subject: What To Do When Your Parcel Goes Missing? [print this page] A lot of valuable and important items get sent through the mail these days, the popularity of online auction sites such as eBay has seen many people indulge their entrepreneurial spirit and sell items online. A large part of maintaining a good rating and being successful when it comes to online is ensuring whatever you have sold is sent out and arrives with the buyer as quickly as possible.
Sometimes though a buyer may come back to you saying they havent received their item in the post, depending on the service you sent your parcel by could mean that it takes slightly longer such as sending the item second class rather than by first class or special delivery. The Royal Mail will give you general time frames to expect the parcel to be delivered by and if it still has not arrived by that time you should contact them to see whether there have been any problems.
If you find that your parcel has been lost then you will need to make a claim with the Royal Mail, if you sent the item by special delivery or recorded mail then you will need to provide the reference number/tracking code and in most cases some form of proof for the value of the item. This is important to make sure that if you are due compensation then you will get the right amount especially if you have sent an expensive item and want to be properly compensated.
It is important to check the tracking code yourself as it isnt uncommon for some dishonest buyers to try and scam sellers by claiming that the parcel has not been received when in actual fact they have and want to get their money back too. This is a key reason to always ensure you send your expensive items via a traceable service, a service that requires a signature upon delivery will protect you from these scam artists and make sure that you can counter any false claims.
The signature will be logged on to the mail system and this is called the Electronic Proof of Delivery or ePOD, sometimes this can take some time for it to be logged on to the system so you may need to wait a day or two after the delivery to get proof it has been delivered.
An alternative is to use couriers or parcel delivery specialists as they are able to handle parcel deliveries and provide detailed tracking systems and obviously operate outside of the regular mail system which can be slowed down by all of the other letters and parcels being sent as well as occasional problems such as strike action which can add weeks to the delivery process before it gets back to normal.
