Policy for Disappearing Parcels

UPS delivers it, customer says they never got it. What do you do?

[pdivi]

Our average order size has historically been small. We've always had an unwritten policy whereby if a customer claims they never received an item, regardless of what UPS says, we simply ship a new one.

Our average order size is growing, and our policy leaves us open to fraud. How do you handle cases where UPS tracking confirms delivery, but the customer says they never got it?

By the way, our items ship "signature not required" per the policy of our drop-shipper.

[ispy]

I think you are out of luck if the drop shipper refuses require a signature.

If they do a chargeback the notices I've seen all require proof of signature for a successful chargeback defense and reversal.

If you really want to play hard ball try this: Pay the drop shipper with a credit card on file. To the drop shipper you are their customer. Tell them your customer did not receive their item. If they refuse to send out another tell them you will have no choice but to pass along the chargeback. You can then chargeback the drop shippers charge on your card saying the item was not received. The relationship will probably not last long, or they will change their ways. Either way you stood up for yourself.

Otherwise, well there is not really any way to tell if the customer got it or it was stolen off the porch. Crooks are often the best liers. Setting a different standard on whether you will ship a replacement for each customer is weird and arbitrary also, don't like their tone? (this ones stolen), She was nice (ship replacement). This sort of thing degrades the integrity of your business since you don't really know what happened on the other end.

[farmboy]

I would think UPS has some sort of claim form they ask a recipient to complete when the UPS driver says a package was delivered and the customer says he never got it.

They would need this information to track the number of times this happens, locations, etc.

Asking customers to complete the UPS claim form and send a copy to you seems to be a reasonable request and will likely deter at least some people attempting fraud.

FarmBoy