Conditions of sale - Association for Archaeology and Anthropology

CONDITIONS OF SALE:

1. Our order fulfillment center will carefully pack and ship your article via the U.S. Postal Service. Uninsured shipments are at your risk, so we advise you purchase insurance. A lot of packages are lost in the mail. If your insured packet is lost, we will file a claim for you and send you an approximate replacement of your choice. If you wish a cash refund for a USPS claim, we can provide you with the U.S. Post Office's insurance certificate, a pre-completed claim form, and a receipt. You can file a claim with your local Post Office.

2. Please note that if you use PayPal to remit your funds, PayPal requires all shipments be sent utilizing a method which is both insured and on-line trackable (UPS, Fed-Ex, or USPS Express Mail). We try to approximate PayPal’s requirement with a less costly method; i.e., U.S. Postal Service with a Delivery Confirmation and Insurance; and so shipping costs are only about one-third of what they would be if we were fully compliant and used (for instance) U.S. Postal Service Express Mail. Inasmuch as PayPal Protection Policies do REQUIRE on-line trackable/insured shipment methods, we MUST use either insured mail with a delivery confirmation OR Fed-Ex, UPS, or Express Mail. If you do NOT want to pay for an insured shipment, then please send us a check or money order or if an international customer, euros or dollars by numbered mail. We CANNOT accept a PayPal payment for an uninsured, untracked shipment. And with respect to uninsured shipments paid via check or money order, we cannot be responsible for the loss of or damage to uninsured shipments. All we can do is to provide, upon request, evidence of shipment. Once we place an uninsured item in the mail, we not longer have any control over the shipment, and we cannot accept responsibility for it.

3. Additional services such as Priority Mail, Express Mail, Federal Express, UPS, boxed shipments, etc., are available upon request. Please ask us. For high-value shipments within the USA we routinely use Fed-Ex or UPS Ground (at no additional cost). However for only a few dollars extra, we can ship ANY order Fed-Ex or UPS Ground. Fed-Ex and UPS have proven to provide vastly superior service to the USPS.

4. If you are unhappy with your purchase for any reason whatever, we will gladly refund your entire purchase price. All we ask is that you ship the item (in its original condition) back to us. We will refund your entire purchase price, so long as we are notified within six weeks of the close of the auction of your intent to return the item, so that we may in turn ask Ebay for a refund of the commissions and fees they charged us. If you notify us after six weeks, we will still honor your refund request, but we will deduct Ebay commissions (2%-5%).

5. All shipments originate here in Washington State usually utilizing the U.S. Postal Service. On occasion they are slow, very slow. We cannot be responsible for slow deliveries. We are not the post office. Our order fulfillment center ships every day, and will ship your item within 48 hours of receiving your remittance. But once the item has been placed into your mail system, it is beyond our control. We cannot be responsible for the slowness or inefficiency of the U.S. Postal Service, sorry. If speed of delivery is critical, we suggest you pay extra for USPS Priority/Express Mail or Fed-Ex or UPS (Ground or Air).

6. All of our postal system shipments include a USPS Delivery Confirmation. Contrary to popular belief, the U.S. Postal Service does NOT automatically track insured mail or Priority Mail; only Express Mail. Even a Delivery Confirmation is only a “Delivery” confirmation – the USPS does not guarantee that it will be trackable on line. It may or may not track – but it should show once it has been delivered (you can see USPS policy regarding D/C’s right here). In any event, Delivery Confirmation is included with all our USPS shipments. Simply take the number you will be provided with upon shipment; and go to www.usps.com - the official site for the U.S. Postal System.

7. Certificates of Authenticity (COA's) are available on request and are mailed under separate cover (they are prepared by our order fulfillment center). They are specific to the item purchased, and include the item’s origin and image. There is a charge of $2.00 to cover the cost of the parchment paper, the preparation, and mailing them separately.

8. International Shipments: We are happy to ship anywhere in the world. But international shipments from the United States (using U.S. Mail) do not offer insurance except for the most costly option; shipments sent "International Express Mail" (about $30.00 per shipment). So our standard options is U.S. Postal Service Air Mail coupled with commercial insurance from Stamps.Com, UPS, Fed-Ex, or Wells Cargo. This method is very inexpensive (typically $7.99), but is not tracked. There are other shipment methods available for international customers, including "Global Priority Mail" (usually $16.99) which includes a Delivery Confirmation, which though is not the same as “tracking” (see item #6 above), it does oftentimes record the item’s exit from the USA. However oftentimes it does not record its delivery in a foreign country as many country’s postal systems do not support bar-code delivery confirmations. However the shipment method is allegedly expedited. The U.S. Postal Service also offers trackable and insured Global Priority Mail (typically about $23); trackable and insured “Overnight” Express Mail (typically about $28); and numbered/registered mail (typically about $19). If you do not wish to pay for an insured shipment, you may send a dollar-denominated money order or you may send euros or dollars via numbered mail. However again, we cannot be responsible for uninsured shipments once we have placed them into the mail. We will provide upon request evidence of shipment. But once the item is in the mail, we no longer have any control over its delivery, and cannot assume any responsibility for it. International shipments ARE more susceptible to loss than domestic shipments. Of perhaps 2,000 or more international shipments we have made to dozens of countries throughout the world, perhaps 15 uninsured, unnumbered shipments have been reported lost (as claimed by the customers); four shipments to Canada, five to the U.K., two to Australia, and one to New Zealand (note: ALL Commonwealth countries!) - and one to France, Spain, and Italy and three to Poland. One package to Great Britain was opened and the contents removed. The Post Office has even lost a registered mail parcel to Canada and an Express Mail package to Australia! Mail to Great Britain, Canada and Australia has proved not only susceptible to "loss", but also to very slow transit times through Customs - especially Canada. Shipments to Italy, France, Spain,Poland and Greece have been known to cause apoplexy.