Can't add signature confirmation option to USPS label creation/purchase!

[pongohops]

I recently bought a USPS shipping label through PayPal.  Priority Mail, insured for an extra $950 for a total of $1000, and selected the signature confirmation option.  I then hit calculate and bought the label.  I happened to click on the details of the tracking/shipment and noticed it says 'no signature required' even though I selected this option when creating/purchasing the label.

Thinking I might have made a mistake I went to create a new label.  Again, I selected the same options and the signature confirmation and hit calculate.  I then deselected the signature confirmation and hit calculate.  The price did not change.  I went back and forth selecting the signature confirmation and calculating and there is no price difference.  It NEVER adds the signature confirmation ($2.55) to my label.

As of now, when I drop this off at the Post Office I am going to ask if I can manually add signature confirmation on the package.  I just don't feel okay with not having this option for a package of this value.  What I do want to know is what the heck is wrong with the USPS label creation on PayPal that the signature confirmation cannot be added even though I select it.  If anything it should be greyed out if it is not available.  Also, I keep reading online that if something comes up I will need this signature confirmation option to prove my case.

[pongohops]

So I just played around with this some more and apparently if you insure for anything over $500 the signature confirmation option cannot be purchased.  You can do the following to see what I mean.  For the record, the payment made to me for this item which the label is being created for was $995.00.

1. Go to https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_ship-now to create a label.

2. Select the signature confirmation option and calculate.  You will see it added the signature confirmation cost in your calculated details 'Signature Confirmation TM service $2.55 USD'.

3. Now, change the insurance to $50.00 USD + $451.00 for a total of $501.00 and calculate again.  The signature confirmation option is removed.

4. Now, change the insurance to $50.00 USD + $450.00 for a total of $500.00 and calculate again. The signature confirmation option is back.

What I get from this 'test' is that if your insurance is over $500 you cannot buy signature confirmation.  The funny part of all of this is if you look at https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/security/seller-protection it says the following for 'proof of delivery' :

What is Proof of Delivery?
Proof of Delivery is online documentation from a shipping company that includes all of the following:

• The item’s status as delivered.
• The date the item was delivered.
• The recipient's address, showing at least the city and state, or city and country, or zip/postal code (or international equivalent). The address information on your shipping receipt must match the address on the Transaction Details page.
• Signature Confirmation, if the full amount of the payment (including shipping and taxes) is $750 USD or more. This is documentation that can be viewed at the shipping company’s website and indicates that the item was signed for on delivery.

Soooooo, you're telling me I need to have signature confirmation to be 'protected' if the payment is $750 or more, BUT, your website removes that ability whenever the insurance level goes above $500.  What the hell is going on here!?

[graci3]

I'm having this issue too! Did you end up adding on signature confirmation at the post office?

[BeyondStressed]

Just for Kicks and giggles, I went straight to the USPS website to make a shipping label. . .  It seems that the signature confirmation was added FREE. . . 

Included like the tracking. . .  The paypal shipping page does not indicate this.   My transaction said NO SIGNATURE REQUIRED. . . but . . . the shipping label that was printed said "USPS SIGNATURE TRACKING".  

This is pretty convoluded.  

I voided the label not realizing there is signature confirmation included . . .  

[pongohops]

Sorry for the late reply on this one as I never noticed the previous replies.  What happened with my original purchase was I tried to add the insurance to the label at the post office when I dropped the package off.  I had it all packaged up with my PayPal label taped to it and everything.  When I got to the PO counter and told them I wanted to add insurance to the label they refused and said they do not do that because of some kind of fraud that is happening.  They even put me on the phone with someone at the local 'main' office to try and explain it to me, but in the end it made no sense to me.  The only option they gave me was to create an entirely new label from them (which of course does not include the small discount if you purchase through PayPal).  They then send I could request a refund on the original label I had bought from PayPal since it would not be used.  So, since that was the only way I could get the correct insurance on the item that is what I did.

So at this point I have paid for two separate labels (each about $100 if I remember) - one from PayPal with the wrong insurance amount and another from the PO with the correct insurance and used for the package to send out.  Now it is time to request refund of the unused label I purchased.  When you do this you are required to wait something like 30 days or more before the refund happens because they need to 'make sure' the label wasn't used.  So, I did that.  My refund was denied.  I challenged this decision with PayPal and it was denied again.  After going through hoops with PayPal and USPS finally someone at PayPal looked into the issue and said the reason the refund was denied is because the label had been scanned into the USPS system and once it is scanned they will not refund it no matter what because that technically means it is 'in use'.  So, I'm sitting there trying to figure out how this happened.  It happened when I was at the post office.  When I originally went there with the label and requested to add insurance my local PO scanned the label to see the details of it and that scanning put the label 'in the system'.  They then sold me a new label and told me the original would be refunded no problems, but because it was scanned there WAS a problem.  Luckily the person at PayPal understood what was going on, could see by the tracking number that nothing had ever been shipped, and there was no 'status' from the tracking number even well over a month after it was purchased.  They refunded my purchase and said it was a one-time courtesy refund from them.

Hopefully this helps someone else out in the future.  I haven't shipped anything high dollar in awhile so maybe the process has changed with PayPal when you purchase a label and add insurance, but the experience I ended up having with this was ridiculous, very time consuming, and had $100 tied up for well over a month before it was returned to me.