So I got an order from a domestic customer in early March and fulfilled it in mid March. I'm on vacation with my daughter in Hawaii when he writes me in early September to tell me he never received the order. I say, why did you wait six months to follow up? and of course I'm in Hawaii so I can't check tracking. He says, "your website says that sometimes there's a delay in processing orders so I thought there was just a delay" (which is BS -- I say I can't always ship within a week because I'm a one man band with lots of orders coming in -- nothing about SIX MONTHS).
So he files a dispute.
I get back and try to check tracking but the records are no longer available online as it's been more than 60 days. I have to call the USPS. I call them and their menu is the usual maze, taking almost ten minutes to finally get on the queue for a living person, and then a wait of 54 minutes to speak to one (!!!). All for nothing -- they don't keep the records at all after 120 days. And it's more than that.
So in the meantime the customer tells me that frankly he doesn't even contest that the order was shipped, and that he suffered a breakin at his mailbox (he's apparently a graduate student), but that he just wants his money back. From me, the person who shipped him his stuff.
I send PayPal this information -- the customer does not really contest the shipment suffered a breakin at his mailbox. I send a screen shot of the customer's e-mail. PayPal finds in favor of the customer anyway.
Very frustrating. This guy may well have gamed paypal's panic about the buyer ever being wrong, and the gap between the records held by the USPS and the dispute period. Does it not matter that he admits that his mailbox was broken into? I've had people game this before, and I'd like to know how other people handle it. Signature confirmations? Customers HATE THAT -- they are often not home during the week and so have to make a trip to the post office during the weekend to sign for it, and may not bother, letting it be returned and then putting in a payment dispute. Thoughts?
