Strangest sale I have ever made following other weirdness

[scottlmusic]

OK, just a brief summary, I had a non-paying bidder followed by a flake sending me emails (in hard to read english) trying to low ball the price.  I block this buyer,  relist as a BIN with IPR and it finally sold and is paid for.  Now here's the kicker, after all the previous weirdness, get this, it's being shipped to Houston, Texas, yup right where the storm is right now where they are predicting 24 inches of rain over the next several days   

So I hope the guy is safe and has no damage to his home and belonings but I guess this will be a delayed shipment.  Course not being able to ship within three days having recently started selling with this account will screw up my rating on ebay, affect how fast the money will be released, (provided the buyer will be able to go through with the sale) and it looks like it affects seller protection through PayPal.  

All I can say is it's been interesting so far.  Think I might take a break in ebay selling for a short while after this one.  

[a_c_green]

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@themagicmountain wrote:

I would get Signature Confirmation for sure.

it is high ticket, it is electronics which is a sometimes problem area, and you don't want a postal clerk leaving it in the rain. If no one is home to sign for it, they'll hold it at the post office till the person picks it up

Get a range of responses and suggestions on this board, because there is some very unhelpful and even completely false 'advice' given here sometimes

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According to the OP (in message 10), it's shipping via UPS, not USPS.

[kattinsanity]

If you are worried insure it for damage or loss.  Why risk your own seller account?  The buyers phone number is in their pay pal transaction info~~call them and find out if they are affected by the storm.

[muttlymob]

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@debdress wrote:
Same with me. No flooding, lots of rain. My local Randalls is still open and if my mailman can get here tomorrow he will be here. What you see on the news are either the areas that always flood or homes that got destroyed by isolated tornadoes

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Just because your neighborhood is not flooded doesn't mean that the PO will be open.  Your mailman doesn't operate on his own, the full support structure for your PO must be available and open.

Your PO may be flooded even if your home is not.  The surrounding areas must be clear enough for employees and mail trucks to reach your PO. 

The USPS has a list of affected post offices in Texas, the closure list is extensive.

https://about.usps.com/news/service-alerts/resident-weather-updates.htm

[kattinsanity]

debdress did say IF the mailman can get here tomorrow~~~.  debdress is also correct that IF the OP is not affected by the storm themselves they will get dinged if they don't ship it within their stated handling time.  There is nothing stopping the OP from going to the post office and shipping the item.  If the OP's only concern is when it will be delivered and when the $$ will be released to them it is not good reason to not ship as promised.

[muttlymob]

debdress did say IF the mailman can get here tomorrow~~~.

Doesn't matter if the mailman can get there, if the PO is actually closed and there is no mail to deliver.  debdress is posting as if just because her neighborhood is clear then there should be no problem with mail delivery.  It doesn't work that way.  There is more to it than the local neighborhood and local PO.

There is nothing stopping the OP from going to the post office and shipping the item.

Except that the OP has stated he is shipping by UPS. 

If the OP's only concern is when it will be delivered and when the $$ will be released to them it is not good reason to not ship as promised.

The OP has also expressed concern over how UPS will deliver - if deliveries will be made to damaged/evacuated/destroyed homes.  This is a concern that UPS should be addressing in service alerts similar to the USPS notices.

But yes, IMO since the OP is apparently in a safe area he should get the package to the carrier and not keep imagining every worst case scenario.  The carriers should be developing plans on how to handle deliveries when they resume.

[a_c_green]

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@muttlymob wrote:

The OP has also expressed concern over how UPS will deliver - if deliveries will be made to damaged/evacuated/destroyed homes.  This is a concern that UPS should be addressing in service alerts similar to the USPS notices.

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While I always ship USPS myself, I will say that on those occasions when something I purchased is being shipped to me via UPS, their tracking and related info available on-line is way more detailed than that of USPS, so if there are any complications arising down there due to the storm, they'll probably be acknowledged on-line.

The OP could also try phoning his local UPS outlet, and see if they can find out through their own network how things are going with deliveries to his buyer's ZIP code (whatever) down there.

[kattinsanity]

My experience with UPS in bad weather is that they "deliver" no matter what.  UPS won't deliver to my house in the winter months.  I take every precaution to stay away from UPS deliveries in the winter.  I have had drivers who park on the road & toss packages up my driveway as far as they can and leave them.  I've had packages just left laying in my driveway next to the road.  Before I got a P.O. Box I had packages put in plastic bags & left hanging on my mailbox on the road.  I would never use UPS to deliver knowing the way they  handle my own deliveries.

