An item I recently sold has been returned by USPS due to insufficient address. The buyer messaged me this morning and I was confused because it was marked as delivered on January 20, but sure enough the detailed tracking shows it was processed for return to sender one day after delivery, on January 21, and arrived in my mailbox this afternoon. I looked at the buyer's address on google maps and it's an apartment building but they didn't include a unit number or box number. I messaged them about this and they said "I usually don’t add the apt number cause it get dropped at the office but I can include the apt number number? Would it still work. If not I can use a different address." All of this makes me think it was delivered to the apartment office but they couldn't forward it without a unit number and instead handed it back to the USPS the next day. The sticker on the box says return to sender ~ unable to forward.
I asked the buyer to check with their apartment management to see what info needs to be on USPS packages and haven't heard back yet. Supposedly they've received packages without a unit number before but I wonder if there's a different set of rules for USPS as a government entity vs something coming from amazon for example. This is a brand new ebay member, zero feedback and signed up they same day they bought the thing from me.
I'm not sure what to do next. The buyer indicated they still want the item. I understand sellers are not allowed to send to any address except as provided by the buyer at the time of the transaction. I read some older threads that said the workaround is to send the buyer a PayPal invoice for reshipping and send to the address tied to their PayPal account but I don't think that'll work now that eBay doesn't use PayPal. The other option is a refund but it's not giving me the option for a partial refund and I don't want to eat the shipping cost for their mistake. How should I handle this?
