I refund after 7 days if the item is reported as lost. I don't thing 7 days is unreasonable.

I thihnk what you need to do is to tell the buyer that you will refund, you go onto paypal and say that it is resolved and you will issue a refund and then you will be able to go about the refund.

I think it's ridiculous the way that paypal do that, they tell you the customer wants a refund, then stop you from being able to give the customer what they want, basically I reckon it's only because paypal want to come accross as 'the good guy' getting the refund from the 'big bad seller' (the majority of whom probably would have given it anyway), best bet is to tell them to close the dispute and you will refund them as you cannot whilst the dispute is open, though if they're that much of a PITA, expect bad feedback anyway.

When a customer makes escalates a dispute to a claim, they have made a decision that they want paypal to decide whether they get a refund or not, not the seller. They should just leave as a dispute if they want the seller to refund them.

On ebay we give customers a delivery choice first class standard for free delivery or RM Special Next Day at £4.99. On Amazon customers can choose £3.49 for standard delivery or £7.49 for RM Special Next Day. If they claim a first class standard hasn't arrived we make them wait 15 working days before we refund.

The weird thing is that we have never had an Amazon customer claim that a first class standard item has gone missing, but on ebay we get about 2 or 3 a week. I believe a lot of ebay customers are specifically looking for sellers who offer First Class Standard and then claim it has never arrived, knowing paypal will always side with them and they will end up getting the item for free. Which shows you the different class of customer you get on Amazon.

Originally Posted by CGY

I thihnk what you need to do is to tell the buyer that you will refund, you go onto paypal and say that it is resolved and you will issue a refund and then you will be able to go about the refund.

It's their claim, i change it to resolved!

Originally Posted by Acetech

I think it's ridiculous the way that paypal do that, they tell you the customer wants a refund, then stop you from being able to give the customer what they want, basically I reckon it's only because paypal want to come accross as 'the good guy' getting the refund from the 'big bad seller' (the majority of whom probably would have given it anyway), best bet is to tell them to close the dispute and you will refund them as you cannot whilst the dispute is open, though if they're that much of a PITA, expect bad feedback anyway.

Ive asked them and even said i would send screen prints to prove i can't do it.

I suspect ill get bad feedback whatever i do to be honest

Originally Posted by ADC

When a customer makes escalates a dispute to a claim, they have made a decision that they want paypal to decide whether they get a refund or not, not the seller. They should just leave as a dispute if they want the seller to refund them.

On ebay we give customers a delivery choice first class standard for free delivery or RM Special Next Day at £4.99. On Amazon customers can choose £3.49 for standard delivery or £7.49 for RM Special Next Day. If they claim a first class standard hasn't arrived we make them wait 15 working days before we refund.

The weird thing is that we have never had an Amazon customer claim that a first class standard item has gone missing, but on ebay we get about 2 or 3 a week. I believe a lot of ebay customers are specifically looking for sellers who offer First Class Standard and then claim it has never arrived, knowing paypal will always side with them and they will end up getting the item for free. Which shows you the different class of customer you get on Amazon.

Thats scary about the ebay / amazon comparison, but do you not get more business on ebay? 2-3 times a week is terrible, i thought i had it bad at about 1-2 a month, having said it looks like ive got 2 more since the one i posted about.

I dislike how paypal say you should post eveything recorded, for me thats just not viable, i probably post on everage about 20-25 items a day monday to friday, if i was to make all them recorded, i would lose £15 or more every day, so that like in excess of £75 a week. Also it would more than double the time it takes in the post office, the people in queue behind me already hate me enough as it is.

Originally Posted by Fray Bentos

Thats scary about the ebay / amazon comparison, but do you not get more business on ebay? 2-3 times a week is terrible, i thought i had it bad at about 1-2 a month, having said it looks like ive got 2 more since the one i posted about.

I dislike how paypal say you should post eveything recorded, for me thats just not viable, i probably post on everage about 20-25 items a day monday to friday, if i was to make all them recorded, i would lose £15 or more every day, so that like in excess of £75 a week. Also it would more than double the time it takes in the post office, the people in queue behind me already hate me enough as it is.

If you are posting that many, you should get a Royal Mail Account, don't bother with the post office. You can open one as long as you send more than 5000 parcels a year. And you will get a discount on the postage too. You can then either get the items collected at a cost of £400 per year (free if you spend over £15K in a year) or you just take your mail straight to the sorting office and just drop it off. No waiting around.

If you are sending a high volume of parcels and the cost price is less than £15, there isn't any point paying for recorded delivery. It's cheaper to write a few off than pay for recorded delivery. But if too many scumbags catch on how to get something for free, I suppose we will have to change our policy. In the end dishonest people will just cause a price rise for everyone.

Originally Posted by ADC

If you are posting that many, you should get a Royal Mail Account, don't bother with the post office. You can open one as long as you send more than 5000 parcels a year. And you will get a discount on the postage too. You can then either get the items collected at a cost of £400 per year (free if you spend over £15K in a year) or you just take your mail straight to the sorting office and just drop it off. No waiting around.

If you are sending a high volume of parcels and the cost price is less than £15, there isn't any point paying for recorded delivery. It's cheaper to write a few off than pay for recorded delivery. But if too many scumbags catch on how to get something for free, I suppose we will have to change our policy. In the end dishonest people will just cause a price rise for everyone.

Thanks for the tip, had thought about i but just presumed i didn't send enough, although im not sure if i do send 5000 parcels a year, as ive only been consistently sending 20-25 parcels for a month now, before that it varied. Don't have a car at the moment so not sure how i will get it all to the post office but the discount sounds like a good idea so will definately have a look into it.

Prior to having a Royal Mail Business account, I used to use Smartstamp via royal mail to print my own stamps via a Label Printer. Each Transaction using smartstamp has a unique ID which can be given to Royal Mail who can confirm that the item has been posted. I used to find when using this that a lot of items suddenly turned up when the buyer thought things were trackable, just giving them this number seem to spook a lot of them and the times I used to get a follow up message the next day saying they had got the item was quite often.

Smartstamp is good for small volumes (Although no discounts) and you can print a proof of posting certificate at the end of each day and have the Post Office Stamp it which can also be shown to the buyers and allow you to make compensation claims a lot easier.

You will be amazed how buyers back down when you provide a copy of a stamped Proof of Posting Slip and the 8 Digit Stamp number which they can give to Royal Mail and show it's in there system. Seems to buy a lot of time.

Mabs