I had 2 Fed Ex deliveries last winter.  Both times the drivers called me and I met them to pick up my packages.  They were fantastic compared to UPS.

[muttlymob]

The OP could also try phoning his local UPS outlet, and see if they can find out through their own network how things are going with deliveries to his buyer's ZIP code (whatever) down there.

https://www.ups.com/us/es/service-alerts.page?id=alert1

[debdress]

You need to ship it to the buyer. If you need to insure it, insure it. I'm in Houston. Not everyone is flooded. It's the low lying areas and the areas around the flooded bayous.
You need to send him what he paid for. My city is not wiped off the map.

[scottlmusic]

so I see on the UPS site that the buyers address is affected by the storm. Also, while it appears they still have electricity in that area he has not responded to 2 emails from me.

I guess I need to do some calling to UPS, ebay, maybe see if I can call the customer (is that ok to do that?) to see what is really the best thing for me to do now.  I say this because they expect things to get worse and I still can't see having a $600 keyboard synthisizer stuck someplace until who knows when.  We'll see.  

[moondogblues]

Call your buyer, or at least try...things there are pretty bad. As a musician I would hate a 600 buck keyboard getting drowned.

[scottlmusic]

@moondogblues

same reason I'm still considering requiring a signature in case he evacuated or any other issues that could be going on.  What a sale, geez  Main thing I hope he's ok.

[kattinsanity]

The buyer bought & paid for this Saturday.  He knew what his situation was with the storm when he bought it.  If there was any danger he was going to have to evacuate or be in the middle of flood waters I highly doubt he would have purchased a $600.00 item and paid for it. 

Why do you need to get ebays ok to call the buyer?  His phone number is right in the pay pal transaction page.  You have his number~~call him.

IF you don't ship this within your stated handling time you are going to get a late shipment defect on your seller account.  Being a low feedback seller it will hurt your selling account badly if you don't ship it.  Do whatever you want but ebay is going to require you ship it.  I have a package going to New Orleans today.  It's going to be shipped no matter the weather down there.  My only obligation is doing what ebay requires me to do~~ship it.

[scottlmusic · Accepted solution]

I decided to follow common sense on this matter and talked to UPS who suggested it's best to wait with shippment.  Ebay said this is ok to do that and I will not get docked for doing this.  All I need to do is check with UPS to find out when it's safe to deliver.  

I emailed the buyer again telling him this, although he has not responded to the previous emails.

I also tried calling his phone number and there is no answer.  It is a landline so my guess is he did evacuate.  I am requireing a signature also because of the special circumstances involved.

While the maps show that his area is not at the moment flooded and knowing total rainfall could be around 50 inches I felt this was the only sensible thing to do.  

UPS shows that his address is in the affected area and last I checked it looked like there was still electricity there.

I hope everyone especially with high ticket fragile items follows this plan.  

I also was surprised that the calculated shipping charges were off by $13.  What good is that feature then?  I also found out that the sale through ebay does not automatically show the value of $599 and had I not caught this the item would have only been covered for $100,  Again, what good is calculate shipping if it doesn't do what you need it to?  So, shipping instead of the estimated $23 is instead $46.  I thought the caculated shipping would be more attractive to buyers close by and also save me money if my fixed shipping price was not high enough.  Didn't work that way.  Ha, and I was going to ship it fixed price at $39.  Oh, well.

As far as charging the customer the additional shipping charges I just said screw it as I've messed with this way too much and I'm sure he can use an additional $23 with after effects of the storm, lost work etc.  

[kattinsanity]

I think you got bad advice/information from ebay CS.  They can't promise you won't get a defect for late shipping.  YOU are making the decision to ship it late~~sellers here get suspended every day when they CAN'T ship due to accident or illness or family emergency.  Ebay doesn't accept any excuses even if a seller is on his death bed.

Ebay is aware of the weather BUT to ebay it only means they will cover you for late delivery~~not late shipping.  UPS is going to keep your package safe until it is safe to deliver it~~no excuse for you to not ship it.

Maybe your buyer didn't answer his land line phone because he wasn't home?  It doesn't mean he evacuated to anywhere.

Do whatever you want be be aware ebay isn't going to excuse your late shipment.  IF your buyer is safe he very well could file a INR case against you when he doesn't receive his item on time.