I just had my first ebay dispute filed against me.  Sold a Voodoo 5 5500 PCI (MAC) to a guy in Germany back in June through ebay.  Shipped it via US Postal Service 1st class mail on June 17th.  Guy is claiming it should have arrived by now.  I've always allowed 4 - 6 weeks for anything 1st class to Europe, but this guy just won't back off.

Is 4-6 weeks an unreasonable amount of time for someone in Germany to wait for a package sent 1st class from the USA? 

That's quite long, actually. Is this airmail? Standard USPS?

Did you fill in the customs declaration form 100% correctly? Otherwise it will be stuck in customs for a long time.

I'm pretty sure I filled out the customs info correctly....at least according to the electronic postage purchase system ebay has.  Hmmm, I wonder if something isn't right with their forms?  They mark all a bunch of the fields as optional...which is a little different than what the USPS software lets you do.  My local post office did look it over and accepted it.  The tracking ends once it left the USA.

Any ideas on my options to figure out where it is in the USA or German postal service?  I have the customs number in hand.

Edit: Forgot to mention this was 1st class airmail (small parcel/packet).  Everything else I sent to Europe that same week arrived in about two weeks.

In my experiences in shipping from the US to Canada, Airmail takes 1-3 weeks.  For shipping from Canada to Europe,  1-3 weeks for airmail too.

The tracking number you have can be used to track the item internally with the USPS.  At least you can find out if it made it out of the country.  That being said, Canada Post doesn't do any tracking until after 55 days from the day of receipt by Canada Post.  So see what your options are with USPS.
Good luck!

From my experience 1st class airmail via USPS from US to Europe can take two weeks or up to six weeks but don't know why there's such a delay in some cases.
The problem with this shipping option is that it doesn't provide tracking outside the US as the tracking number can't be used on local postal service websites. This is because they don't see this as a package but as an international letter and no online tracking is provided. My suggestion is to advise the buyer to wait until the 5th week and check again at his local post office for the package, it will arrive eventually.
Hope this helps,
G1nX

One thing you need to know: Germanys' customs are somehow complete killjoys.

Even if I send something from Switzerland and really take care about all the custom forms, they always seem to find something they don't like about it ! The best thing about that story is, that first off all it takes up to two weeks before you get any informations, and then sometimes they don't even tell you what the hell is exactly wrong in the documents. Also in the end they charge you with humongous fees, not even stating what they are for.

One good advice for the future: Always use a method which includes track'n trace for the entire journey, with that you can properly see what is actually going on (as I stated above it may be "Idling at the German Customs, for no good reason").

Worst case scenario, have the guy join our forums so he can see that others have had issues and things will eventually be ok. If he's buying a 3DFX product, you'd think he'd be part of the few sites left anyway and would expect some issues with over sea shipping.

I also had some troubles receiving oversea packages. Here in Germany, customs are indeed killjoys. They are taxing everything thats over 20e worth, investigating it, checking it etc. Some packages came with more then 2 months delay, and some came practically immediately. Its a matter of luck and of neatly filled documents.

After a few bad experiences, I would just notify the guy I'm buying from to exclude any mention of price and receipt in package and mark the package as a gift. The effect of this is that the customs office calls you directly when the package arrives, since they usually have no idea about its value (so they cant just automatically sort it out, or leave it on ice waiting to get sorted).

= you get your package faster :)

Maybe a thought. If I get something send from the states using USPS First Class, I get it usually very quickly. Any higher classed service and it goes via courier (Parcelforce rather then Royal Mail), it takes much longer, and they wack a great handling fee on that as well. Negative is no insurance or tracking.

Thanks for the advice guys.  Unfortunately, the buyer didn't want to wait any longer.  He claimed it should only take a week to get there....not sure what shipping method he's thinking of.  I processed his refund just now.  At least paypal/ebay refunded me all of their high priced fees.  I'm ONLY out $12 shipping and a V5 Voodoo Mac card >:(

What a horrific ebay experience.  First one in over 10 years that went bad.  I'm starting to understand why some US sellers don't want anything to do with selling overseas.  Ironically, I just sold my old iPhone to a guy in Italy and it was a flawless transaction.  Learned that if you are going to use USPS, at least use Priority mail.  It tracked the phone all the way to his doorstep.  Everything I've sent 1st class, the tracking ends once it leaves the USA.      

USPS Delivery times and rates:
USPS 1st Class International: 1-3 weeks & cheap -> these items are almost never charged duty, no matter the price.

USPS Priority: 1-3 weeks and at least about double the cost or more than 1st Class International.  These items almost always go through customs and if over $50, I get charged duty..

Therefore, for Priority, I get tracking but at a lot higher shipping cost and I expect to pay more money in duties.  I always ask for 1st Class International, and I haven't had a piece of mail lost in over 10 years. 

Patience is what is needed.

Update - the buyer received the card on August 18th....two months after I shipped it USPS 1st class.  He promptly paid me the full price of the card + shipping.  Since ebay refunded all the selling and paypal fees to me, I actually ended up about $8 ahead this way.

Lesson learned - don't send packages 1st class to Germany....period!

Never use Postal Services for international transfers.

All of them are SHIT.

Use international postage companies meant for this.

I have had packages shipped from the US by the US Postal Service many times and never had a problem. So I disagree with your statement.

sigtau wrote on 22.08.11 at 00:01:52:

Lesson learned - don't send packages 1st class to Germany....period!

Germany seems to be a problem- I have shipped several packages to other locations 1st class including Russia and at worst 2 weeks.

Germany? Even with US Priority shipping takes 2 weeks! German customs are not nice people to deal with I'm told and may have something to do with the delay.

No problems w/ USPS here either.  Then again I will only use Priority Mail. (2-3 day within the US, and 6-10 day International)  This is definitely a case of "you get what you pay for".  For expensive items (v56k) I use express mail. (next day within the US, and 3-5 day International)