BEWARE WHEN PRINTING YOU OWN LABELS THROUGH PAYPAL

While printing your own labels  through paypal is cheap and convenient for you the seller you need to be aware of one major problem of do it yourself online labels.

Paypal requires that the seller ship within 7 days and that the seller provide delivery confirmation (DC) with every parcel sent as proof of shipping.

However... even though paypal staff can see that you paid for the label through paypal, if that item is not scanned by the postal carrier when they deliver it, you will have no proof that you shipped it!

That's right! If the buyer gets the item and the postal carrier didn't scan it and the buyer is savvy enough to check online to see if that has occurred, then they can do a chargeback if they paid by credit card through paypal and they  will receive their money back!

Why should that be? First, anyone can print a label and then void it.

Or say the item is worth around $200. All a crooked seller has to do is print out a label and not send the item. Since there will be no scan for a delivered item, the buyer gets their money back.

Where this goes bad  for honest sellers is when the postal carrier for whatever reason, does not scan the item upon delivery. Then you the seller will be out the money, even though you know you sent the item, even though you are sure the buyer has received it.

What can you as the seller do?

Whenever you ship an item by using online printing of labels, be aware of the possiblity that the post office may drop the ball by not scanning the item on the other end.

If the item is worth more than you are willing to gamble, then take the item to the post office and pay the delivery confirmation fee at the post office. Why? Because when you pay at the post office, the clerk will scan the DC number and it will show up as your having presented the item for delivery. This paypal will accept as proof of mailing. But not if you use online printing through paypal. Just a caveat.

UPDATE: Most post offices now will scan the preprinted label for you so that the tracking number that you printed out through paypal will have the notification as "received by the postal service". If FOR WHATEVER reason your post office cannot or will not scan the preprinted tracking number for you, then your choices are simple - buy a green delivery confirmation label form, fill it out and slap it on the parcel - you will have to pay the extra fee for that. OR do as I do, find a post office that will scan it. Most of the post offices -even the smallest ones now have the software on their computers to do this.

Anything worth more than a few bucks, I would take the time to have it DCed through the post office. Protect yourself.