What do you do if a customer says an item hasn't been delivered but tracking confirms delivery?

[jjscruff]

see title.
seems to be happening a lot with royal mail items at the moment but only from customers on amazon and never my website.
Which makes me suspicious since there is a lot of fraud on amazon

Do you replace normally or tell the customer the tracking shows delivery so that's that?

 

[Zoe Strassen]

I also find this happens a lot with Royal Mail especially with Amazon orders. I always direct them to the local delivery office whos should have GPS information and can speak to the post person from that day. They can then make a claim with Royal Mail if they want to, but from a sellers perspective it's delivered,

 

[jjscruff]

The customer can make a claim? Thought it would only be the sender and on premium royal mail services?

 

[Ian J]

Which makes me suspicious since there is a lot of fraud on amazon

It's not surprising as you can nominate "a safe place" for deliveries if you aren't in so the less honest will just say that it wasn't there

 

[Zoe Strassen]

The customer can make a claim? Thought it would only be the sender and on premium royal mail services?

Yes the Sorting office can give them a card which they can them make a claim on the Royal Mail website

 

[JamieM]

If you have any kind of decent customer service you have to take your customer’s word for it and send a replacement.

I might ask them to check with a neighbour first. And before sending the replacement tell them that Royal Mail or whoever will investigate the missing item.

I do not believe the customer can claim anything from Royal Mail, that is the senders responsibility.

 

[kulture]

If it is an item ordered on Amazon then it is best to re-send or refund because as soon as you say no then they will raise an A-Z claim with Amazon and that will adversly affect your selling on Amazon. The affect, regardless of whether you sucesfully defend the claim, would likely cost you more than the refund.

Having said that I would FIRST respond with a message like :

"I am so sorry to hear that you have not recieved your parcel. Royal Mail have told us that it was delivered (and signed for?) at xx:xx on dd/mm/yy. We need a formal message from you confirming that you have checked and can confirm that it has NOT been delivered so that we can instruct the Royal Mail investigation into this. They may also involve the Police if they determine that a number of items have gone missing in your delivery area. Naturally we will refund you in full as soon as we receive this confirmation from you, we will not hold it up waiting for the results of the investigation."

Funnily enough in every case of such non delivery where we sent this message they "found" the item.

 

[Mr D]

I have had an item ordered that I didn't receive yet tracking showed delivered.
Seller insisted I had the item, I insisted I hadn't. Had to get a refund from beyond the seller as they would not budge.
No idea where the item ended up, only know it wasn't my house.

Multiple times have had letters and even parcels for someone else delivered to my house, even signed for - and put in our green bin (we have a note on the door for parcels).
I pass them on to the right address. I know not everyone does.

 

[Mr D]

It's not surprising as you can nominate "a safe place" for deliveries if you aren't in so the less honest will just say that it wasn't there

Plus the honest ones who know its not there.
How to tell which is which... that's harder.

 

[Mr D]

I also find this happens a lot with Royal Mail especially with Amazon orders. I always direct them to the local delivery office whos should have GPS information and can speak to the post person from that day. They can then make a claim with Royal Mail if they want to, but from a sellers perspective it's delivered,

Its sellers responsibility until the buyer receives it. Much to the annoyance of some sellers.

 

[Gordon - Commercial Finance]

@Mr D am I right in saying you buy stuff in from China and sell it on eBay and Amazon?

Was hoping to pick your brains if so - could you PM me?

 

[wayzgoose]

If it is an item ordered on Amazon then it is best to re-send or refund because as soon as you say no then they will raise an A-Z claim with Amazon and that will adversly affect your selling on Amazon. The affect, regardless of whether you sucesfully defend the claim, would likely cost you more than the refund.

Having said that I would FIRST respond with a message like :

"I am so sorry to hear that you have not recieved your parcel. Royal Mail have told us that it was delivered (and signed for?) at xx:xx on dd/mm/yy. We need a formal message from you confirming that you have checked and can confirm that it has NOT been delivered so that we can instruct the Royal Mail investigation into this. They may also involve the Police if they determine that a number of items have gone missing in your delivery area. Naturally we will refund you in full as soon as we receive this confirmation from you, we will not hold it up waiting for the results of the investigation."

Funnily enough in every case of such non delivery where we sent this message they "found" the item.

That's almost exactly what we send but on the end we add:
"Could you also confirm that you will inform us if the parcel arrives in the future so that we can update the Royal Mail accordingly."

