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Delivery Confirmation Is For Your Protection
Make the Post Office Accountable and Get Your Money Back
As a seller you already know that delivery confirmation is your friend. It is the only way apart from your reputation that you can prove to buyers that you have shipped an item and keep track of whether you are being scammed by an unscrupulous buyer. Once you have gotten feedback and the transaction is complete, however, the Post Office's responsibility does not end.
What you are really paying for with delivery confirmation is exactly what is stated. A delivery person's oath that a package was physically placed in a mailbox or the hands of the intended recipient. If you don't get that oath, regardless of whether the package arrived, you are entitled to your money back.
I recently had a buyer claim that a package had not arrived and went to the USPS website to check the confirmation number. This had been shipped out over a month previous to the buyer contacting me and was listed on the USPS site as accepted. I issued a refund and went to post office to find out what recourse I had, truthfully none, other than the refund of the sixty five cents I had spent on confirmation.
What I realized days later was that the carriers in some cities weren't doing there jobs and "scanning" the packages as they delivered them and several of the delivery confirmations from months past still read as accepted. You are entitled to be refunded that money regardless of whether the package was delivered or not. As I wrote earlier, we are paying for information, the postage was paid for seperately.
The only rules involved are that you have to wait the anticipated deliverly and return time. So, for a first class package (3 to 5 days for deliverly and 10 holding days before determined undeliverable) you are looking at twenty to twenty-five days before you can take your reciepts or numbers in and have your refund processed. I am up to July in my records and have already recovered thirty-five dollars!
In the final analysis the money isn't the issue for me. I want my packages delivered and proof that they are with their new rightful owners but, I feel that if all ebay sellers follow suit we may improve the quality of the postal service and decrease our own headaches. If you need help in bookkeeping the post office also has a free ledger that they don't advertise called a "Firm Mailing Book For Accountable Mail" be sure and request one next time you are there.
Guide created: 10/14/06 (updated 06/15/08)
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