Here is a salutary tale for anyone using E Bay to buy stuff.
The basic premise (tracking details to your address is taken as proof of delivery) may also apply to other sellers.

I had an order sent out by an E Bay business seller, it was sent Evri unsigned for despite the fact it was worth £82 and the seller stated on his product page he used Royal Mail.
The Evri driver left the item in an unlocked porch at the front of my building, which is on a main road and right next to a bus stop, it went missing….
Neither the seller or E Bay would do anything about it because they had a photo of the item in my porch, i.e. they deem that as proof I had received the item.
E Bay said the fact he used a different carrier from that advertised was irrelevant and the only way I could possibly get a refund was if I got a “Proof of Non Delivery” from Evri, but, as anyone with half a brain would work out in 2 seconds that was an exceptionally frustrating hiding to nothing. Note that I was told to do this, not the seller, who was the one with the contract with Evri…

My advice is :

1 - Think very carefully about buying anything off E Bay which is of a significant value.

2 – 98.5% positive feedback is NOT the same as 100% positive feedback. 
The sinning seller I used had 98.5%, but, if you think about it about 1 in 66 of his customers are sufficiently unimpressed with his service to give him negative feedback, and he is not bothered enough about that to ensure he does not get that bad feedback. When we used to sell on E Bay we had 100% positive feedback, and there was reason for that…
 

i think as you never instructed evri to leave in porch then its evri's responsibility. seems since covid couriers now seem to leave parcels wherever they want. if you had your feet or hand in the delivery picture then probably would more difficult.

Personally i dont blame ebay, can happen to anyone. blame the courier. RM also leave parcels sometimes as well. The seller as it the mercy of Evri.

18 minutes ago, Steve said:

i think as you never instructed evri to leave in porch then its evri's responsibility. seems since covid couriers now seem to leave parcels wherever they want. if you had your feet or hand in the delivery picture then probably would more difficult.

Personally i dont blame ebay, can happen to anyone. blame the courier. RM also leave parcels sometimes as well. The seller as it the mercy of Evri.

But the seller chose to use Evri, despite the fact he said on his E Bay entry that he used RM48, and he chose to not pay the additional 60p Evri charge for a signature. He then chose to accept bad feedback rather than sort out a problem he had caused, he was quite happy for me to have no order and be £82 down because of decisions he made.

Speaking as someone in the mail order business (for nearly 20 years) I think I know why he chose to send it Evri :

I would think that seller would have been using "Click & Drop", like us, and the next weight break over 2Kg is 10Kg, worse still, anything over 2Kg has to go RM24 (not the cheaper RM48), thus :

Under 2Kg RM48 = £4.02 (incl fuel surcharge and VAT)
Over 2Kg RM24 (RM48 not available over 2KG)= £7.74 (incl fuel surcharge and VAT)
i.e. nearly double the price.

I don't blame the seller for trying to save money on carriage, but if he was going to use Evri on an £82 order he should have required a signature. He didn't and it went missing, that's his mistake, so he should sort it out.

i agree... i do mail order too and probably would do the same thing, but always use insurance on anything over £50

But evri should still not of left it. Evri should require you to let them know you want it left in a safe place. This instruction was not given. Evri is to blame, they took the risk.

19 minutes ago, Steve said:

i agree... i do mail order too and probably would do the same thing, but always use insurance on anything over £50

But evri should still not of left it. Evri should require you to let them know you want it left in a safe place. This instruction was not given. Evri is to blame, they took the risk.

They certainly are to blame, I agree with you,but the seller is also to blame as I had a contract with him to get me my order, and I did not get it !

Our local 'Marketplace' Facebook page has at least 2 posts a day from folk trying to trace parcels wrongly delivered by Royal Mail or parcel delivery companies.  Just now we have 3, soon to be 2, companies who deliver for all delivery services ie EVRI, DPD etc etc

Just as an aside, I recently had to send a video of a TV NOT working to Samsung to get them to send a replacement 😄