First eBay sale was a NIGHTMARE!

Tweet

So I had meant to write about this the other day, but better late than never. So I had my first sale of eBay (yay!) It was a pair of old pants that were in semi good condition but a bit faded, I didn't expect them to sale but they did. I had set a Buy It Now price of $6.99 - they were originally like $15 at JCPenney - taking into account that they were faded and I had had them for years, I also put that I would accept best offers. I figured that I should take whatever I can get for those old jeans. I got an offer in for $5.50, not that far off from what I wanted for them so I accepted it. I didn't have any bubble mailers arouns so I went to target to get one and packed it up, printed out a shipping label and my mom took it to work to have it pick up there. So that wasn't the bad part; getting it sold was smooth. Getting it to where it needed to be however was a totally different story. According to my mom it had been picked up from her job on May 21, I said okay; it should get there in like 4 days or so (I'm in Texas, it was going to Cali). I check the tracking every day and it hasn't moved, still says the location in Katy, TX. 10 days (May 31) after it was supposed to be shipped - keep in mind I'm not in a good mood anyway because it was my best friend's (who had been murdered) birthday and I was missing her - I get a case opened against me by the buyer. I check the tracking and it still hasn't moved so I tell the buyer I would get in contact with USPS and see what is going on. I try to go through the USPS website to file a claim and yet the website keeps giving me an error during the process, frustrated I try a few hours later and still giving me an error. Frustrated still I had to go and search for the actual email to USPS customer service and email them that way. I go to bed that night, check my email in the morning and no response from USPS, I'm still kinda frustrated at this point. Check the tracking again later that day. What's this? It's finally moving and making its way out of Texas. Maybe that email did finally get to them and they found the package (sweet!). The estimated delivery date says June 4 so I get on eBay and tell the buyer what seems to be going on with it. In the back of my mind I kind of knew it wouldn't get there on the 4th but there was not much else I could go off of except for the tracking number. The 4th come, no delivery; the 4th was on a Saturday so I knew it would most likely be Monday June 6 (since I didn't pay for the one that ships on Sundays). Sunday I get another message saying she wants her money because she hasn't gotten the package, I tell her politely as I can "sure as long as you send the package back when you get it tomorrow and you pay for the return shipping. I'm not going to lose out on the sale and you still get the item". She didn't want to do that so she waited till Monday. Beforehand I had made sure to get notifications sent to my phone about the package delivery. After 2 days at the post office being sorted I got a notification that sorting was complete and it was out for delivery. Needless to say it was delivered that day and she closed the case the next day, so it turned out decently but USPS was a nightmare to work with.