What Would You Do Now?

pay!

You make very good posts to this forum. I appreciate your shared knowledge but...

This question makes me wonder about dealing with you as a buyer of your ebay stuff. Really, I think this question is a bad reflection on you. Maybe you did this as a joke, or a lesson in ethics or just random curiosity or you are trying to get that one person on here to admit that they have no ethics. Whatever the reason, I think you made a mistake.

I do assume that you really are going to pay them and tell us about it because what else can you do now?

I once ordered a book from the Royal Mail (history of the Machin stamp). It didn't arrive and so after a couple of weeks, I emailed them to ask whether it had been shipped. They responded by sending another copy, which duly arrived. Issue resolved.

Then some time later, the first copy unexpectedy landed too. I kept it.

Is that bad?

Does anybody really think that I posted this topic with no intention of paying back both sellers for items which I just got yesterday in my mailbox after not getting them for a very long time? If I really didn't feel like paying for them then I wouldn't have posted anything on here and I would have kept everything to myself. The reason why I asked this online is because these are issues that are important to collectors who buy stamps online and who get their purchases by mail. I do not agree that posting this is a bad reflection of me. Unfortunately, I have found that over the many years that I have been on this forum that respect between forum members has gone down. Should I now be scared and worried of negative reactions every time that I want to post something on here? Maybe I should leave SCF.

A little story. A couple of months a go I bought some mineral specimens on the web, two from Bulgaria, one each from Poland and the United Kingdom. The specimens from Bulgaria and Poland arrived in about 5 days, a month later the specimen from the U.K. still had not shown up. I told the seller and she canceled the charge. That weekend I went to a rock and mineral show and picked up a couple of pieces of the mineral "lost" in the mail. Of course on Monday the lost item finally arrived. I notified the seller and asked to be rebilled. She declined and told me to enjoy!!

jogil,
While I understand your frustration at some of the snarky replies, this statement is a negative reflection on the job that Moderators try to do every day. We work hard at trying to maintain a friendly community. I am truly sorry that you feel that respect has declined. If it has, it is due to the fact that the community has grown over the years. With a much larger and more diverse number of members the opportunity for disagreements goes up. The odds of having someone log in on any given day who is having a 'bad day' also goes up with the increase in population. Instead of kicking the dog or arguing with their spouse, it is easier to come in here and be a jerk.

As a long time forum user I am sure that you also understand the need to simply ignore some posts. I hope you reconsider.
Don

Let me shed a different light on this.
A couple of years back, we had (the one and only) no-show of an item to a client (shipped from Japan to Canada). After a few weeks of trying to get the post office to locate it, Japan post decided to close the case. We refunded the client, and Japan Post paid us for the lost item. (Despite tracking showing it had arrived inbound to Canada, but no tracking after). We both got paid. Two months later, the tracking indicated the item was delivered. Now, we never heard from the buyer again (and we didn't block them either), but we know they got the stamp, and their money back, and we got refunded from the insurance. So what is the right answer there? Should I have given the money back to Japan post because the woman got her stamp? Should they send the stamp back to me or give me the money back?

The point is, Jogil isn't specifically in a position of being a "bad guy". We don't know if the sellers were refunded as well. Now I've been stiffed by buyers as well, and in fairness, when we know that we've been screwed around, we block those buyers.

On another point, a few years back I bought a bunch of items from ebay all in one go. (And I mean a lot, like 45 different items in about 5 days). I thought I had kept track of everything, and was happy it had all arrived. 8 months later, I found an envelope in my mail box. Brought it in and found... OH WOW, it was some rocket mail stamps I had bought 8 months earlier! It hadn't been delivered until then, AND the outgoing postmark was just 2 days after I had bought it originally. Sometimes stuff just takes a REALLY long time. We never asked for any change of money.

I have on a few occasions refunded people because the "tracking" stops (and this happens a lot with stuff from outside the US to inside, as the USPS "drops" tracking on registered items at the border. (Annoying). I refunded a couple and asked the buyer to please let us know if the items arrive, and we'd appreciate being paid then. Have never had one of those. (These were just registered mail, no insurance, so no refund for us). I would fall over dead if someone paid us after a refund. If you fall into that category, then it seems the right answer would be to contact them. They will also raise your stock with them to something exceptional.

If I was in the o/p's shoes, I would not have posted. But that is just me. Reviewing the replies gives more confirmation that I've made a correct decision to avoid ebay.

What about the fact that this post is a great story about Canada Post. It is totally amazing that this item was in the mailing system for so long and still came to light.

Had a $2,000 item disappear on its way to Europe and was never found. Even with tracking and Auspost insurance that is not insurance. After 10 months of being brushed off by Auspost for so many times I can not remember. I finally got to the lady that actually makes the decisions on the high value missing item that are insured but it is not insurance. Her reply was the case was closed. But she laughed as she said do you think I believe there is such a thing as kiloware. And with that she said can you prove you sell a thing called kiloware. My reply was you can look at my listings on ebay. At that reply she really was surprised. Gave her the way in and at that time I had 350g lots for sale and she found them while I was on the phone and in total shock she said case is now open again and your payment will be refunded to you as quick as. But there is more.

Sent a $1,500 item to the wrong address. To another buyer I sell a lot of kiloware too. They both have the same name, same street, same European country. The wrong address guy would not answer my emails so I asked the person who should of got the item who lived just down the road to do some leg work for me and he said this has happened before with another of my orders. He got the wrong order receiver to refund me. Sad thing was the wrong receiver of that item was the person that the $2,000 item was address too that went missing. Makes you wonder if the postie made a mistake. Fits the profile!

I ran into a similar situation a few years ago when the ebay purchase failed to arrive. The seller issued a refund and he item showed up six months later. I sent off a PayPal payment with an explanation that Canada Post/USPS finally made good on their delivery.

I absolutely agree.
When reading the original post, it didn't strike me that jogil was in any sort of moral quandary as to whether to pay or not, instead, my immediate reaction was that he was just opening the subject up for debate.

Notice the one common element in all the complaints of extremely tardy postal delivery - Canada Post. An organisation that is still striving to achieve 3rd world standards.
Clive

If you don't pay for them no one would know...except for you. Sleep well...

Pay up or return!

It's not just Canada Post. As I mentioned, there is an item I received in Japan that took 8 months for it to pop up. When I was living in Australia, I had a similar issue there, an item from US to Oz took near 6 months to show up. (These were sent by non-traceable means, so no idea why they took so long, just standard post).

It is rare that things don't appear eventually.
I find it amusing (and have for decades) that the subject of our passion is also the bane of our existence.
Ah well...

A real life occurrence relayed on this forum by a forum member. A woman lists a collection of Great Britain on ebay. Stamps are not her thing. The member bids on the lot because they want the albums themselves. The stamps are ancillary. The member pays around $60. The photos show modern mint commemoratives. Upon receipt the member finds that the albums are full of mint very fine classics. Most of the Pound values are present. The final total is in the tens of thousands of dollars. The member preens and crows about the score. Was it fair? Is it much different than the situation described by the op of this thread? What would you do? What and where is the line to cross or not cross?