 

[Newchodge]

I also find this happens a lot with Royal Mail especially with Amazon orders. I always direct them to the local delivery office whos should have GPS information and can speak to the post person from that day. They can then make a claim with Royal Mail if they want to, but from a sellers perspective it's delivered,

Are you seriously suggesting that, if your customer tells you their order has not been delivered, you wash your hands of them. You contracted with the delivery company to deliver. Your customer contracted with you to get the item to them. If they tell you it has not been delievered it is entirely your problem and not your customer's. YOU have to chase up your delivery company, you have to refund or replace the item. YOU make the claim against Royal Mail, your customer cannot as they have no contract with Royal Mail.

Do you understand the law in this area?

 

[Newchodge]

In response to the title. Tracking does not, ever, confirm delivery. Tracking confirms what the delivery company puts in the tracking information.

 

[Mr D]

Are you seriously suggesting that, if your customer tells you their order has not been delivered, you wash your hands of them. You contracted with the delivery company to deliver. Your customer contracted with you to get the item to them. If they tell you it has not been delievered it is entirely your problem and not your customer's. YOU have to chase up your delivery company, you have to refund or replace the item. YOU make the claim against Royal Mail, your customer cannot as they have no contract with Royal Mail.

Do you understand the law in this area?

Its one way to avoid repeat business and increase chargebacks / claims for money.

 

[Bronco78th]

Nothing wrong with due diligence and eBay have a system that we have found works well for this scenario (can't say about other market places).

If we have a customer claiming DNR but the tracking says otherwise we say take the normal steps, make sure noone else has picked it up and put it somewhere in the house, Check the place the mailman/delivery people normally leave parcels then if no luck open a case with eBay. (basically what @kulture suggests)

Just this is enough to put someone that is lying off.....psychological barrier....we don't hear anymore of it.

If the customer does open a case eBay will ask us for details, we put the tracking number, which presumably eBay check because either we don't hear any more about the case (but don't get struck by eBay either) or in the rare case the customer does give eBay details, eBay will order us to send a replacement which we will of course do.

The last out come is rare. If a customer is lying just getting them to make a story up...fill in any form or details....more often than not you won't hear from them again.

It might be unethical, it might even be pushing the law......but send your customer on a guilt trip and that normally flushes out if they are talking BS or truth.

 

[Mr D]

Nothing wrong with due diligence and eBay have a system that we have found works well for this scenario (can't say about other market places).

If we have a customer claiming DNR but the tracking says otherwise we say take the normal steps, make sure noone else has picked it up and put it somewhere in the house, Check the place the mailman/delivery people normally leave parcels then if no luck open a case with eBay. (basically what @kulture suggests)

Just this is enough to put someone that is lying off.....psychological barrier....we don't hear anymore of it.

If the customer does open a case eBay will ask us for details, we put the tracking number, which presumably eBay check because either we don't hear any more about the case (but don't get struck by eBay either) or in the rare case the customer does give eBay details, eBay will order us to send a replacement which we will of course do.

The last out come is rare. If a customer is lying just getting them to make a story up...fill in any form or details....more often than not you won't hear from them again.

It might be unethical, it might even be pushing the law......but send your customer on a guilt trip and that normally flushes out if they are talking BS or truth.

One additional thing I would suggest when customer declares item not received and tracking shows not delivered - keep checking tracking for weeks afterwards.
Customer gets refund, customer goes and picks up package and keeps it.
Then seller sends them an invoice for full amount. It works - got a fraudulent customer to pay up the only time that happened.

One thing we find a lot with delivery confirmation is that not everyone / every office scans all parcels.
Even with couriers some stuff gets missed - stuff delivered while tracking shows still at depot.
And the people delivering are as capable of defrauding a seller as customers are.

Just remember sometimes the buyer is telling the truth about not receiving the parcel.

 

[Newchodge]

Our local facebook group has messages, at least 3 times per week, asking if anyone, anywhere, has their parcel as Hermes claims it has been delivered but it has not been seen. Sometimes it is found at a similar address, sometimes it is never found. Strangely it is always Hermes. My advice is always that the buyer should contact the seller with their complaint and not spend their time doing the seller's job for them.

 

[Prime81]

I know it's not the same but I ordered 5 charger cables off eBay and they sent 1. The first thing that crossed my mind was 'they are not gonna believe me and think I'm trying it on' .In reality 5 cables could have fitted in the envelope and the invoice inside said 5 not 1. however they asked for photos and they did send me 4 more cables. the envelope was much bigger so I guess they knew they would have used a bigger envelope for 5 cables. But it did worry me as I know people take the mick.

