Is there any type of Seller Protection for International Shipments?

[Darvious]

I was a PowerSeller on Feebay for a few years, until Meg Whitman left. After the company started going downhill, I got out. That was about four years ago. I've missed selling online very much, but haven't been involved in any worldwide marketplaces since.

When I was selling on Feebay, the USPS did not offer Delivery Confirmation for International packages. Without D.C., the Seller had no protection through PayPal against Buyer-Claims. International shipping can get pretty expensive and can take 2-3 weeks for delivery. Needless to say, without Seller Protection, I've lost some product and ate some pretty big shipping charges due to a few impatient International Buyers filing claims.

I see that a pretty big portion of the eBid community is based Internationally (I am a Seller in the U.S.). Since I have been out of the worldwide marketplace for so long, I was wondering if anything significant has changed, to where a Seller has protection for International orders?

I absolutely refuse to use PayPal since they are owned by Feebay. I will be accepting payment through Google Checkout, PPpay and Skrill. (I understand that I will be limiting my sales by refusing to accept PayPal, but some men stand by their principals.)

So, does Google Checkout, PPpay or Skrill offer any type of Seller Protection for International Shipments?

[suesjools]

Hi and welcome to eBid.

Good question, sorry I don't have an answer as I only use Paypal and USPS myself, but a number of eBid sellers do use Google and Skrill and so should have answers for you. I can say that I've not yet had problems with any of my international sales (knock wood) and offer most items to all eBid countries.

Best wishes for many sales to all,

[darklisruthven]

Personally I swear by postal tracking numbers

[kreativebargains]

Google does offer fraud protection. The rules are available just before you log into your account. They say that 98% of sales are covered but are somewhat vague on which 2% are not.

Despite this I had a chargeback of £7 on a case that I am still fighting on principle, I think they failed to spot an attempted fraud. So all in all it seems like the big guys Paypal & Google look after themselves 1st and the customer 2nd.

[rokins_toys]

Trouble with paypal is, they have silly policies that conflict with the postal service, so in such cases, I would disregard paypal and tell them, sorry, but we have ot go through the proper channels with the postal service and wait for their official declaring of the item being declared lost etc and tell paypal that any action they take would be wrong, and will result in action being taken against them, like removing funds from your account due to their unfair policies that disregard the policies of the postal service when it comes to international shipping, because ultimately, its those policies of the postal service that supercede those of paypal. A buyer cannot expect their item any quicker than what the postal service estimate, and this is beynd the control of the seller and always will be and buyers need to learn that they also need to abide by those same policies that the seller has to abide by when it comes to the postal service. There is a proper channel and process to go through if a customer is concerned their item has not arrived yet, so they are seriously and unnecessarily jumping the gun by making premature claims with people like paypal when they should be contacting the seller to find out the progress of the shipping (especially if it has been sent using tracking). And the buyer should abide by the estimated shipping times and policies of the postal service, not what some idiot policy that paypal has that conflicts with the postal services' policies and estimated delivery times and time after that where they will official declare an item lost.

Then, there are additional delays, the time of year, holidays, bad weather etc. All these things add to delivery times and delay delivery. It is all about common sense. Impatient buyers should be mindful of all these things. We sold a figure to a customer a couple of years ago now, think they were in Canada or the USA, can't remember, they bought the item over the New Year holiday and here in Britain we had snow causing delays and back logs on top of the delays and back logs of the holiday period. After 4 weeks of us shipping the item, they contacted us to say it hadn't arrived, and we sorted everything out, we had the certificate of posting, advised the customer of Royal Mail's policies on delivery and the timeframe of when they allow claims to be made after x amount of days have passed etc. and we dealt with everything, submitted everyting we needed to to Royal Mail, then a week or so later they declared the item lost, we issued the refund and only issued that refund when Royal Mail officially declared the item lost, refunded us, not according to paypal because it is not their jurisdiction and paypal need to remember that, but importantly, the customer came to us first, not paypal, they didn't put in a claim with paypal, because they knew the proper channel is to come to us first. Within about 3 days of the Royal Mail declaring the item lost and us issuing the refund, the item got delivered to the customer. thankfully, the buyer was very honest and informed us the item was delivered and asked us to reinvoice them for the item.

