Finally a reply but not a good one. Well beyond 2-5, or 15, days. Claim filed May 10th, reply came yesterday July 3rd.
Thank you for contacting the eVS helpdesk. Unfortunately, we do not support third party refund/dispute requests, please contact the Company who’s mailing services you are utilizing.
Thank You
Beverly Matthews
United States Postal Service
Confirmation Services & eVS
(877) 264-9693 option 2
Fax: 901-821-6244 [email protected]
This chargeback loophole needs to be investigated and closed, we should have an avenue for recourse!
Good for you for trying so diligently. Other posters are correct when saying this is a huge scam by the USPS. We have a mailing receipt for every parcel we ship, which are weighed and scanned by a clerk. We use Amazon Buy Shipping. We get a few adjustments here and there, and most of them are clearly inaccurate, and caused by USPS automated verification equipment simply being wrong. USPS is raking in a lot of money by doing these no-recourse adjustments (and so are other carriers who do this). Some savvy lawyers could put together a 100 percent winnable lawsuit over this, vs. Amazon and the USPS, and any other postage resellers that pass on this extortion.
I think Amazon is the one doing the wrong here, not USPS.
USPS likely provides Amazon, who is the account holder with USPS, a way to dispute adjustments. It’s not their problem if Amazon refuses to dispute adjustments on behalf of the seller.
You would also absolutely win against Amazon in arbitration for this matter. The problem is it would cost you more than it’s worth to make the claim. When they lose Amazon would also pay the cost for this since it’d be too late to make a claim with USPS at that point.
USPS and others need to implement a notification for human oversight when their scan is so far off of the paid amount. A flashing red light alert for a common sense double check. A $64 overcharge on a $4.38 label is egregious and should not be allowed to pass through automation.
I am certain my package landed on top of a larger package, the scanner read my label and measured the larger package. I’m sure that shipper did not get a refund. I suspect it occurs often.
With the rush to implement AI everywhere I fear we are all in for a no-recourse future until common sense once again prevails, if ever.
All of this reinforces my decision to never use Amazon’s buy shipping. I think I might have done so once or twice some years ago when stamps.com was down and I needed something to go out right away. Never again. I’d rather take it to the post office and pay retail if I was ever in a bind.
As it is now, I’ve been thinking about just using the post office online for my shipping needs.
I thought it would be good to continue utilizing stamps.com so I have a choice for heavier stuff to use UPS… but hence every single UPS package I’ve ever sent has had an “adjustment” that was always in their favor. Every. Single. One.
I have an Endicia (Stamps) account also. The USPS error could have happened with one of those labels too, I don’t know how they would’ve handled it though.
The only time I had an issue with USPS is when I was using a standard weight system when selling a lot of units and I was using the wrong weight for a certain product.
The package I’m getting ripped off on is identical to hundreds shipped year to date and many more in previous years. I pointed that out to Amazon but they. don’t. care.
I also think Amazon is more to blame here. When I tried to dispute some UPS shipping adjustments, Amazon would do nothing to help, even though it was their shipping account. UPS couldn’t help me because it technically wasn’t my shipping account. I’m pretty sure I even read something in the forums that said with their agreement with UPS and/or USPS, Amazon doesn’t even have to pay the carrier back for the shipping adjustments, but they pass it along to us anyway, for free money. Not sure if that’s true or not, but it seems plausible to me
Every time I’ve had to contact USPS in the past for an insurance claim or missing package, they’ve been more than helpful to me [knocks on wood].
We once made a big enough stink about slow delivery (over a week!) on simple envelopes between the upper east side of Manhattan and the Wall St downtown area, (including having our local congresscritter make a personal phone call to the office of the postmaster general) that the USPS put us on a list of people who they solicit for input on this and that. The contact info below appears to be unique to the “Select Business Support Team”, which ends every email they send to me with:
If you have any questions or requests that we can support, please feel free to call us at 888-707-7226 or reach us by email at [email protected]. We are available to support your business Monday-Friday between the hours of 8:30 AM and 7:15 PM EST. We at the United States Postal Service® appreciate your business and look forward to continuing to serve you.
Thanks, I will try that. I actually was planning on contacting my congressman and will if your contact can’t help. My congressman is on the committee that oversees USPS. He was soliciting comments for a hearing a few years back, his office contacted me about the comments I sent in for more details to flesh it out for inclusion in the committee’s presentation. I doubt the staff will remember me but I will remind them, might help.
We use Endicia for printing a lot of our non Amazon postage and we always are easily able to access adjustment IDs and dispute those.
Amazon is the issue here because they make this all impossible to access. This isn’t to mention it doesn’t matter if you have the adjustment ID for Amazon because you don’t have standing to dispute it anyways since it’s Amazon’s account technically buying the postage.
What can I say….just another one of those “cost of doing business” charges you get from Amazon that makes them probably tens of millions of dollars per year off sellers because it’s too difficult or burdensome to dispute for a seller.
That being said, I don’t know that USPS actually shows any proof from an adjustment ID besides the fact that’s what they claim a package’s dimensions are. It’s not like they have pics or anything proving their adjustments.
