"Lost" ponies found - but... not claimed? Question

[Sunshine]

Hi everyone.

I had a package that was MIA (FROM me, not TO me) and I was working on refunding the buyer... who I haven't actually heard from in about a week or so... but, I got some amazing news from my local post office who called me yesterday to tell me that a package had come back from the UK for me (a return). I flipped! I was so excited, I KNEW it had to be those ponies... and to my delight, it was!!

They are in great shape, no damage during transit, nothing at all... but the sticker on the front of the package shows that it was delivered 7 days after I sent it (that's right folks, after leaving the US, it got there in 7 days)... and a notice was left at the address on 3/27 (yep, this happened ALL the way back in March)... on 4/10 the package was returned to me because of not being "called for" (as per the royal airmail sticker).

Now - I have all intentions of trying to work this out with the buyer, but, if a package is unclaimed, is it my responsibility to pay shipping again? I mean... I have no issue with it and I don't want sound like a jerk for asking, but... I mean, it's not my fault that they didn't go claim the package, right?

Okay sorry, don't pummel me with fakies. I just want to settle this once and for all, and since I can't get a hold of the buyer right now, I'm looking for advice here? Thanks.

[cyberunicorn]

it is there responsibility to sort it out. They do not really have an excuse for not getting it. As royal mail can redeliver for no extra charge to the same postcode area.  And they have a week to sort it out

And if they were on holiday they should not have bought anything that might be delivered when they were away or at least asked you to post later.

I hope you can sort things out so you are both happy and not out of pocket

[ponylady]

cyber is exactly right. It is up to your buyer to sort it out, you did nothing wrong.

Also Sunshine you are under no obligation to pay for the cost of shipping to resend it, please know that.

[Sunshine]

Well I just want to make it right with the buyer. I did send her a message about it but haven't heard back. I really wouldn't mind paying for the shipping (I'd be out less money than if I had to send a full refund anyways...) but, I can't pull apart the two Royal Airmail notice stickers to read the bottom one fully... I can just see dates of 3/27 and 4/10 and something that looks like p739. I tried to look up that code for Royal Airmail... and only found one thing on Wikipedia...

"On receiving the item, the recipient must sign for it. If the recipient is not in, then a P739 'Something for you' card should be left by the post delivery person."
So - maybe they did not ever get a card? This has happened to me once before where I had a package from Germany come and I did not get the card until it was marked as the "last attempt" to deliver, and had two earlier dates marked on the attempt card, but I had gotten nothing in the mail...

So I'm not sure what to do at this point? I guess I will hopefully hear from them soon about it...
If they ask for a refund - am I obligated to refund their initial shipping as well as the purchase price? (Because of this weird... nonpick up situation?) I'm just wondering.

I'm HONESTLY not trying to sound like such a money... hugger or anything like that! I just want to make the situation right between the buyer and I, and personally am willing to resend from my own pocket, I'm really just asking for like.. a future reference so, if this ever happens again (hopefully never!) I will be more educated on my "rights" as a seller, I suppose.

So thanks!

[NovelNerd]

A buyer only has is it 30 or 45 days to file a claim? Honestly at this point I don't think there is a thing the buyer can really do. I would fit my losses and just refund them the pony price. If they didn't pik up the box before try might not do it again. I wouldn't refund shipping costs though. You mailed and it got there. They messed up not getting the box.

[Yuitsu]

There's not really a way someone can miss a Royal Mail "something for you" card, they're bright red. They're put through at the same time as a failed delivery, not sent on later.

On checking how long they hold stuff, they now only hold undelivered stuff that's not in need of a signature for a week before returning it, and 18 days if it does. (Working days)
There is a massive pile of undelivered and unreturnable post kicking around at Royal Mail. I think they started selling it off on ebay at one point.

[CupidStrikes]

Sometimes the RoyalMail can be very poor about delivering those cards so it's possible the buyer wasn't aware the parcel was waiting for them until it had been returned to you.

If it's an honest accident on the buyer's part then maybe you could suggest going halves on the return shipping costs?

[Stormness_1]

You'd think if they got the card  and it wasn't there still, they'd have contacted you Sunshine.. So either they've got the card and forgot, or think they have longer to collect than they actually do... or they never got a card, in which case you think they'd have contacted you by now. It's royally weird (excuse the pun!) my guess is they completely forgot about the purchase and they never got a card, or that something has happened in their life and they've forgotten about picking it up, and have subsequently not gone online.