 

[Mr D]

Our local facebook group has messages, at least 3 times per week, asking if anyone, anywhere, has their parcel as Hermes claims it has been delivered but it has not been seen. Sometimes it is found at a similar address, sometimes it is never found. Strangely it is always Hermes. My advice is always that the buyer should contact the seller with their complaint and not spend their time doing the seller's job for them.

Yes the seller can use the local facebook group instead.

 

[Newchodge]

Yes the seller can use the local facebook group instead.

The seller can demand that the carrier sorts the issue, and can understand how poorly their contract is being handled.

 

[Paul Norman]

This does happen.

There is very little you can do, practically. Especially on Amazon, who are going to support the customer.

If I was going to carry out a fraud in which I took delivery of stuff, and then denied it, I would use Amazon to do that.

You can push back against it slightly, if you have a copy of the signature, but in reality it proves very little.

 

[tony84]

I had this once when I had a retail business. I sent them a copy of the signature and they backed down. You could have asked them to scan in their driving license/passport hiding everything but their name and signature if they dispute the signature.

 

[Mr D]

I had this once when I had a retail business. I sent them a copy of the signature and they backed down. You could have asked them to scan in their driving license/passport hiding everything but their name and signature if they dispute the signature.

Name on parcel - someone scrawls that name - voila, item signed for. Even if at a different address or by the delivery driver.
Signature just means the driver got a signature, not that the buyer signed it.

 

[tony84]

But if the signatures match/look very similar then you would imagine the person signing for it and the person saying they have not received it are the same person.

 

[Mr D]

But if the signatures match/look very similar then you would imagine the person signing for it and the person saying they have not received it are the same person.

Handheld device, signature you give look anything like driving licence / passport signature?

I have a sign on the door to put parcels in a particular bin.
Probably half the parcels that end up there need signing for. No idea if anyone ever does sign - I know its not me or the wife. Or perhaps item delivered unsigned and if someone nicks it out of the bin then I have to argue with sender that i haven't received it.
Some annoying sellers out there convinced I'm a scammer, I know for certain they have not delivered the item I purchased. How to resolve those 2 opposite views regarding the same transaction?

 

[Nico Albrecht]

Delivered with a signature doesn't mean much even if it is like a RM next day guaranteed service.

2 weeks ago I signed for one and noticed later it was for a business down the road. Dropped it of in person to not get the post man in trouble but it proofs the point that even with a special service it can happen.

As a buyer I have almost no chance to start an investigation or get more information so it all leads back to the seller making a claim and following up.

 

[Guy Incognito]

Had an issue with Amazon on this earlier this year.
Item dispatched - client gets an email confirming dispatch along with a tracking number and link.
Item delivered the following day.
Client contacts a week later (conveniently just beyond the date when we can make a claim with the courier) saying they haven't got the item.
Tracking shows it was delivered to a neighbour along with a name / signature a week ago.
Client says no neighbour has it, no one by that name on the street etc

Amazon obviously side with the client, and we have to dispatch a replacement. The courier won't refund us as it was delivered and signed for. So we make a loss of approx £30.

We reported the client to Amazon as it was all very fishy. They responded that they were investigating and appreciated the heads up.

We dispatch thousands of orders a year and sometimes things do go missing. When that happens we resolve it as quickly as possible but sometimes you know someone is on the fiddle.

 

[Guy Incognito]

Handheld device, signature you give look anything like driving licence / passport signature?

I have a sign on the door to put parcels in a particular bin.
Probably half the parcels that end up there need signing for. No idea if anyone ever does sign - I know its not me or the wife. Or perhaps item delivered unsigned and if someone nicks it out of the bin then I have to argue with sender that i haven't received it.
Some annoying sellers out there convinced I'm a scammer, I know for certain they have not delivered the item I purchased. How to resolve those 2 opposite views regarding the same transaction?

That's on the seller - we have a contract making sure items cannot be left without a signature. We have had a couple of instances of the couriers signing it themselves (once for a large order) which we went beserk at the courier. Thankfully the items were located.

I'd say you need to be there when deliveries are done and the companies need to insist on a signature. That's why something like Ring is so useful.

The selling company should not lose out due to no signature or the courier company faking a signature.