You’re not their customer (technically) so there’s no reason for them to talk to you. It’s like if you have a problem with a UPS package getting lost or whatever when you ordered something online, the shipper has to file the claim.
Even if you somehow convinced them to credit back the adjustment, the credit would go to Amazon, who would not pass it on to you anyway. The bottom line here is there’s no upside to filing disputes on behalf of sellers for Amazon, so they just don’t do it. Maybe someday someone will take them to arbitration for it, in which case they’ll pay out that seller what they’re owed and nothing else will change.
So … if you use Amazon Buy Shipping for a USPS Ground Advantage (less than 1lb) and the package is not delivered (USPS lost / not delivered), the package is covered for insurance of $100 by USPS.
Since
then you shouldn’t be able to file the insurance claim for the lost package? … because
We bought the label and are the shipper noted on the label (return address) and the address of record from where the package was shipped from.
Under these conditions, the idea that “there’s no reason for them [USPS] to talk to us” would mean that the insured package would not be honored by USPS … yet USPS does handle the insurance claims for us on these lost packages.
One might say that it was covered by A2Z so there was no need for a USPS claim to be filed; however … if the customer just wants a replacement and does not file an A2Z, this type of transaction is a reason for a USPS claim on a lost package. And USPS does deal with us on these claims.
In the OP’s adjustment, it was both size and weight that was challenged. If we had received something like that, we would take the tracking number to our local post office and have them pull up the label on their system to see what the label says. Is the destination correct? Is the sender of record us? Is this a tracking number that was recycled before the original information was deleted from the system?
The blame could fall on either USPS or Amazon. We have experienced Amazon doing adjustments and labeling them as something other than what it truely was. Amazon presented it as USPS doing a “Carrier Audit” when in fact it was an Amazon programming issue that caused the under charge. When Amazon passes the blame in this way, there is little one can do but push Amazon to the point where the truth of the adjustment origin comes out (we were able to get them to admit fault on our issue).
The questions really are … is this worth your time? … are there others with the exact same issue that can join in pushing Amazon to reveal?
So as far as I’m aware of, the procedure for a lost buy shipping package is to have the customer file an A-Z and Amazon is supposed to fund it (there are of course numerous complaints about Amazon not living up to their end of this).
If Amazon’s funding the refund, then it doesn’t make sense for either the customer or seller to try to file a claim with USPS, since they’ve already been compensated for it.
As far as being worth the time, in the past, for me, it may have been but not anymore. Right now I’m doing a bit of FBM stuff and I’m just super quick on the refund button for any issues, and I don’t file any claims or bring up any issues with the 3PL provider. I don’t have the time to waste on tracking down issues with $20 products. If I want someone else to provide customer service, they’ll charge money for it, and it’s cheaper to just refund anyone who contacts me than to pay for customer service.
If USPS tracking shows the package as NOT being delivered and if the customer contacts us for a replacement and if the customer does NOT file an A2Z claim and we have sent a replacement order to the customer, then yes … you can file a insurance claim with USPS.
If USPS tracking show the package as NOT being delivered and if the customer files an A2Z claim and if AMAZON pays the claim to the customer and charges the seller for the A2Z, then yes … you can file a claim with USPS.
If AMAZON pays an A2Z claim on a USPS lost package but does NOT charge the seller, then no … you can NOT file a claim with USPS.
If the customer says they did not receive the package (INR) and USPS shows it as delivered, the seller would not be granted a USPS insurance claim as USPS shows the package as delivered. The customer files the A2Z claim (or the seller would take care of the customer if that is what the seller elects to do).
To file the USPS insurance claim, 1) the package tracking has to show it has NOT been delivered and 2) the seller has to have replaced and/or refunded the customer. The seller has to have incurred a lost.
If AMAZON has covered the A2Z claim, the seller has NOT incurred a lost and thus a USPS insurance claim is NOT warranted. If the seller did file a USPS insurance claim when AMAZON has covered the A2Z, then this would be considered double dipping on an insurance claim and is illegal.
Notes
Our products fall under the non-returnable category and we try to take care of the customer.
USPS generally looses (fails to deliver) only 1 to 3 packages a year for us. A customer INR claim after it shows delivered is more likely which would be handled by an A2Z claim.
USPS seems to have been recently revamping how they are handling insurance claims. How USPS has handled insurance claims in the past may not be how it they handle insurance claims in the future.
I received a response from my senator’s office and am debating whether to continue or is there a risk of endangering my account by rocking the boat?
With my permission, they will ‘contact Amazon and see if they can work with USPS Business Service Network to try and resolve the issue with the upcharge in shipping.’
The real size and weight were included in the adjustment description so I doubt there was a label discrepancy. I’m convinced my small package rode under the USPS scanner atop another larger package. Weight and dims of larger package were coupled with scan of my label. This has to be what happened and shouldn’t be allowed to happen without human confirmation of excessive oversized claim.
I think that if they know that your senator is watching your account closely, then Amazon will be unlikely to allow any shenanigans–so I would personally go for it…BUT that might be more risk to your business than you are willing to take?
