A customer says their parcel never arrived but tracking says delivered. What should you do?
An item not received claim is a customer reporting that an order marked as delivered did not reach them. It is one of the few support cases where the customer’s account and the operational record directly contradict each other, which is why so many retailers get it wrong in both directions: refunding everything without looking, or refusing on the strength of a scan that proves less than it appears to.
Why this happens
A delivered scan is made by a courier with a handheld device near the end of a route. It can be accurate. It can also be early, applied to a neighbouring address, or applied to the wrong parcel. And a correctly delivered parcel can be gone twenty minutes later. Every one of those produces the same record, which is the only thing most retailers look at.
How it works
Ask the carrier for more than the status
The status is the least useful thing they hold. Ask for the proof of delivery, whether a photograph was captured, whether geolocation was recorded at the point of scan, whether a signature was taken and whose, and what the scans before it show. A scan recorded two streets away is a different case from one at the door.
Check the address you sent to
Against the address the carrier received. Transcription errors between an order system and a label are common, entirely innocent, and account for a meaningful share of these claims.
Read the customer history
Previous claims, previous refunds, order value, how long they have bought from you. A first claim from a five-year customer and a fourth claim this quarter are different situations, and neither is decided by the scan.
Apply your own policy
What your business does at this value, with this evidence, for this customer. Some retailers replace without question below a threshold. Some require a declaration. Both are defensible, and the choice belongs to you.
Then ask whether the cost is recoverable
Separate question, same evidence. Where the order was placed decides which route exists, and what the carrier could show decides whether the carrier route is open.
A worked example
IllustrativeA £248 order from the retailer’s own site, marked delivered on Tuesday. The customer writes on Thursday.
- The carrier shows a delivered scan at 14:12 Tuesday. No photograph, no signature, no geolocation.
- The address on the label matches the order.
- The customer has ordered eleven times and never claimed.
- Policy at this value, with this evidence and this history, is to replace.
- The replacement goes out, and the customer is told exactly what the carrier could and could not show.
- Separately: a delivered scan with nothing behind it is a service failure under the carrier contract. A claim is filed with the scan record attached.
Had the same order come through a marketplace, the reimbursement route would have applied instead and the carrier claim would not. Same investigation, different destination for the cost.
Resolution examples
Why an honest customer reports non-receipt
- Left with a neighbour they have not spoken to
- Put somewhere they did not think to look
- Delivered to a similar address on the same street
- Scanned before the drop actually happened
- Taken from the doorstep afterwards
- Received by someone else in the house who forgot to say
Which recovery route is open
- Marketplace order, refund issued: a marketplace reimbursement or SAFE-T claim may apply
- Direct order, refund issued: no marketplace route exists, so the carrier is the only path
- Weak or missing delivery evidence: the carrier failed its own service, and a claim is viable
- Strong delivery evidence: no carrier failure occurred, so no carrier claim arises
| Evidence | Establishes | Does not establish |
|---|---|---|
| Named signature | Someone at the address took receipt | That it was the customer |
| Geolocation at the address | The device was at the delivery point | That the parcel was left there |
| Delivery photograph | Where it was left, and how visibly | That it was still there later |
| Unnamed proof of delivery | A delivery was recorded | Who received it |
| Delivered scan alone | A courier marked the job complete | Very little |
Where automation stops
- A delivered scan does not establish that the customer is lyingIt is a record made under time pressure at the end of a route. Refusing claims on that basis costs more in lost repeat custom than it saves in refunds.
- One claim is not a patternAbuse becomes visible across orders, channels and time. A single ticket does not contain enough information to judge it.
- The threshold is the retailer’s to setWhat to do at a given value, with given evidence, for a given customer is a judgement about risk appetite and customer lifetime value. It should be configured, not assumed by a vendor.
- Vulnerable customers reach a personNo evidence threshold should route around this.
- Recovery is a separate decision from the refundWhether you look after the customer and whether someone owes you for the same event are different questions with different evidence. Deciding them together means deciding one of them badly.
What we see in the data
Across more than 5,000 seller-fulfilled orders examined at one live account in a single month, not-received claims contradicted by tracking and refunds where nothing came back together made up the largest share of the 395 orders identified as eligible for claim. Neither is visible from a single ticket.
How this was measured →Checklist
- ✓Request the full delivery evidence, not the status.
- ✓Compare the label address to the order address.
- ✓Look at the customer across every channel, not only this one.
- ✓Decide against your own policy, and record what the evidence showed.
- ✓Then ask separately whether the marketplace or the carrier owes you for the same event.
Questions
A customer says their parcel never arrived but tracking says delivered. What should I do?
Ask the carrier for the proof of delivery, the delivery photograph and the geolocation at the point of scan, then read those alongside the customer’s claim history and your own policy. A delivered scan on its own establishes that a courier marked the job complete, which is weaker evidence than it looks.
Does a delivered scan mean the customer is lying?
No. Parcels are left with neighbours, put somewhere the customer does not find, delivered to similar addresses nearby, scanned before the drop, or taken from the doorstep afterwards. All of those produce the same record.
What should I ask the carrier for?
Proof of delivery, a delivery photograph, geolocation at the point of scan, and a signature where the service includes one. Geolocation matters most: a scan recorded away from the delivery address is strong evidence of misdelivery.
Can I recover the cost?
Often, and the route depends on where the order was placed. Marketplace orders may support a reimbursement or SAFE-T claim against a refund issued under your policy. Direct orders have no marketplace route, so recovery runs through the carrier, and that requires the delivery evidence to be weak or missing. A well-evidenced delivery is not a carrier failure.
How do I tell a genuine claim from refund abuse?
Not from one ticket. Abuse shows as a pattern across orders, channels and time: repeated claims from the same customer, concentration on higher-value orders, or behaviour that looks ordinary within one channel and obvious across several.