Hey all.
I have been selling jewelry on line for fifteen years. Products from
$50 to $15,000.
You will not ‘learn’ about the shipping problems, until you have
things lost and TRY to collect. Regardless of whom you use, your
chance of collecting is 50/50 at best.
Shipping precious metal jewelry is subject to the USA Patriot Act,
enforced by Homeland Security. In addition there is the EU
Anti-Terrorist Funding Act and is pretty much the same worldwide.
The LIMIT any of the three USA carriers will pay is $500 for
jewelry. You have to read the very fine print. Jewelry is excluded
unless you notify them at shipping and take out a special shipping
and/or rider. For instance anything valued at over $500 cannot be
shipped on Thursday unless it is overnight to arrive Friday or
Saturday. If it sits in the truck over the weekend or distribution
center and disappears, good luck collecting.
If the item is over $300 PayPal and most credit card processors
REQUIRE signed delivery. You won’t learn until someone ‘claims’ it
never arrived. The first thing you have to do is prove you shipped it
and it arrived. Delivery notification does not count.
Shipping to an address other than the billing address of PayPal or
the credit card. Good luck contesting the charge back and the
insurance loss. It is also a violation of the FBI Directive of 2006
when the national database of physicians in the USA was 'compromised’
with all personal and credit cards were made and the
purchases were made in person by the fraudster. NJ & NY jewelry
stores got hit very hard for Rolexes and high value diamond rings. I
could call you at your business and make your caller ID point to a
physician’s office and ask to ship it to this address as it is a
surprise. Many of you may remember Circuit City. What you may not
know is they had a national credit card fraud task force as the
techniques were so good that the card holder could not contest the
charges. CC accepted the chargeback’s for as long as they could to
save their name. I got hit with a very organized fraud ring, the same
as they and how we collaborated.
The big boy x carriers. Read the fine print. You are NOT buying
insurance. You are buying a ‘declared value’ so you can file for
insurance with your insurance company. They will accept your payment
for insurance for a $10,000 piece, will accept the extra $4 for photo
ID signature, and then when it disappears or they give it to someone
they will tell you it is the driver’s discretion whether they will
ask for a signature. They will NOT pay out the claim. I did 25-30
thousand dollars a year with x carrier only to lose a $10,000
bracelet as the person rerouted it to an office store and picked it
up there. No ID, no security camera, no anything for a Declared High
Value Package through the special account set up for JEWELERS
through one of our national organizations. I had three similar losses
all happened and handled the same way in one month. Almost $30,000
plus the loss of the inventory and the bank chargeback’s. Anyone else
dealing in fraud knows that two in a 30 day period is the magic
number as the third gets very expensive.
The safest way is through the USA Post Office Registered. It has to
be packaged properly. Will insure up to $50k and cost $15-25. It is
carried under lock and key and every mail person that touches it has
to sign for it. If you ship overseas the safest is Express Mail as it
can be tracked as required by Customs and can be insured. I’ve had
product arrive in Russia within three business days. Collecting a
loss will be difficult as the USA Post Office liability ends once it
clears customs and is turned over to the other country. Some are
private. The only loss I have had with them is to Germany where the
mail system is handled by three different private companies and they
do not cooperate with each other.
For a loss you do have to prove what was in the package. A copy of
the sales invoice is enough, although pictures, description and
weight does help. UPS lost a bracelet once that was about $5,000,
once I supplied color images, the weight to the tenth of a gram it
was found and delivered within two days.
You will have to prove it was packaged securely and protected
against loss or damage. If the package says jewelry on the return
address or to where you are shipping, it is a red flag and they can
deny it due to improper addressing. Jewelry is like writing Steal ME
if you can on the outside. During the holidays package theft is
subject to the shake and takers and return address name recognition.
All mine are now shipped with a return address of my personal name
and a PO Box.
The last thing is if you work with law enforcement to set up a sting
with a fraud ring, the merchandise you were kind enough to ship will
be entered as evidence. You do not get it back until the case is
closed. Restitution is $50 a month for the rest of your life for
people that are caught. We had over $30,000 stolen off the porches
when a high value photo ID required package was left. The carrier
would not cover it, the shipping company’s private insurance would
not cover it, and the manufacturer would not replace the goods until
I paid for the first shipment. More than twenty custom wedding sets
for the Christmas weddings. What could I do? My name is worth more
than a $30 loss.
There are people that buy mail order/internet and know the rules
better than the banks. They do not consider it stealing, but getting
something for free. If you do not take a physical swipe of the credit
card, they can contest the charge on any condition and the merchant
loses. Look at the fine print of your merchant account agreement. A
wife using her husband’s card, he can contest it. A secretary using
her bosses card, he can contest it. I have had three jewelry stores
place large orders with the owner or store card. Only the store did
not order the merchandise, a dishonest employee did. Contested and I
lost.
Sorry for the book but email privately and I can give you details if
you are having frauds or shipping losses.
Charlie