contacting USPS

baggies

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Michael
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1binwa
This may be of interest to anyone thinking of shipping untracked to the US through ebay.

An ebay buyer in the US (soccerstarplus) claimed not to have received mail after two and half weeks and opened a case against me on ebay so I followed it up with Auspost. Ebay allowed the case to be opened early even though delivery when listing was estimated at 11-35 business days. The buyer got a different estimated delivery date from ebay. The card was posted untracked with insurance valued at $175. Auspost asked if I had tried contacting USPS because they can do nothing for 90 days on untracked items. I filled in an online form which does not allow Australian addresses/phone numbers, so I used the buyers address and my own contact email for USPS to contact me and gave the article ID on the receipt. Even though the item was untracked, there is still a barcode which can get scanned internally within the US. About 4 days later, USPS confirmed their "research shows GPS at correct location for package delivery." Ebay would not close the case based on this information, but when the buyer was presented with the email received from USPS, he said he will "go home tomorrow to see if it finally arrived". The following day I received feedback "Ok late but better than never".
Even though the card was insured and I would probably have received insurance after 90 days, the USPS email was either received at the same time as the card was delivered or more likely, was enough to get the buyer to be honest and own up that he had already received the card. It wasted a lot of time contacting ebay and USPS plus responding to the case and providing photos etc, but at least this guy has not been allowed to potentially commit a fraud.
I'm not sure if untracked items will always get internally scanned within the US, or if GPS delivery is available in all states but it's worth a shot to keep buyers honest who potentially get the card but also ask for a refund because it's untracked.
 
Simple lesson here - don't use USPS. They are notoriously slow and rarely update their tracking. Better solution is to use UPS - they update they're tracking at every stop and are faster.
 
The card was untracked and posted in Australia. I don't know who delivers it when it reaches the US. I used the USPS online form to prove delivery and deter a potential scammer by using the article ID number.
 
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