Item stolen in post need advice

Darwin

Hi, just looking for some advice on this. I bought a watch from an online Spanish jewellers and it was posted last week by registered mail. I received the item today and on opening the box the watch was missing (the watch box and manuals were present). The seller is an official dealer so I have to assume that he is trustworthy and that the box was opened in transit and resealed. It is hard to tell, but there is an outer layer of brown packing tape over an inner layer of yellow tape so this could well be the case. The box has a parcel force sticker on it, so it looks like it went through the UK enroute to here. I checked the Spanish postal calculator and it looks like he sent it without insurance based on what I paid him. Not sure what to do now, I paid with paypal...it's a fair bit of money. I can contact the seller and show him a photo of the outer box but not sure where that is going to get me. I can also lodge a claim with paypal but the tricky bit is I have received the package and it is signed for.
Any ideas?

ei9go

More likely a scam.

Send an empty box by registered post so that you have to sign for it and then Pay pal will probably do nothing for you.

Beano

try the seller first. If they dont respond favourably they lodge a claim with paypal. Paypal will more than likely do something for you. The fact that it went through the UK is very strange. Was the address correct?

Darwin

Thanks all. The address had two shipping labels, one said the UK and was printed by the local post office, the other was a larger handwritten address that had the correct address. Will try the seller first with a photograph of the box - they might not have put the brown packing tape on it and take my word that it was intercepted somewhere in the mail system. Not too hopeful of a good outcome from this but hard lesson learned never to buy from somewhere where customer service is an unknown quantity.

kc90

Darwin wrote: »

Hi, just looking for some advice on this. I bought a watch from an online Spanish jewellers and it was posted last week by registered mail. I received the item today and on opening the box the watch was missing (the watch box and manuals were present). The seller is an official dealer so I have to assume that he is trustworthy and that the box was opened in transit and resealed. It is hard to tell, but there is an outer layer of brown packing tape over an inner layer of yellow tape so this could well be the case. The box has a parcel force sticker on it, so it looks like it went through the UK enroute to here. I checked the Spanish postal calculator and it looks like he sent it without insurance based on what I paid him. Not sure what to do now, I paid with paypal...it's a fair bit of money. I can contact the seller and show him a photo of the outer box but not sure where that is going to get me. I can also lodge a claim with paypal but the tricky bit is I have received the package and it is signed for.
Any ideas?

Do you have any tracking number? You might be able to check the weight of the item sent against the package you received. Could help you pinpoint whether it was sent empty or opened en route.

Darwin

Good suggestion thanks, shipping weight is actually on the label, though it looks like it is to the nearest weight category as it shows 1400 grams exactly but I will weight it later. It looks like there is a fine split in the brown packing tape along all the bottom of the box, as there is a layer of clear sellotape over it.

Miaireland

Regardless of what happened the seller should refund your money or if he forgot to put the item in the parcel send it onto you. You can request a refund or put a claim through paypal. Make sure you take plenty of photos of the package and send a copy to the seller,

The seller has the contract with the postal service and it is up to him to get a refund from them if the item was lost/stolen in the post.