Back in the first week of April I mailed a black walnut whistle to Spain. Today it came back with a sticker on it that had the words ‘‘No retirado, No reclame’’ on it. Can someone translate that?
The ends of the mailing tube were badly damaged but the whistle was in the middle unharmed. 
I do not use the mailing tubes from the post office.
I bought some from a place called Yazoo. Yazoo tubes are over twice the thickness of a tube from the post office.
“Not picked up, Unclaimed” I believe.
Thank you.
Yep, I think MT nailed it.
I wonder if the address was written in a way that made it undeliverable? It could have been a spelling problem, but addresses also have a slightly different format in Spain.
name
street name, street number, apartment number
zip code, [section of town,] city, province, country
If the importation taxes or brokerage fees are unexpectedly high, or if it looks damaged, or even if the buyer gets cold feet, then he may decide not to claim the item. The buyer can then pursue a claim, particularly if the payment was Paypal because he can say he never actually received the item. Anyway, that’s my conspiracy theory for today.
That’s an interesting thought, Guinness.
What happens if you sell something, collect the payment with PayPal and then the buyer refuses delivery?
Does the seller have to refund everything by the shipping fees?
And what happens to the fees that payPal charges? Does the seller get a refund of the transaction fees for the amount that the seller had to refund?
Tommy,
I think MTGuru didn’t quite translate that correctly. Instead it reads “Please pass this whistle on, without charge, to someone who lives on an island in the Pacific.” That’s a rough translation, but is more or less accurate.
Hmmmm… . . . there are only about 20,000 or 30,000 islands in the Pacific. I will have to check my directory to see how many people I know there. Guess the fair way to decide would be the first one to send me a round trip ticket with a few days in a nice hotel, gets the complementary whistle delivered.
Yes the seller has to refund everything including the shipping fees.
When you make a refund by Paypal you get your fees back, in fact what actually happens is, say for example you want to refund $100 and your fees on that were $5, well Paypal take $95 from your account and they add the $5 themselves.
That’s the good news, the bad news is that Paypal is the most dangerous method of receiving payments. They are not regulated like a bank so they can pretty much do whatever the hell they want. Chargeback fraud is becoming more and more rampant on ebay since they’ve brought in changes giving buyers all the power over transactions.
You’ll find on Google that the words “Paypal” and “Fraud” go hand in hand, but heres a popular site you should read if you plan on accepting Paypal payments:
http://www.paypalsucks.com/
Thanks, that’s rather disturbing, isn’t it?
Very true. If you get into a dispute and paypal decides against you, you have given them the right to plunder your bank account, and they will with the same abandon that Bally, Inc. will plunder it to collect your “fitness club” fees for the fitness club that you are no longer using. Both of them suck.
I think that would be the fair thing to do. 
I agree completely. The ticket, as they say, is in the mail. Let me know when it arrives. I’ll be waiting to hear. 
Well, I did send the buyer an email, and they offered to pay shipping again. So I see no evidence of a scam. Just some poor mail handling.
Hmmmm… . . . so if tickets are on the way, I will have to make and offer a different whistle, or send the tickets back. It will be OK if I only receive tickets from one Island, but if the other 20,000 or 30,000 
send tickets. I may have to buy another machine. Then if there is a quake and California shifts into the pacific, there might be a few more Islands in the pacific. And this only started as a hobby. Uh, I need to go back to work now.
Oh, cool. I should send you a ticket, just in case. Same terms as Keith, of course. 
Hope this gets to you before you’ve despatched the whistle. The postal system here in Spain is a joke - lots of stuff goes missing - just never shows up and I’m surprised that your whistle was even returned.
If you’re shipping to Spain, you have to use recorded delivery, and if possible use a private courier firm like DHL, or such. The local courier out here that I’d recommend is MRW - maybe your local firm has a reciprocal arrangment with them.
I’ve bought and not received 2 copies of the Fliuit book (from Ireland) as well as a quena from Peru. I think my local postman is now learning to play Irish jigs on a Peruvian quena.