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Hi – I am looking for advice with a recent sale. I just sold a very large piece of vintage art. I priced it quite high and only tacked on my best guess of $50 for shipping – I didn’t have the exact box yet. (Well, turns out it was too large for the USPS maximum allowable dimension and I had to go with Fed Ex due to the very large oversized box – the cheapest shipping ended up being $155 for Fed Ex Home Delivery.) I didn’t balk at paying the excess because I received a very good offer and was still making a few hundred dollars of profit. I chose Customer Signature Required (thinking this was the right choice for seller protection as the item was over $250). Do others do this for items over $250??
Anyway, I’m feeling bad about the pending outcome, after two delivery attempts, (one on a Saturday), the customer is “not available”… I sent a friendly message to let her know a signature is required and provided shipping details, etc. and of course, she has not responded. The final delivery attempt will be made tomorrow morning, and after that, I am gearing up for an INR case. Tracking shows “Delivery Exception. Customer not available”. The buyer only has 11 feedback and now I’m not getting a very good vibe about this entire transaction.
So, I guess the question is, has anybody else been in this situation? Should I not have required signature confirmation? And if she is “never available” to pick up the item – then do I need to refund all her money if she opens a case? Will I get charged another $150 to have the darn thing shipped back to me?
Alright, thanks for any ideas and/or encouragement, I really appreciate it! I hate it when a high dollar sale goes South!
Thank you in advance,
Sharon -
I just reread the policies and (I didn’t realize but should have known) that ebay now only requires a signature confirmation for anything over $750 (it used to be $250 but was changed a while back.) I think I made a mistake requiring signature confirmation – If not, I would have saved $4.55 and I wouldn’t have had to worry about this mess if I would have just sent it out and had fed ex leave it on her doorstep…
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Never had a problem with FedEx ground – if no one is home, they leave a sticker on the door that the person can sign, then they can just leave the package.
Have you called FedEx? They once sent a driver back for me when they left a guitar on a porch in the rain.
The buyer should call too! -
buytikiselltiki – thanks for your response. I used “FedEx Home Delivery” for this one, and unfortunately, when selecting delivery options I did not select “indirect signature required” (where they can sign the sticker to leave the package…) I selected “direct signature” (which only allows for an actual signature) – probably another dumb move on my part but besides smart post, this is the first time using a regular fed ex delivery and I just am not very familiar with FedEx/eBay best practices.
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Well, this story has a happy outcome.. my customer just received and signed for the package (sigh of relief!!!). I had ended up calling Fed Ex and asking how to remove the signature confirmation. (I wanted to just get this “delivered” even if nobody was there to retrieve it. They said I had to fax a written letter to the local hub and request it in writing. I did that, and ended up speaking to the local operations manager who refused to remove it he said it just couldn’t be done. (But in fact, it has been done in other locations – he just wasn’t going to do it.) We decided to hold it until a tbd date. I then emailed the customer via paypal address and ebay messaging that the package was on hold and waiting for their decision to either a) go pick up in person b) call fed ex to schedule a date you will be there to sign in person or c) let us know a friend or neighbor’s address to deliver it to instead who can sign on your behalf. I was hoping this paper trail would cover me in case of an INR case… but in any event, it all worked out.
Moral of the story: You don’t need signature confirmation if the item is less than $750 for seller protection and it only created a headache for this transaction and wasted extra $$ so I will not be using it again. -
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I have a large piece of vintage art that I need to list and that will need to go via FedEx or UPS because of the size. I am still deciding if I should have it packed there or try to do it myself.
Selling price would be several hundred dollars but may not be above $750. I think I would still pay the extra for signature delivery.
One thing I would do is explicitly state in the description that signature is required on delivery.
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