Need a little advice

bigd349

I have a little question or should I say I need a little advice on a situation. On June 1, 2004 I had a person on ebay buy some coins from me. 1 of the coins he used a buy it now, and the other 2 we made a side deal and I canceled the auctions, ( no, there were no bids). Now the total of these coins were pretty expensive, almost $3000.00 dollars worth. I got paid via paypal and I mailed them out, insured and registered mail. I haven’t heard from this person since the night we made the deal. Now it's almost a month later what shows up on my doorstep, his package, returned from the post office saying that it was undeliverable.. It looks like the post office tried to deliver it a few times; it's marked on the box each time they tried. Now I used the address from paypal which is confirmed, and I e-mailed the person saying that got his package back in the mail, but I haven’t heard from him yet. Now I don't know about you guys but if this was my package coming to me, if I didn't have it in a week or so, I would be e-mailing the person sending it to me asking where it is, and I would keep up on it until I got it. But I haven’t heard from him since that night when we made the deal. Heck, I thought he got the coins just fine since I didn't hear from you again. I guess my question is this, Lets say he replies back to me (which I expect) and says to mail them to him again. That's fine I don't have a problem with that. The problem I have is it cost over $35 to ship it to him the first time. Now should I be expected to pick up the tab again, or should he pay the shipping cost. The last question, what do I do if I can't get a hold of this person, or he doesn't contact me.

Thanks for your help
Dave

nOoBiEeE

Wait until he gets in touch with you or if it gets to the point he has not, try to get his contact info from Ebay and feel the situation out from there. Maybe something happened to the person or a relative etc.. You never know. As for the shipping fee, I am sure he will pay for it to be shipped again.

razorface1027

Keep your fingers crossed that he contacts you. Basically they're his coins. As far as shipping's concerned, if there is contact, work something out. If his mailing addy is bogus, that's on him not you. I'd charge the shipping charge. It isn't your fault that it wasn't deliverable. JMHO

Russ

Did it come back undeliverable because there was nobody to sign for it, or because of address problems? If the former, and considering the fact that you've gotten no eMail response, I'd guess the buyer is either on vacation, a business trip, or perhaps some injury or sickness put them in the hospital.

I think if he hit the road on a planned trip, he should pay to have them shipped again. If something bad happened to him and he's indisposed due to illness or injury, I'd be inclined to let that slide.

Russ, NCNE

Shamika

If you think you were lucky to get $3000 for the coins, I'd just eat the cost of shipping and be happy. Otherwise, he should have to pick up the tab.

I have no idea what the laws are if he never contacts you (you could only hope), however I'd make it a personal mission to find the guys phone number and contact him myself.

Try the internet White Pages and see if you can get a phone number here.

numonebuyer

Send him/her a normal letter and explain things. Ask him to send you an email or call you. Then just work it out.

Good luck.

mrearlygold

Man that's weird. Are you sure the payment is going to "stay" in your account? Maybe I'm a little paranoid on this kind of thing but it's weird isn't it.

Good luck
Tom

bigd349

The payment has stayed in my account. I check his e-bay id, he hasn't had any transactions since the 9th of June, but his e-bay account is still good. I didn't make any mistakes on the address, which was confirmed. All it says on the box the box is that it was "unclaimed". I know the post office is suppost to leave a card in the mailbox if they can't get a signature when they come to deliever it. Then you are suppost to go to the post office and pick it up. It looks like they tried 2 or 3 times to bring it out to his house. I'm just going to put it off to the side for now. I figure sooner or later I'll hear something about it.

airplanenut

Why not you see if you can get his contact info--if no one answers, call the local police and see if something happened to him.

On an aside, how did that shipping cost $35? Registered and insured for $3000 and 3 coins shouldn't run more than $15 or so... it's first class/priority postage, plus $10 or so on the Registered fee...

Jeremy

291fifth

This happened to me once on eBay. The buyer had given me an incomplete address. I eventually completed the sale and the buyer did reimburse me for the extra postage. Get his contact info from eBay and see if it matches the address he gave you.

BAJJERFAN

Go to your PO and have them run the tracking number for you. There may be a more detailed explanation there!

tmot99

I'ld hang out for another week or so. If I was expecting a package in the mail yet I had a trip planned, I might not tell the sender that I was going to be out of town. I would be expecting USPS to be hanging on to it for a period of time trying to deliver, or wait until I pick it up, etc.

If there is something unfortunate with the buyer, then time will tell. Worst case scenario, reimburse PayPal transaction. You have the coins.

CarlWohlforth

Make another good faith effort to contact this buyer, perhaps both by email and snail mail. If you don't get a response hold the coins for a long time. They were paid for. Post another query to the forums in another 3-6 months if you still have no response... I'm sure there will be many who suggest you have a give-away contest