The real danger of eBay

[PeterL]

Hi,

I'm currently discovering the real danger of doing things over the Internet. It's not the fact that it's virtual until the bills come in. It's not that you don't know who you're dealing with. It's definitely not the wide range of GAS-producing items that are for sale... No, ladies and gentlemen, the real danger is...

Parcel delivery.

These guys have a few tactics. They can just send the parcel back to where it came from, if you're lucky. Or, they can hide their truck behind a building, watch until you leave your house, then put their paper into your mailbox that you, yes, YOU are to blame for the non-delivery. That's right, we're evil. The number on that paper is out of service or has opening hours shorter than a nuclear flash. And they charge you about €10 per call. And the music while you wait, sucks, too. Obviously, there's instances where they don't give you hope at all. The packet just gets lost into cyber space. I'm guessing they use them as a landfill on top of which they are planning to build their next office. Sorry, that should be called "campus" these days. Because, hey, they're a respectable company. Please come to Dunnowhere, US to pick up your parcel that was to be delivered in Belgium.

Aside from the little detail that it's impossible to receive items, I love eBay. I browse it frequently and I've only had good experiences with the people there. And sometimes, there's these funny items (lens hood for €650, a Zorki screaming it was definitely not used by Luchtwaffe, ...) that really can make my day.


Peter.

 

[mac_wt]

I've had very little problems with the Belgian postal system. But I've traveled to the Brussels region for Taxipost and UPS. I picked up an item at DHL, but their regional office is just 3 km away. I've never been charged for an extra delivery attempt and DHL and TNT were very efficient in these. I've had one parcel held up by the NMBS, but that was because of customs. Once that was sorted, they delivered as promised.

Wim

 

[PeterL]

Wim,

I just had to vent some air. It took me quite a bit of work, but the packet with my freshly CLA'd iiic+Summitar has arrived. The first attempt at delivery had failed without any notice and the packet was returned to sender. The second attempt, I got a nice little slip of paper saying I wasn't home when they tried to deliver. So I called yesterday morning around 9am and they couldn't give me any concrete information, but if it wasn't delivered I'd better call back before 7am. That's what I did this morning: at 5:45, the lady had a hard time with her computer, but she'd look it up for me. It turned out that the delivery boy for my area had given up his job and had just refused to even try to deliver my packet. It was on the pile to be sent back to the sender, which is where she recuperated it. At 8:30, a new guy delivered it to me.

Lots of hassle, but in the end, the lady did a very good job for me. Of course, I called back to thank her.

I'm surprised nobody else has come up with mail horror stories 🙂


Peter.

 

[dmr]

Lots of hassle, but in the end, the lady did a very good job for me. Of course, I called back to thank her.

You were very lucky to find a real human to deal with, person to person.

I'm surprised nobody else has come up with mail horror stories 🙂

Not mail, but a private delivery service here in the States, known for brown trucks.

99.9% of the time they do a great job, and deliver on time or before, but for that time when they do mess up, it can be a frustrating, head-banging experience to get anybody to intervene and get things straightened out.

A few years ago we had shipped two large boxes of material to be used at a trade show in Las Vegas. We had these shipped to the hotel where we were staying. One box made it fine, but the other one somehow ended up on the wrong truck, served by the wrong depot. It was like fighting city hall! Nobody could do anything for us except to tell us that we had to wait a day.

The package was in town, on a truck, "out for delivery", they could even tell us where the truck was. That truck, however, could not stop at our hotel. It was dispatched out of another depot.

No, we were not allowed to meet the truck somewhere.

No, they could not make a special trip to get it on the right truck.

No, they would not let us pick it up at the wrong depot.

Our only option was to wait a day until they got the package to the right depot on the right truck. 🙁

One of our guys even tried bribing an employee to go out of procedure and make it happen. Nope! 🙁

Lesson learned: Ship early and plan for things to get fouled up! 🙁

 

[ywenz]

The second attempt, I got a nice little slip of paper saying I wasn't home when they tried to deliver.

That has more to do with the parcel company than shopping on Ebay. You should be home when the package is being delievered, otherwise, you'll never get it.

 

[John Camp]

I had a Kodak SLRn that I'd stopped using after I got a Nikon D2x, and my daughter has a friend who was a photographic studio assistant in NYC who could use it (SLRn is an extremely good studio camera.) I sent it overnight but without additional insurance because, when you send something to NYC by mail, additional insurance is essentially a "steal me" badge. This for a $3,500 camera. Duh. That night (this was last winter) NYC was hit by a huge snow storm, the Post Office got all screwed up and deliveries were not even made for a couple of days. My package disappeared. I was told by a PO representative that I should wait for a few days before trying to track it, because it was probably in the system somewhere and would eventually get there. I waited for a few days, then called back, and they said they could no longer track it because I was too late -- I should have inquired earlier. I said, "I did inquire earlier, but was told to wait," and they said, "Well, that's wrong." Terrific. I figured it was gone; but almost one month to the day after I sent it, it suddenly showed up in NYC. The package was battered, and even had a hole in one side, but the camera and a few accessories were in perfect condition.

JC

 

[mac_wt]

99.9% of the time they do a great job, and deliver on time or before, but for that time when they do mess up, it can be a frustrating, head-banging experience to get anybody to intervene and get things straightened out.

On that, I can agree. With these services, when everything goes well, no problem, but when it goes wrong, you're in real trouble. And actually, it is far from 99.9%. I used to work for one of these services (one of the big 4). Some day everyone got a t-shirt with 'I'm 98% trustworthy' on it. Management was very proud of achieving this goal.
Fact is that a lot of energy is invested in those 98%. There is little reason to invest much energy in those 2%, because they are allready lost for statistics. If your parcel is in those 2%, you really depend on the pride and good-will of the staff. Luckely there are a lot of dynamic people working in these companies.

Wim

 

[Wimpler]

I had two camera packages dissapear from the face of the earth mailing from Belgium to US (after I had gotten 1 package back). I've had packages take 3 months from US to Belgium, and then they make me pay 10 euro because it was opened by customs.

 

[jrong]

These days, I order things on eBay with the half-expectation that the postal service or courier will lose it en route....

 

[varjag]

Sometimes I feel that Norwegian postal delivery system involves shipping goods through Ho-Chi-Min trail. Some packages get through just fine, but others get missing in action with no explanation whatsoever.

 

[foto_mike]

In the US, I've had good luck shipping and receiving from USPS Priority Mail. Shipping rates are reasonable for small to medium sized packages, there's no extra charge for Saturday delivery, and they supply the box for free.

The in-transit tracking system isn't as good as the private carriers. I've never had a package lost, so I don't really know how good the tracking system is for finding packages in their system.

The post office near me has a 24-hour self serve kiosk for weiging, buying postage, and depositing the package. I can buy insurance and delivery confirmation services at the kiosk as well. I keep a small stack of their Priority Mail boxes and shipping labels at home. I can package an item, label it, and stop by the post office in the evening to ship it.

This doesn't help those outside the US, but it's a good option for the rest of us.

 

[pesphoto]

Ive got an XA floating around out there somewhere...been about nine months now.