[dragonlady]

Something similar happened to me a while ago:

I had sent some ponies to an international buyer and was very surprised when it showed up some time later. Basically the stamp on it said it had not been picked up by the buyer. When I contacted the buyer she had not gotten any notification; she had assumed the mail was slow and that's why she hadn't received it yet.  She didn't want to pay to have them shipped again as it was expensive so I refunded her; we agreed to split the shipping so neither of us were out the full amount as neither of us were at fault.

Tl;dr the buyer really might not have gotten notification but you as the seller do not have to pay to have it shipped again.

[Sunshine]

Thanks everyone for the info!

I know the buyer was aware of this package, and waiting for it for a LONG time. They did contact me but the only info I was able to give them was the ship date at the time, and hadn't anything else until now when the package came back. So I do know that they were waiting for it, and had a couple other issues at the same time with slow mail so... perhaps it was just a jumble of things. Hopefully they will be online soon and can respond to my message about the ponies.

Thanks again for all the help on this! I am glad to say that in the past few years this has been my only "lost" package, so I was pretty unaware of what to do about the situation! Everyone is so helpful.! Thanks!!

[Sebby6]

Just wanna throw this out there... As someone who buys way too many things from the internet and also many many years service is mail order related industries - 99% of my "missing" parcels are because the post man didn't bother leaving a card.
I always tell the customer to check if the post office is holding something for them and it's always there.

That said - if it happened to me with a parcel from a private seller then I would expect to pay the second lot of postage myself, or ask for a refund minus original shipping.

[Galactica]

This happened to me recently- the post man never left a card.  The only reason I finally discovered that it was at my post office is that the seller finally tracked the package and it showed up as having gotten to my postal office!   I was just a day or two away from having had the package sent back-  and I had been waiting for it everyday!

I learned that the delivery slip had gone to my neighbor's house :*(

[Sunshine]

The thing is, I did ask them to check at their local PO about any packages... but if all of this happened in a matter of a couple weeks... I don't know. I do know that they had been waiting on multiple packages, but didn't contact me until probably 45 days after shipping (I think early May or late April) - and of course I had no info on the package at that time because it was MIA. I had called my local PO but after it left the country they had basically "nothing to do with it" and could only "wait and see". Glad it at least worked out that they got SOMEWHERE... and aren't out there floating around...

I just know I still haven't heard from them... so, just waiting to see what we're gonna do about this.

Either way I'm totally stoked to have the ponies back safely. They are beautiful G1s, and I know they'll find another good home if indeed the buyer no longer wants to get them. It's frustrating though because I am not trying to blame the buyer for not picking them up, because as a couple of you have mentioned, those tiny little cards can go into the wrong box, or not be delivered, or lost during delivery... I always thought it was such a tough spot to do "mail-sales" when problems that the postal service creates put pressure on the seller or buyer to fix that problem... 

Post Merge: June 10, 2013, 11:28:38 AM

Heard from the buyer

They still want the ponies (yay! I love when ponies find new herds...)

And I think I'm just going to resend from my own pocket. I'd like them to get there because I know this buyer is super worried about buying internationally now, and I don't want them to feel that all international mailings happen like THIS one did.

I figure, pony karma - comes around, goes around, so, I really just want to get these gals to their overseas home to be loved!

[mylittleponylover92]

Sometimes the RoyalMail can be very poor about delivering those cards so it's possible the buyer wasn't aware the parcel was waiting for them until it had been returned to you.

If it's an honest accident on the buyer's part then maybe you could suggest going halves on the return shipping costs?

THANK YOU CupidStrikes! I could seriously hug you right now! 

Everyone, the buyer is me.   

And yes, for once I have been given the benefit of the doubt here. 

I am by no means a scammer. My feedback on here says so and my much larger eBay feedback. 

The funny thing is I did get a card while I was away. But it was for something my mum had ordered not me and it was sent back to the sender. I couldnt even work out what it was as by the time I got back it was over the 18 days. Also the people that work at my local sorting office are immigrants and dont speak good english and its a 40 min walk at least away from where I live.

I think I may of even PM'd all my sellers to say if anything is returned I will pay to get it resent. But a lot of you that have posted here would not of known that! 

I would like to say you all have no idea of my circumstances. My family live abroad, I live in a studio appartment whilst at uni. I have been apart from my family for four years now since I was 16. I went away at the very end of March to the 12th April since I hadnt seen my family since before December.

Also living in shared accommodation, things can be easily stolen. Also, all the post boxes look the same. It could be quite possible that he put the card in the wrong box...or the parcel was left - this has happened to me TWICE now. Someone could of quite easily walked off with it - I live with students - it wouldnt of been a total surprise.

it is there responsibility to sort it out. They do not really have an excuse for not getting it. As royal mail can redeliver for no extra charge to the same postcode area.  And they have a week to sort it out

And if they were on holiday they should not have bought anything that might be delivered when they were away or at least asked you to post later.

