At 02:11 PM 7/10/2006 -0700, you wrote:
>What would you do, as a small (tiny) business, if a package has been
>accepted by the shipper and they show it in their system, not yet delivered,
>and the customer is demanding a refund or re-ship?
>
>Is it my responsibility to make the customer happy no matter what? What if
>it turns out the customer is refusing delivery or doing something that makes
>delivery impossible?
>
>Does my responsibility end when I hand off the item for delivery and that is
>confirmed, to the customer, by the shipper?
>
>Just curious to see what other people think.

The legalistic situation, AFAIUI, <standard disclaimer> IANAL.

Consumer items: typically *you're* responsible by default under the UCC.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/ucc.table.html

Of course that's why all the boilerplate on sales orders and invoices
to cover every possible situation.

Commercial items (which are typically sold F.O.B. customer location) ownership
passes when it is accepted by the agreed-upon carrier and *they* have to file
a claim with the carrier.  If other terms such as CIF are involved the
situation is different. There are also terms which are important mostly
for big stuff like FOR. All this comes into play in odd situations such
as the locomotive which is dropped onto the ship it is supposed to be
transported on (in the process of loading it on board), causing great
damage (a real case). The resolution is very important to the parties
in a situation like that.

This is all very well established in law and practice, as you might
imagine, with probably millions of packages having gone missing over the
years.

But if the customer doesn't want the item for any reason, it's probably
better from a business pov to let them out of it, IMHO.  There are
exceptions- deliberate rip-offs and that sort of thing. There area also
considerations such as whether a CC or Paypal might decide in the favor
of the customer.

>Best regards,

Spehro Pefhany --"it's the network..."            "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com
->>Test equipment, parts OLED displys http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZspeff


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