eBay

jnjtra · ‎08-15-2020

Hello. Thanks in advance for the advice. Ran into a first today with FedEx.

I shipped a heavy item I sold FedEx a few days ago. Today, I got a message from my buyer. In his message, he said, verbatim, "Fedex refuses to recognize my legal shipping address, and told me only the shipper has the authority to alter the address, or change to a pickup at a Fedex location. Please contact them so I can correct this."

I checked the tracking and tracking does indeed show as much. The error message I recieved when typing in the tracking was "Incorrect address - Street number Recommended action: Contact us at.... to provide correct delivery address and/or additional delivery information."

Am I correct that the appropriate course of action is to NOT change the address, ask FedEx to return the package to me, and refund the buyer less the cost of the shipping? Then tell the buyer he can purchase again with a corrected shipping address if he is still interested in the item? Or can I allow a change to "Pick up at FedEx" without losing seller protection?

Also, if it does come back to me, am I under any obligation to eat the shipping here and refund entirely? For what it's worth, it was "FREE SHIPPING" but actually cost me around $23. The item's value was $175 with shipping included.

Thoughts? Been awhile since I've had to deal with something like this.

postingid7659 · ‎08-15-2020

Why wouldn't you ask the buyer to put an address on his account that does get packages and have FedEx take it there?

aldente28 · ‎08-15-2020

My 2 cents:

1. ebay recommends never changing an address after a purchase at the buyer's request. The stated reason is "fraud prevention".

2. Whenever a buyer asks me to do so after the purchase, I cancel the order and send a nicely worded note explaining why and inviting them to place another order as soon as they update their shipping information with ebay.

So in my view, what you're facing is just like 2 above, but with the unfortunate step of you having shipped the item. I think I would do what you're considering, which is to cancel and refund. The worst case is that it's fraud, you divert to a new (nonverified) shipping address, and you run the risk of losing everything. Best case is that it's innocent. I might check to see what address they want to change it to. If it's very close, I might buy that it was just some innocent error. If it's entirely different, I might be more skeptical.

Posting ID

ste-9405 · ‎08-15-2020

Good grief. For FedEx and UPS, eBay only checks the city: If your tracking shows delivered ANYWHERE in the buyer's city, eBay considers it Delivered.

So contact FedEx @jnjtra and provide a FedEx-approved delivery address for your buyer to receive their item. Done.

papermoneyforme · ‎08-15-2020

@ste-9405 wrote:
Good grief. For FedEx and UPS, eBay only checks the city: If your tracking shows delivered ANYWHERE in the buyer's city, eBay considers it Delivered.

So contact FedEx @jnjtra and provide a FedEx-approved delivery address for your buyer to receive their item. Done.

Are you sure Paypal will accept that?

inhawaii · ‎08-15-2020

That's a tough call. It depends how much money we are talking about.

Not too much money: I might chance it and go for the FedEx pick up.

A lot of money: I would do it by the book to cover my asprin.

Good luck and stay safe!

At Seventeen - Janis Ian

jnjtra · ‎08-15-2020

@inhawaii wrote:
That's a tough call. It depends how much money we are talking about.

Not too much money: I might chance it and go for the FedEx pick up.

A lot of money: I would do it by the book to cover my asprin.

Good luck and stay safe!

It's $175 so on the cusp. I could lose it and be fine but at the same time I hate scammers and don't like to give them satisfaction. Does this mean that Pickup at FedEx is definitely not covered under seller protection? Just wondering because that's what I was leaning toward if not a full return and refund.

asset_liquidators · ‎08-15-2020

Do a google search for the address. Can you find it? If so, call the fedex station where the package currently is and let them know (nicely) the address is correct.

If you can't verify the address via satellite imagery then recall the package.

inhawaii · ‎08-15-2020

@jnjtra wrote:
.Does this mean that Pickup at FedEx is definitely not covered under seller protection? Just wondering because that's what I was leaning toward if not a full return and refund.

Correct. To be covered it has to go to the address provided to you by ebay/paypal, the address on the shipping label.

At Seventeen - Janis Ian

gwzcomps · ‎08-15-2020

Weird normally FedEx tries to resolve the address then sticks the seller with a $15 fee.

yuzuha · ‎08-15-2020

To give a little perspective from the buyer's side: sometimes the address systems that courier services use are remarkably STUPID. I'm currently trying to straighten out an issue of my own where four packages were returned to the sender because the shipping company said my address was incorrect. Why did they say it was incorrect? Because I abbreviated "Street" to "St." (the way the USPS itself does with all of my mail), and somehow their system refused to recognize that as being a valid address despite it literally just being an abbreviation.

Chances are, it's some sort of inane issue like that.

inhawaii · ‎08-15-2020

@ste-9405 wrote:
Good grief. For FedEx and UPS, eBay only checks the city: If your tracking shows delivered ANYWHERE in the buyer's city, eBay considers it Delivered.

Are you sure? That doesn't sound right.

So if the correct address is: 1111 Cartwright Street, Los Angeles, CA, 90001

But it gets delivered to: 9999 Sherwood Street, Los angeles, CA 90001

Ebay will consider it delivered?

At Seventeen - Janis Ian

pburn · ‎08-15-2020

When I bought my home 25 years ago, it had been duplexed by the previous owner. After a couple of years, I revamped it back to a single-dwelling, and let the post office know to drop the "Apt 1" and "Apt 2."

So, a couple of years ago, I signed up for Informed Delivery. Went swimmingly for years, and then, a couple of months ago, it stopped dead. It took a few emails back and forth with their customer service rep to figure out USPS had just randomly tacked "Apt 1" back onto my address, making my "real" Informed Delivery address invalid.

The above story is absolutely true, even though it has little to do with resolving the OP's problem--but when has that ever stopped me?

ste-9405 · ‎08-15-2020

eBay policy says:

Information required to prove a successful on-time delivery is all of the following:

The tracking number provided by one of eBay's integrated shipping carriers;
The tracking number is uploaded to the site, showing a shipping scan, before the estimated delivery date;
A delivery status of "delivered" or "attempted delivery" (or equivalent in the country to which the item was delivered);
The date of delivery or attempted delivery;
The recipient's address, showing at least the city/county or zip code (or international equivalent) that matches the address displayed on the Order details page; and
Signature confirmation, if an item has a total cost of $750 or more.

Notice that the recipient's name and street address are not mentioned: eBay only looks at just the city or the zip code in tracking, and either delivery or attempted delivery is considered Delivered. Here's an example FedEx tracking:

As shown on the FedEx tracking, what's the recipient's

- name,

- street address,

- zip code

which, per policy, neither PayPal nor eBay isn't looking for?