talkmagic.co.uk

by **The Magic Attic** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 5:11 pm

We have the same trouble now everythig goes recorded for an extra 70p, it has saved us loads of bother.

by **Replicant** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 5:14 pm

Seige,

My mother-in-law sends many, many items to people who order her stuff off eBay. Once she has posted the order, she says it is in the hands of Royal Mail. If an order goes astray, she sends them the proof of postage and they have to take it up with Royal Mail to claim compensation.

I understand your situation is different, however, as you have a business to run and have to consider customer service, and must re-ship or refund. It's a shame some people feel the need to pull this sort of scam. Perhaps you could start sending everything by recorded delivery and charge a bit extra for postage? It might solve a lot of problems.

by **Hade** » Sat Sep 29, 2007 11:44 am

Siege,
Retain proof of postage for every order.
You can pick up a claim form from your local post office and claim your losses.
However, they don't compensate your postage costs.
Also, I've had them insist on only paying out the trade price of the items, despite the end product being sold for a higher amount.
It's a right pain, but you at least recover most of your losses.

by **seige** » Sat Sep 29, 2007 11:50 am

Hade wrote:Siege,
Retain proof of postage for every order.
You can pick up a claim form from your local post office and claim your losses.
However, they don't compensate your postage costs.
Also, I've had them insist on only paying out the trade price of the items, despite the end product being sold for a higher amount.
It's a right pain, but you at least recover most of your losses.

Been there, done that loads of time.

VERY hit and miss. In fact, so hit and miss that I just don't bother anymore.

With up to 40 parcels going out in a day, it takes the local P.O. about an hour to get through the parcels doing proof of postage. And with people (customers) only prepared to pay 1st class, it's not worth my time and effort to wait a whole hour in which I could be earning money.

It's gotten to the point that I just can't be bothered with Royal Mail at the minute. And to boot, I've just heard that there's more strikes early October. Joy.

With all the monies I've lost through postage and re-shipping this year, I could have bought a van and delivered them myself.

Bah, Humbug!

by **Magic-Martin** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 11:19 am

What's even worse with these scams is that if you try to cash in a false check you may actually be legally responsible since you tried to cash in a fraudelent or stolen check you may be treated like a criminal by the bank or police.

This is atleast the case in some countries. Do not know if it apply to all countries though...

:evil:

by **AlvinLuo** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 6:10 pm

Yeah I agree with Siege regarding the claim of lost items.

I have the proof of postage and explained everything to the Post Office. I have to wait for 3 weeks for everything to settle and all they can do for the claim of my losses is by giving me few stamps.

It is quite troublesome when you want to make a claim and it takes so long for them to reply.

It is still good to sell goods in ebay where you can see a bit of buyer profile before you can sell to them. The bad things are the service charges from eBay and paypal.

by **danielcraig** » Mon Jul 06, 2009 1:02 pm

Thanx for giving this awesome tips n its really a very interesting..

by **A_n_t** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 12:53 pm

eBay are notoriously unhelpful when it comes to dealing with people that claim not to have received an item, however for those of you that are in the US I seem to remember you get a much greater degree of cover.

The reason for this is that once the item enters the mail system it becomes a Federal offence to claim not to have received the item as it is mail fraud. I cannot think of anything similar we have in the UK unfortunately.

Another important note about cheques is the difference between "availability of funds" and "cheque clearance". Just because a bank makes funds available does not mean they have cleared. For example:

You take your cheque to the bank.
Your account makes the funds available within 3 working days.
On day 1 the cheque is logged at the bank and that evening usually shipped internally to a distribution centre.
Evening day 1/early morning day 2, the distribution centre sort the mail and direct the cheques to the relevant area - clearance and sorting.
Day 2 - the cheques are sorted in to cheques that bank owns and cheques of third parties. The ones they own are checked for available funds. The ones they do not act as an authority to request the funds from xyz bank.
Day 3 - the money is free to withdraw from your account, however unless it was a cheque from your bank it is unlikely the cheque has actually cleared.
Day 4 - competitor bank received request for funds/does checks etc.
Day 5 - funds are sent electronically to bank for value of cheque
Day 7 - 10 - cheque has cleared.

Cheques can actually take up to 10 working days to "clear" (rarely longer) but unless you're prepared to make your purchaser wait 2 weeks before you send the goods there's not a lot you can do about it! (Btw priority clearance is generally a waste of time and usually involves the branch sending a cheque by post directly to their internal clearance centre, so in some cases can actually take longer).