Auction Purchase Destroyed In Mail, Is Anyone Liable?

Canada Post will no longer register ANY mail to the US. Parcel ($) or express ($$$) is the only way to get tracking. As a seller I make good regardless (forced to on ebay), but no longer mail to certain countries due to recurring "loss". Neil.

On one occasion, I sent two shipments from Canada to Australia and both, in different states, arrived with similar damage - wet and crumpled. This provokes an interest in what Canada Post's quality of service is and so I wrote to them, mentioning in passing the value of the two shipments. They never responded re their QoS but included a cheque for about 75% of the value.

Incidentally, I never mail from outdoor post boxes but always from an indoor box at a Post Office or franchise.

From Canada Post? Wow - you must have written one heck of a letter!

itma,

Don't you use sealed baggies? They go a long way protecting the contents,

Jack Kelley

I used to have a US Govt Post office box, which I used for almost all of my mail. Shortly before I got rid of it- 15-20 years ago, I was having quite a few things not getting delivered. Monthly bills weren't reliably showing up for me, and other things from time to time. Prior to that, things had been pretty good. I never got a resolution to any of this, and wound up letting my box go. It was very annoying.

As part of the above - I had made a large supply purchase from a dealer, whom I had never done business with before. He is well known, and as far as I know, a reputable dealer. My order never arrived. He pretty much insinuated that I was being dishonest with him, and so on. To his credit, he did replace and re-ship the order, which arrived in good condition, and I was very happy with it. So he ate the cost - which I respected and appreciated. What I didn't appreciate, was that when all was said and done, he made me feel like a criminal. I have never and will never ever buy anything else from him again as a result. So this was an unfortunate incident that essentially permanently shut off a notable potential philatelic channel for me. This has always bothered me, and always will.

The moral of the story is that USPO Boxes don't always cure your mail problems. Since I got rid of my box, things have been fine.

I just got hit pretty hard yesterday with a cover that got badly damaged. I think that the damage happened while the seller was packing the item. It was sent via Fedex, and the outer fedex envelope was fine.

The item(s) were packed inside another envelope which was folded over so that it would fit in the fedex package. Pretty clearly, when he folded that interior envelope, the cover in question slipped inside and got folded right over the big crease in the interior envelope.

This was a really nice cover too ... I would post a picture of it, but I don't want to come back to this thread in a couple years, and have to re-live this. Its actually fairly painful, as I really wanted this item. Its a one-of-a-kind cover. I have it in a press now, and will look at it tonight to assess final damage....

I've been very lucky over the years, to have never had something this bad happen ... until now.

Yes, this has happened to me a few times. Most recently, an ebay purchase from Armenia went missing. The seller sent me a replacement by regular mail, which arrived without incident. In this case, the seller actually got the original shipment returned to him, marked "undeliverable" (which was nonsense).

I never have this problem with registered shipments from East Asia, entering via L.A. or S.F. It doesn't always happen with stuff coming through N.Y., but it happens often enough that ordering something from Europe with registered shipping always puts me on edge.



"Can you send menhirs through the mail?"
"Yes, but send them registered, so that they don't get lost in sorting."

Considering you paid with PayPal, I would file for a refund. It is the seller's responsibility to pack the package for shipment.

You might not win, but what do you have to lose?