the correct address?

I'm not saying anything in particular, all I know is I've only ever had maybe 1 or 2 RTS's ever. A big pile would be crazy. 2 in one day would be crazy.

But then, I print all shipping labels directly from the Order screen ..... I don't hand-copy them from the screen. Ya feel me?

12345jamesstamps · ‎04-01-2025

I don't know.

How do I know the person is using someone else's credit card to see if they can use it? I don't.

It's just strange the 'Ship to' on the left side of the order does not match 'Order' on the right side with names and telephone numbers not matching.

There needs to be in place where these should always match.

You do the 'shipping labels' which is great.

I print everything but I also look closely at everything to get an idea if I need 'tracking' or not.

I had one this week with address to Doral, Florida...red flag...'freight forward'...why for a standard envelope?

It's going to Colombia and that country is on my blocked list.

So, I have to take precautions for this 'freight forward'...more for feedback and don't really care about losing the item.

turtles-trading-post · ‎04-01-2025

I get my fair share of Return to Senders. As a stamp dealer, I send mainly by regular first class mail, using interesting stamps. Doing my due diligence, I found the addresses were legitimate. First, messaging the buyer who confirmed that was indeed their address. Then using the USPS lookup and last Google Maps. I'd even do street view to look at the house.

I saw this as related to the fact that scanners are doing all the work now, and there are no human eyes on the mail. Scanner messes up and it goes into a big bin. And after 2-3 weeks it's Return to Sender. When a buyer messages me that they haven't received their order in 2 weeks, I generally know it's coming back to me the 3rd or 4th week.

A colleague and I discussed this and determined that it must be my hand writing that the scanner was rejecting. So I tried to write neater, especially the zip plus 4. I also started looking into getting a printer that I could use just to print the address label.

Then I did a 1600 piece mailing for my club's annual event. These all had printed labels and I instructed our team the proper location to put the labels (the previous year I determined the return to senders were due to the haphazard way some of our folks applied the labels). Usually after doing this mailing on a Saturday, our social media would blow up on Monday with people excited they received their invitation. Not this year... close to 2 weeks later people started to mention it, with replies from others that they hadn't received theirs!

Then the returns started! First thing I noticed was that there were no postmarks on the stamps. That's over $1000 in postage! Then I looked at the addresses that were rejected... many of them were legit! I emailed folks I knew who confirmed it! I sent those back out again and they got them the second time.

That mailing was done February 15th. I'm still getting a trickle of Return to Senders. The system is indeed broke.

Sending America's collectibles where they belong, one auction at a time!

gurlcat · ‎04-01-2025

@12345jamesstamps wrote:
The house was currently 'up for sale'...by a realty.

-Ah yyyyeah, that's totally what I asked about. 🙄

But in an ironic way the picture is actually getting clearer.

reallynicestamps · ‎04-01-2025

address to Doral, Florida...red flag...'freight forward'...why for a standard envelope?

Because the forwarding company is more reliable (pays off the right officials?) than the postal system?

You would have to use tracking to the FL address rather than untracked lettermail, but that used to only cost you guys a quarter or something . Does it still?

12345jamesstamps · ‎04-01-2025

So my volume of shipping is probably rather large compared to a lot of others who post here.

Some might ship as many items to different addresses as me and some do not and some don't even sell anymore.

Shipping out 100+ standard envelopes in a week is not unusual to me as a one kid operation.

a_c_green · ‎04-01-2025

@gurlcat wrote:
@12345jamesstamps wrote:
The house was currently 'up for sale'...by a realty.
-Ah yyyyeah, that's totally what I asked about. 🙄

But in an ironic way the picture is actually getting clearer.

Any address with frequent turnover (especially if it's an apartment or rental) will have a long list of names associated with that address, but not necessarily all living there at the same time.

12345jamesstamps · ‎04-01-2025

I take a photo of buyer's envelope with postage and place next to it a piece of paper with the country name, 'freight forward', date and send that to buyer in a friendly email explaining it does takes a week or two longer to get to the country.

'Tracking' for 'freight forward'...I can afford to lose the item(s) but I never have yet.

I stopped using tracking to freight forward since they are not scanning 100% items as 'delivered in Florida, Delaware, Oregon, etc.

I don't think anyone is going to steal a standard envelope but will steal boxes going freight forward.

Tracking is under usually $6.00 for an envelope in the USA anywhere.

So far, really don't get items lost in the mail.

A few might get delayed but they usually show up.

a_c_green · ‎04-01-2025

@turtles-trading-post wrote:
A colleague and I discussed this and determined that it must be my hand writing that the scanner was rejecting. So I tried to write neater, especially the zip plus 4. I also started looking into getting a printer that I could use just to print the address label.

Abso-tively. Go to any garage sale or estate sale and you'll find a printer. If your computer doesn't recognize it and install it right away, go to the manufacturer's website to get the drivers and installation software there. If it's an inkjet, you'll probably need to buy new cartridges (which can be pricey), but if it's a laser printer, you may be fortunate enough to have plenty of toner left in the cartridge. (I prefer hitting up estate sales rather than garage sales for computer equipment, because there's a better chance that the device was actually in use up until the day the owner expired.)

@turtles-trading-post wrote:
Then the returns started! First thing I noticed was that there were no postmarks on the stamps. That's over $1000 in postage!

Your post office didn't cancel the stamps? That would be on them. Maybe you can reuse the envelopes by sticking new address labels over the old ones, although it's possible that the address scanners printed a routing code below the original ZIP codes that would need to be covered as well.

12345jamesstamps · ‎04-01-2025

That is true...

So, I have worked for the government where I live. Since retired that position.

Some nice person in city hall was able to show me how to identify who lives in such and such a place or who owes it and so on. Not easy to access if nobody showed me...LOL

It was interesting to see how many apartments, condos and such are owned by people from other countries.

I live a colorful life I guess.

gurlcat · ‎04-01-2025

Exactly, so don't you think with that much volume, that many times hand-copying addresses you might be accidentally writing a wrong digit here or there? I sure suspect I would.

I started following this thread because of inhawaii's one about the ethics around contacting/refunding buyers for RTS items. I still would wait for the buyer to contact me, but only because I'd know for certain their shipping address was exactly what they typed for the order. But if I had hand-copied the addresses I sure wouldn't just plop these into a pile, assuming I did nothing wrong.

-Does it not occur to you to peel off the yellow stickers and do a quick check to see if you goofed? Or do you not want to know?

a_c_green · ‎04-01-2025

@12345jamesstamps wrote:
How do I know the person is using someone else's credit card to see if they can use it? I don't.
It's just strange the 'Ship to' on the left side of the order does not match 'Order' on the right side with names and telephone numbers not matching.
There needs to be in place where these should always match.

No, there doesn't. The Ship-To: address of a purchase can go anywhere, to anyone. Heck, on our family Amazon account we have something like 20 Ship-To: addresses stored, due to friends and family members living all over the place.