 

[alan1302]

We dispatch thousands of orders a year and sometimes things do go missing. When that happens we resolve it as quickly as possible but sometimes you know someone is on the fiddle.

What was fishy about it? I've had parcels supposedly delivered to a neighbour that weren't. These things can and do happen.

 

[alan1302]

The selling company should not lose out due to no signature or the courier company faking a signature.

How can you guarantee it is the customer that signs for it? Otherwise a signature does not mean anything.

 

[Newchodge]

Client contacts a week later (conveniently just beyond the date when we can make a claim with the courier) saying they haven't got the item.

Why would you think the customer would have the faintest idea that your contract with your courier limits your claim to within 7 days of the claimed delivery?

You state

Item delivered the following day.

Your courier told you it was delivered the following day. That does not mean that it was.

Tracking shows it was delivered to a neighbour along with a name / signature a week ago.

Did the customer give permission for the item to be delivered to someone else, was the someone else's address identified by the customer, and named? If not, your courier has given your customer's proprty away to a random individual and you will have to replace it.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

I think about little else

How can you guarantee it is the customer that signs for it? Otherwise a signature does not mean anything.

I have always questioned this myself I have never heard of anybody taking the carrier to court over the lack of a signature .
I have for sometime now questioned if a signature means anything . In the past it would be a respected delivery document

If the signature is not backed up by the printed name of the person or that person is not tracible it should in law be enough to make a claim against the sender
Remember your contract if buying is with the sender
If you are a customer of the carrier and sending your orders with them then your contract is obviously with them . If the company has not done enough to ensure the correct person receives the consignment that has been collected from you then they are liable

 

[Guy Incognito]

Why would you think the customer would have the faintest idea that your contract with your courier limits your claim to within 7 days of the claimed delivery?

You state

Your courier told you it was delivered the following day. That does not mean that it was.

Did the customer give permission for the item to be delivered to someone else, was the someone else's address identified by the customer, and named? If not, your courier has given your customer's proprty away to a random individual and you will have to replace it.

If I was expecting an item and had a tracking link - but it wasn't delivered - I wouldn't wait a week to contact the company. I would be contacting them as soon as the item was showing as delivered to state I hadn't got it and to find out where it is. With the volume of items we send out this happens probably once a week and people *always* do it within a day or two.

TNT had a name, a house number, a note that it had been delivered to a neighbour and a signature. I don't believe them to be lying about it being delivered to that address.

I fully understood that we were liable to send them an additional item. However, due to the failure to report it within a time frame it meant we could not make a claim with the courier.

If you've got a tracking link and it's saying the item was delivered, why would you wait a week to raise it?

 

[Mr D]

The selling company should not lose out due to no signature or the courier company faking a signature.

Well the buyer shouldn't lose out either from the seller not getting the item delivered to the buyer.

Choice between buyer and seller losing out - tends to be the seller.

And as businesses we factor in losses into business planning. I'm estimating about £10 per £10k in sales for losses, high I know but need much bigger sales level to reduce it.

 

[Mr D]

If I was expecting an item and had a tracking link - but it wasn't delivered - I wouldn't wait a week to contact the company. I would be contacting them as soon as the item was showing as delivered to state I hadn't got it and to find out where it is. With the volume of items we send out this happens probably once a week and people *always* do it within a day or two.

TNT had a name, a house number, a note that it had been delivered to a neighbour and a signature. I don't believe them to be lying about it being delivered to that address.

I fully understood that we were liable to send them an additional item. However, due to the failure to report it within a time frame it meant we could not make a claim with the courier.

If you've got a tracking link and it's saying the item was delivered, why would you wait a week to raise it?

TNT once lost a pallet that was supposed to be delivered to me. They had no clue where it ended up but we knew it wasn't our office.
And not stuff of any use to anyone else. Cost them thousands in compensation.
I prefer UPS or APC, both capable of finding missing boxes sent by us.

 

[alan1302]

If you've got a tracking link and it's saying the item was delivered, why would you wait a week to raise it?

Maybe they don't look at the tracking link - just realize after a week that their product has not arrived.

 

[alan1302]

I prefer UPS or APC, both capable of finding missing boxes sent by us.

And also capable of not finding them

 

[Mr D]

And also capable of not finding them

Only yours. Not ours.

Reading online reviews its amazing how anyone ever chooses a delivery company to use.

 

[alan1302]

Only yours. Not ours. .

No, not lost any of mine...so far...