Well, I Don't Have To Check Ebay For A While !!

There is something very wrong with what has happened to you philb.

I maybe very wrong but I smell a scam. Your India buyer should know well and truly that his postal service is very slow at times.

I have had 2 buyers from India and both lots were expensive. The first lot arrived in 3 days. This buyer also told me to put as many official labels on the envelop as possible as it seems to protect the item from theft. The 2nd buyer contacted me to check that I had sent his items and then explained how slow his mailing system is. It took 5 weeks to arrive if I remember right and he was an honest man as well.

One other issue that concerns me is if you do not use a customs form the boarder police can simply take the item and nobody get informed about anything the item just disappears because their rule has been broken. All international items I send out have a customs form attached. Even if the item costs 50c. Or even if it is an item sent to a friend.

I miss the old days of ebay when one could do more sleuthing on ebay id's. I rarely sell stamps on ebay because I'm so paranoid about something going awry with the order. I've been on there since '98 and I've had a few deadbeats, but never a lost item in the mails. My advice is to anyone who mails anything (domestic) pack it so it can survive a five foot drop, get delivery confirmation, and put your address in the package.

You nailed it, Landoquakes ... it was so much easier when you could look at a buyer's profile and get a feel for whether or not they were possible trouble.

Thank You Gentlemen, I have also been with ebay since 1998, do they think I would be so stupid as to damage my reputation by not sending something that had been paid for ? I am afraid the answer is yes..

Phil, I sent a package on 24 Dec and it reached home last week (1/12), through regular mail. You could make shipping to India as registered only.

On registered mails, the package can be tracked through USPS as well India post; so yes, they do talk to each other.
http://services.ptcmysore.gov.in/RNetTracking/

Cheers
Ram

one thing to remember about ebay is, if your feedback % for negative sales
transactions reaches a certain ( unknown amout) percentage of sales totals, in a specific time period, , they have been known to suddenly, and without notice, close your account. They claim that it is protect you from further problems

This is where big business and friendly dealings between stamp collectors clash, perhaps irreconcilably.

If ebay wants to be the next Amazon, and they say that they do, then they can't have buyers not receiving their stuff. Can you imagine if an Amazon buyer was told by Amazon or an affiliate, "hey, we mailed it...sorry you didn't get it." They have to guarantee delivery in order to make the experience palatable for new buyers.

That leaves those "hobbyist" ebay sellers that generally had lower-value items distinctly out in the cold. If a couple of losses put a person off of selling their traditional twenty to fifty items per year, well, ebay might be fine with that. Us small-timers aren't the future of their business model.

CJD, I agree,stamps and stamp collectors are not a decent slice of the ebay pie...i am going (as I am sure others have) to explore selling on Bidstart !