Buyer Fraud???

[bohauer82]

I sold some half dollars to a buyer on eBay.  Shipped USPS priority with insurance.  The package was shipped on July 27.  eBay tracking shows it didn’t go out for delivery until Aug 8 at 6:10 AM. At 12:05 it says, “visible damage”.  At 4:00 it says “no authorized recipient available”. August 10 at 4:06 pm it says “package research case created”.  And last it says August 10 at 10:44 AM (which was before the research case was created)  “delivered to agent for final delivery. 
I filed a claim with USPS based on the buyer saying the box was empty when he got it.  I think it’s unlikely.  It was taped up pretty well.  Someone would have to go to a lot of work to open it.  
USPS called me today and said their tracking shows NO DAMAGE and the box was delivered intact. The representative told me she believes the buyer is scamming me. Why would eBays tracking not be the same as USPS tracking notes????   Has anyone experienced anything like this before????  She said the buyer shouldn’t have signed for the box if it was empty.   I opened a case with eBay and told them that USPS says the box was unopened and intact and what she said about claiming the buyer is scamming me.  
Please help!   I don’t know what to do.  

[north40sales]

If they had put it in writing that the box needed recovered from the ship-to address to be submitted by you in person, then you might be OK.   What was the insured value of the package? 

[titipeo]

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@bohauer82 wrote:

They told me they would want the box for evidence.  What would have been the best thing to do in a case like this? 

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Are you sure "they" meant to be your local PO, or "they" as in buyers PO? "They" are everywhere, but in particular, it should be receivers PO, as the incident occurred while in route to buyer's mailbox, on the insurance purchased covered transit from seller to buyer. 

Having the packaged returned to you, adds another transit for which it is not covered by insurance, and the buyers PO can not verify the condition of such package upon arrival, as it will be back on sellers PO. 

Hopefully you have dated pictures of such packaged, where at the very least you can indicate the condition of the box at certain date. The tracking info will indicate where was the box based on the date. But it will be another obstacle to tackle. 

Good luck. 

[bohauer82]

Yes 

[ann_12345]

I am having this exact issue right now! USPS tracking says "in transit" with a slight delay but ebay's tracking says "visible damage" at one of the postal locations in transit. Either way I can tell it didn't arrive yet so I'm not sure why the buyer is requesting a refund already. I don't see how ppl would be able to change the ebay tracking, so I'm guessing ebay tracking just has more specific details? I'm not sure who I can call because the post office wouldn't even have the visible damage info!

[bohauer82]

Did you get insurance when you mailed it?

[babclassics]

I have also seen sometimes the eBay system shows status lines that are not shown on the USPS public site.  eBay site itself (or eBay's tracking status partner) gets most all the tracking from USPS and all the other carriers.  They programmatically decide which statuses to show to us.

Sometimes a status that they don't have programming for starts getting used by USPS and eBay's software seems to default to let us see those.  Eventually they discover this and close the loophole blocking that new status if they so choose.

Another example of this is that eBay allows the research case opened and closed status to go through to us.  But usps.com does not show that status to the public last time I had one.

Sorry if I ramble.  Bottom line is having the damage show on eBay but not on USPS sure could happen as explained above.  But the part that does not make sense is that a USPS employee looking at tracking signed in as an employee should see everything.  I don't believe there is any way an eBay employee can add anything... that would be criminal.  But the USPS person saying no damage recorded is either lying, or not logged in with the privilege's to see that particular (sensitive) status.