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An item-not-received (INR) claim is harder to resolve when tracking shows delivered and the buyer says otherwise. What you do next depends on whether the order had real tracking or shipped as a plain envelope.

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Step 1: Check what Hoard actually knows about the package

Open the order in Hoard. If it shipped tracked and you’re connected to a carrier integration, check the tracking status. Hoard only treats a package as fully delivered once it has a genuine Delivered scan — anything short of that (in transit, out for delivery, no scan yet) is not treated as terminal, so don’t assume “probably delivered” counts. If it shipped PWE and you’ve connected TCGTracking, check that badge too. It’s built from USPS barcode scans, not a formal tracking number, so read it as a helpful signal, not proof either way — a PWE order may never get a final delivered scan even when it did arrive.

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Step 2: Handle a tracked order showing Delivered

  1. Reply to the buyer with the tracking link and the delivered timestamp.
  2. Ask them to check with anyone else in the household, a building mailroom or parcel locker, and neighbors — misdelivery accounts for a lot of these.
  3. If they still say it’s missing after checking, this becomes a case for the carrier and TCGplayer’s own dispute process, not something you can resolve unilaterally. Follow TCGplayer’s current INR flow for the order.

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Step 3: Handle a PWE order with no formal tracking

This is the harder case — a first-class envelope usually has no guaranteed final scan, so you often can’t prove delivery the way a tracked parcel can.
  1. If you have a TCGTracking badge on the order, share whatever scan history exists (even a mid-transit scan close to the buyer’s area helps establish it was moving).
  2. If there’s no useful scan history, be direct that PWE shipping doesn’t come with tracking, and decide your own policy going into the case — most sellers offer some resolution on genuine repeat buyers even without proof, and hold the line more on stated-loss claims from a brand-new account.
  3. TCGplayer does not accept TCGTracking’s USPS barcode scans as valid tracking for a dispute — it will not satisfy a marketplace tracking requirement on its own. Don’t lean on it as your case; use TCGplayer’s own dispute process for the final call.

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Step 4: Resolve and record it

Whatever you and TCGplayer land on — full refund, partial, or no refund — the refund itself is processed on TCGplayer’s side. See how to issue a partial refund on a TCGplayer order if it’s a partial resolution; Hoard picks up the result on your next sync either way.

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Reduce how often this happens

Shipping tracked above a reasonable dollar threshold cuts INR disputes sharply, since a genuine “delivered” scan closes most of these before they start. See Shipping Breakdown for setting your PWE/tracked threshold.