I hope you can sort things out so you are both happy and not out of pocket

I think I had a pretty good excuse for not getting it.    Since I dont ever see my family and I only have holidays in Easter and Christmas. I was far away in the middle east. 

May I also say the last time I bought something from the US it only took over 7 days?  I ordered this the begining of March - I didnt leave until the end of that month. Which btw I didnt get a choice about since my mum was desperate to see me as Im her only child and booked the flights without even telling me till last min for a surprise. 

A buyer only has is it 30 or 45 days to file a claim? Honestly at this point I don't think there is a thing the buyer can really do. I would fit my losses and just refund them the pony price. If they didn't pik up the box before try might not do it again. I wouldn't refund shipping costs though. You mailed and it got there. They messed up not getting the box.

There wasnt anything I could of done! And how could I have "messed up" on getting the box when I got NO notification of it being there? I was away when it was supposed of been delivered anyways which wasnt my fault as Ive previously explained! But even though I was at least I would of sorted it if I had a card for it - I honestly didn't.   

There's not really a way someone can miss a Royal Mail "something for you" card, they're bright red. They're put through at the same time as a failed delivery, not sent on later.

On checking how long they hold stuff, they now only hold undelivered stuff that's not in need of a signature for a week before returning it, and 18 days if it does. (Working days)
There is a massive pile of undelivered and unreturnable post kicking around at Royal Mail. I think they started selling it off on ebay at one point.

Thats right, if it was there. I would of seen it and said!

You'd think if they got the card  and it wasn't there still, they'd have contacted you Sunshine.. So either they've got the card and forgot, or think they have longer to collect than they actually do... or they never got a card, in which case you think they'd have contacted you by now. It's royally weird (excuse the pun!) my guess is they completely forgot about the purchase and they never got a card, or that something has happened in their life and they've forgotten about picking it up, and have subsequently not gone online.

I never got one. I didnt forget, I contacted her a while ago.  Its just recently Ive started a new job. Ive been working 9-5 and even later at times. Ive been so exhausted that Ive not had the energy I usually have or the time. There has also been several bank holidays here where POs are closed as well as other places. 

So yes, I never got a card and something has happened in my life - new job and in the last week or so my mother has been diagnosed with a blood disease. 

So Ive spent a lot of time upset as I was the last to know and just completely busy. Now I have reduced my hours I am able to go back online again! Ive spent my free time asleep and seeing my boyfriend as he leaves for good this month.

So yeah a lot going on! 

Something similar happened to me a while ago:

I had sent some ponies to an international buyer and was very surprised when it showed up some time later. Basically the stamp on it said it had not been picked up by the buyer. When I contacted the buyer she had not gotten any notification; she had assumed the mail was slow and that's why she hadn't received it yet.  She didn't want to pay to have them shipped again as it was expensive so I refunded her; we agreed to split the shipping so neither of us were out the full amount as neither of us were at fault.

Tl;dr the buyer really might not have gotten notification but you as the seller do not have to pay to have it shipped again.

Yeah, thats basically whats happened to me. I assumed there had been a delay! I had no notification at all!   

This happened to me recently- the post man never left a card.  The only reason I finally discovered that it was at my post office is that the seller finally tracked the package and it showed up as having gotten to my postal office!   I was just a day or two away from having had the package sent back-  and I had been waiting for it everyday!

I learned that the delivery slip had gone to my neighbor's house :*(

EXACTLY! I swear he never left a card!!!! There was just one for my mum from another date and it was an eBay thing!

It wasnt trackable so unfortunately neither me or Sunshine was able to realise where it was!

Im glad it worked out for you though! 



Anyways, I'd like to say Im working with Sunshine on this. 

Im sorry if Ive snapped at any of you its just I think people can be really quick to judge or place blame 

I have my own thread opened ages a go concerning this purchase.

I have never at any point blamed Sunshine or critcised her - I know it wasnt her fault!

I didnt know what had happened! Neither of us did! 

So yes, I guess it is mine, maybe it wouldnt of been if I had been given a card in the first place!!   

And recently Ive just gone through a lot of changes, my new job, my boyfriend will be graduating and leaving soon and my mums deteriorating health. So yeah, not been so active on here as I usually am! 

Either way, I will sort it so just give me time, thank you 

[ponylady]

I hope the two of you can get this sorted 

I have locked up your thread mylittleponylover so that there was not two on going threads concerning the matter. I am posting the link here so that it can still be read if needed.

http://mlparena.com/index.php/topic,331444.0.html