Posted By jimtyp on 03/04/2008 11:48 AM
Mike, do you have a reference for this info? If that is the case then a lot of sellers have opened themselves up to fraud. I could get an item, as a buyer, and say I never received it. Most sellers put a disclaimer on their items that if insurance is not purchased they are not liable, and from my experience ebay seems to back that up.
In any case, items of value I would only send via a tracking service or include insurance in the shipping cost.
There are numerous references for the sellers liability in the Federal Trade Commission rules regarding sales, and in particular, sales via the telephone or via the internet. For auctions, you should start at
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/online/auctions.shtm and at
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/mailorder.shtm .
In reality, a dispute like this is a civil issue...so, for me to say it's a "law" is a bit overstated. Sorry, but let me explain.
US law has many roots in English common law...and English common law held that it was the sellers responsibility to ship an item bought by a buyer...but it also said that when the goods were delivered by the seller to the shipper, the seller's job was complete. However....this common law was established at a time when the BUYER provided the shipper. You've heard the term FOB (Freight on Board)...that is the shipping process where the seller delivers a product to the buyers shipping company...and can stipulate in the sale that the price is FOB (as in FOB Detroit for cars....it's the dealers job to pickup the car and ship it to his dealership using the dealer's freight company of choice). (For the full skinny on shipping types see
http://www.foreign-trade.com/reference/incoterms.cfm .) But I degress...
The confusion over who is responsible CAME from this old English Common Law. It's NOT the same now...especially for internet sales...because the buyer does NOT provide the shipper. In most internet sales the seller stipulates the shipping mechanism...and states a price for it...in his ad. The FTC regulations here in US say that the seller must discloses these costs...and recommends he do that before the sale.
The philosophy that is used for most internet sales is that the seller stipulates his shipping policy to get the goods to the buyer....and the buyer accepts and PAYS for the seller's selected shipping process. That's the quid pro quo...and the basis for any civil proceedings. If goods do NOT arrive at the buyer's end, then the seller is NOT released from liability AS LONG AS THE BUYER PAID ALL SHIPPING COSTS DEMANDED BY THE SELLER.
So...it just seems to me that a seller should always require goods to be insured....because even with simple insurance, at the USPS there is a record of the item being delivered. Unfornately the seller doesn't have that proof...just the USPS...unless the seller pays for it. The receiver/buyer may not have to sign for the item...but the post office can show that it was delivered (somewhere). If the seller wants more protection, he can go with the signature required method...and get a return receipt showing the item being delivered. The key here is that the SELLER can protect himself JUST by stipulating HIS shipping requirements...and doing them.
If the seller's policy is to make insurance a BUYER option...and has this in the ad that without insurance, the BUYER accepts the shipping risk....well, I suppose that is a decent position. Me, as a buyer, would NEVER accept that option on a substantive item (big, expensive)...unless I could control the shipping. As far as eBay backing this method, it makes sense to me...but the whole point of this thread is about who is responsible...and if eBay is saying that if the buyer doesn't pay for the insurance offered, the buyer is accepting the risk...then they ought to flat out say that somewhere. I've not found it.
From the BUYERs perspective, the Buyer should pay via Credit Card or PAYPAL...to insure that he can get his "money back" if there is a dispute. That's really HIS insurance. If the Buyer is willing to pay for shipping insurance on an item that does NOT offer that option, he should ask the seller if he will insure it BEFORE the auction closes. The "BEFORE the auction closes" is because that with the advent of Flat Rate Shipping by the USPS many sellers buy the flat rate boxes, fill them, and ship them from their house. They do NOT go to a post office to ship...nor to buy insurance...and therefore, due to the extra work involved to get the package insured, some sellers may opt to NOT get insurance, even if the Buyer would pay for it. I do not think I'd bid under such terms on expensive stuff.
Now....I said "delivered (somewhere)" earlier. I've heard of one case where the postman/FEDEX/UPS guy delivered train stuff to the wrong address...and marked in his delivery system as "delivered". In this case, the buyer did NOT get the goods, but the seller gets a receipt that the goods were delivered. That's a conundrum...and only if the seller pays for tracking is there any hope of that dispute being resolved easily.
