Hate to start yet another topic along these lines but man these situations are tricky. Thankfully it doesn't seem quite as scammy as the recent one, but I still stand to lose 2k so I now defer to my internet friends for assistance. Sorry, bit of a long one.
I sold a new GPU through Ebay about 5 weeks ago. Chose Sendle as their rate was slightly lower than AusPost. Big mistake.
I went with the 'printer free' option as this seemed pretty handy, all I had to do was write some info on the parcel, they'd swing by and pick it up. Shipping items without leaving my apartment? Big win.
Guy came late one night to pick it up, around 7pm. He was in hi-vis, mumbled something about a package, took the parcel and off he went. A few days went by and the tracking hadn't updated, felt a little alarmed since the guy didn't scan anything (wasn't anything to scan) or leave a receipt. Launched a 'parcel not scanned' investigation with Sendle and waited a day or so.
That finally got sorted, the tracking page updated and it was on its way to the destination.
Checked again a few days later, it showed delivered - all good, phew!
Couple weeks pass by and I get a notification overnight that the buyer has opened an 'Item not received' dispute. My instant gut reaction is 'scammer'. I type out a quick response, ask them why they took so long to contact me when it was delivered several weeks ago. They give a fairly vague response saying they've been looking for the parcel, and then send me two Sendle tracking links. One is an earlier, unrelated delivery they received, showing it was signed for; and then there's mine which shows delivered but not signed for.
Panicked a bit but I remembered I definitely selected 'Signature on delivery' when choosing the postage service. The tracking page confirms this - but it seems that the driver didn't follow that step. Launched yet another investigation with Sendle, this took them a good 10 days and a lot of hounding before they finally admitted the parcel cannot be found.
I'm now stuck in a situation where Ebay has withheld $2000 from me while the case is in dispute. They won't help as they say high-value items (over $750) require a signature. I can't provide one. So they aren't coming to the party.
I'm not sure what recourse I have; Sendle are allowing me to make a claim but that only goes up to $300. And I almost submitted that before noticing a sneaky little line that says you are hereby indemnifying them of any further damages.
Am I really at fault here? I paid for delivery, sent off the item and requested it to be signed for. What else can I do?
As I type this, it seems more and more likely that the courier driver just opened my box, liked what he saw, 'completed' the delivery and just made off with my item.
It does seem suspicious that the buyer waited two weeks to report it was missing. That part I can't really make sense of. Maybe if it was a low value item, you would take a while to chase it up. But a $2000 GPU that you'd presumably want to start using right away? Very odd.
Due to covid, signature on delivery doesn't exist anymore
Contact sendle and ask for proof of delivery. I've noticed that auspost is now asking the delivery person to take a picture of the parcel being delivered. Hopefully sendle has done the same thing.