As we already advised the customer, the item had been delayed because of the holiday period on top of bad weather both sides of the Atlantic. But because the 20 day limit had already passed, Royal Mail just declared it lost as they knew as well as we did, the item was delayed enroute, but obviously, without tracking, they could not locate it, but my point being is, the customer bought a £5.99 action figure from us and at the time, international signed for was I think £4.95, we're not going to ask a customer to pay that for a single action figure on top of shipping. If they had bought 5 or more action figures from us, then we would have given them the option to have international signed for, if not, we'd still use the free certificate of posting. So it was a case of, yes tracking is great, but it is an unnecessary expense on some items, especially when we have a free certificate of posting which provides Royal Mail with proof that the item has been sent, maybe USPS should exercise some common sense and introduce something like this.

But anyway, the reality is, buyers jump the gun on putting in claims disregarding the policies of the postal service and follwing paypal's conflicting policies on non-delivery of when they should follow the delivery guidelines of the postal service concered, which as a seller, is your responsibility to say, the postal service need to allow for x amount of days to pass before they can declare the item lost etc. before you can issue them a refund, paypal have no jurisidction in this department and you should tell paypal, you're not the postal service, so we're following their guidelines in this matter, not yours, and if you want to make an issue out of it, remove funds from our account, we'll let a judge decide because it's the postal services policies that take precedence in such circumstances, not the silly conflicting policies of paypal, you do not even have to take it to a judge, just the threat of you saying that will make paypal back off because they know a judge will abide with the postal services policies in such matters as it is the postal service that determines and estimates delivery times (not paypal) and the buyer should be informed of these delivery times by the seller and if after these estimated delivery times the item has not been delivered plus the additional time the postal services allows for incase of dealys, then the buyer should contact the seller, not paypal. Paypal are just muppets who have no jurisdiction in this area, you must comply with the postal service, so just be sure your international customers are made aware of estimated delivery times and how much time the USPS allows to pass before they declare an item lost. Takes no time at all to put such information is your about the sellers section and point customers to it through your listings like we do by providing a link to that page on every listing.

If an item is delivered and it is damaged, again, it should be you the buyer contacts, not paypal, so you can replace the item if possible or issue a refund while you put in a claim with the USPS. Again, even a judge will follow the policies of the postal service in this matter, not some conflicting have no jurisdiction policies of someone like paypal.

We have never had any issues with paypal, depsite them being part of FeeBay (but at least we're not paying monthly listing fees and extortionate FVFs), but the reality is, if a buyer did not come to us first and give us the opportunity to give the advice the postal service would advise us to give and did not give us the chance to what we have to do and go straight to paypal for a claim, we would tell paypal where to shove it and tell them we will be following the policies of postal service in this matter as it is their jurisdiction not theirs and that the buyer will have to be patient while things are sorted out via the proper, official and legal channels of postal service and their policies, and we'd point out that a solicitor and/or judge will fall on the side of us and the policies of the postal service because it is those policies that take precedence not the policies of paypal and an impatient buyer.

Paypal like to think they are all big and important, but the reality is, they are not, and they are not above the law and they certainly are not above the policies and procedures of any postal services with regards to issues pertaining to the delivery of items (or the non-delivery), first and foremost, the postal services policies take precedence, not some silly conflicting policies of a third party organisation who have no legal jurisdiction in such an area, so as long as you follow those guidelines of the postal service, inform the buyer of what you have to do based on what the postal service tells you, paypal can't do jack and certainly can''t refund a buyer and take money from you because even a solicitor or judge will tell you paypal are in the wrong and that it is the postal services policies that take precedence of which you have to abide by and go through their channels whether an item has been sent tracked or without tracking. You throw that in paypal's face, it soon shuts them up and gets them to back down and paypal should tell the buyer that the seller has to legally abide by the postal services' policies and the buyer should wait the allocated days that the postal service detmerines are acceptable before delcaring an item lost etc.

[raindropsies]

You cannot take pppay in US.

[terry5732]

google checkout policy is nearly identical to paypig

The sad thing is that someone in China can buy USPS delivery confirmation for pennies but USPS wants to screw US customers

[JanetB]

I had no idea China have USPS as a shipping option (doesn't make sense to me) (????)

[terry5732]

They spent less than two US dollars to send to me with DC

For me to send their way with the same amount of protection the USPS would charge me about $36

[Darvious]

So the USPS is now offering Delivery Confirmation for International sales?