Almost everyone rings the carrier first, and in most cases that is the wrong call. You have a contract with the seller; you have none with the carrier — the seller does. This is how to work out which of four situations you are actually in, what to send the seller so that it works, and how to give notice to your card issuer before the sixty days run out, because that clock started at the statement rather than at the moment you noticed.
Fair Credit Billing Act, implemented by Regulation Z, 12 CFR §1026.13 — billing error resolution, eCFR.
Every headline figure you have seen — tens of millions of packages a year, billions of dollars, an average value per theft — was commissioned by a company that sells or reviews home security equipment. This book went looking for a federal count in the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey, the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting programme and Postal Inspection Service publications, and found none. So it prints no prevalence figure at all, and gives you the four routes to your money back instead.
The one federal number in the subject is the Federal Trade Commission’s Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book 2024, published March 2025. It is complaint data rather than a victimisation survey, its ‘Online Shopping and Negative Reviews’ category bundles non-delivery together with unrelated disputes, and it counts people who chose to file a report rather than measuring how often the thing happens. Chapter 3 prints it, labels it, and refuses to use it as a theft statistic.
The door furniture, the number, the mat, the paint, the step. Whether the light matches the timestamp. Whether a house number is anywhere in the frame. A misdelivery to a door on the same street is the single most common cause of a false delivered scan, and the photograph usually gives it away. Chapter 2.
You have a contract with the seller. You have none with the carrier — the seller does, and the carrier’s published liability is owed to whoever shipped the parcel. The FTC’s own consumer guidance points you at the seller first, and in practice they are the party most likely to simply send a replacement.
The strongest route has a deadline of 60 days from the statement showing the charge, not from the day you noticed. Find that statement, write the date on the front of your file, and work out day 60 before you do anything else.
Screenshot the tracking page showing the delivered scan and its timestamp, and download the delivery photograph itself. Tracking pages are purged, and you cannot get these back later.
The book is built around the tracking page in front of you. Work out which situation you are actually in first — it takes about two minutes, and it matters more than anything else in the book.
It never shipped; it is in transit and late; it scanned delivered and is not here; or it arrived and was taken. Four situations, how you know which is yours, and where each one goes. Chapter 1.
Six checks in order, ending with saving the image itself. If it shows a door that is not yours, you are no longer arguing about whether the parcel was delivered — you are telling them precisely what went wrong, and that is a much shorter conversation.
In writing rather than by phone, the facts in order and nothing else, one thing asked for, a seven-day deadline, and no accusations. Letter 1 when it scanned delivered; Letter 2 when it never shipped, which is the situation with a real federal rule behind it.
A carrier claim is built around a parcel lost in transit; one that scanned as delivered is not, in the carrier’s system, lost. A police report will not get your parcel back either. Both produce documents, and documents are what the next step runs on.
In writing, to the billing inquiries address printed on your statement rather than the payment address, with everything attached. The issuer must acknowledge within 30 days and resolve within two complete billing cycles and never later than 90. Letter 3.
Instant download. PDF and DOCX, so the letters can be edited rather than retyped.
Sixteen chapters in four parts — who is actually responsible, the seller and the rule that governs them, the carrier and the card and the police report, then prevention and the paperwork.
Four situations, how you know which one you are in, and where each one goes. Getting this wrong is where most of the wasted week goes.
To the seller when it scanned delivered; to the seller when it never shipped; the billing error notice to your card issuer; the second letter to a seller who refused; the FTC report narrative; the request to the carrier for the delivery record; the state Attorney General complaint; and the follow-up when the issuer has gone quiet.
The seller when writing has not worked; the carrier about a delivery photo; the carrier about a scan you believe is wrong; your card issuer to confirm the letter arrived; neighbours and the building; and the police non-emergency line.
Shipping time, the offer of delay or cancellation, automatic cancellation, and what a prompt refund actually means — with the sections cited, and a plain statement of the situation it does not cover.
USPS, UPS and FedEx side by side: claim deadlines, who may file, default coverage and the evidence each one asks for — taken from the carriers’ own published terms and labelled as such.
Two different rules, two different clocks and two very different positions to be in, set out side by side — including what the FTC says plainly about debit and non-delivery.
Fifteen rows from today to the ninety-day outer limit: what to do, when, and why then. Built around the only deadline in this subject that is fixed.
Seventeen rows, one parcel. Fill it in on day one and the letters write themselves — including the two rows that matter most, the statement date and day 60 from it.
Four AI prompts that genuinely help and a blunt list of what AI is bad at here, eight terms in plain English, and eight places to report or check — each with what it will not do.
Every figure in circulation was commissioned by a company that sells or reviews home security equipment, and the two most-quoted differ by more than three times. No government count exists to break the tie. Chapter 3 says so instead of picking one.
No federal rule allocating the loss for a parcel stolen after a valid delivery scan. No USPS or Postal Inspection Service process for formally contesting a delivered scan as inaccurate. No tariff clause saying a delivered scan discharges the carrier. Chapter 16 collects everything the book will not print.
16 CFR Part 435 for shipment and refunds; 12 CFR §1026.13 for the credit-card dispute; 12 CFR §1005.11 for debit; 18 U.S.C. §1708 for mail theft. Each one with what it covers and, more usefully, what it does not.
The California package-theft citation was taken from a secondary summary because the official state text could not be opened. Chapter 10 says so where you read it, and asks you to verify it on the legislature’s own site before relying on it.
Chapter 1 for the triage, then Chapter 2 for the photograph. Most of what settles this happens in the first half hour and costs nothing.
Chapter 4 and Letter 2. This is the situation with a real federal rule behind it, and the rule is strongly in your favour.
Chapters 7 and 8 — the report, then the card. Theft after receipt is a different animal from non-delivery.
Letter 4, then the FTC and your state Attorney General. A written refusal is the single most useful document you can hold when you go to your card issuer.
Chapter 8 sets both routes out side by side. A different rule applies, the money has already left your account, and the FTC says plainly that you may not be able to get a refund for non-delivery.
The book will not tell you, on purpose, and Chapter 3 explains at length why no honest source can.
No federal rule allocating the loss after a valid delivery scan could be found. The book says so rather than asserting one.
The rules cited are US federal regulation and state law.
Carrier liability is capped by default at $100 per package at all three major carriers unless a higher value was declared — and that cap is owed to the shipper, not to you. This book costs a fraction of it, and the two-minute triage in Chapter 1 is free to run.
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An explanation of consumer protection rules. Not legal advice, and reading it creates no professional relationship. It cannot tell you who is liable for your particular package.
No government body measures package theft. The two most-quoted figures come from a home-security review and lead-generation business and from a company that sells and reviews home security equipment, and they differ by more than three times. Both appear once, in Chapter 3, purely to be labelled.
The FTC’s Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book 2024 is complaint data, not a victimisation survey, and its category bundles non-delivery with unrelated disputes. It is printed because it is the only federal number in the subject, and labelled because using it as a theft statistic would be exactly the error Chapter 3 is about.
It deliberately prints no figure for how much difference one makes, because the figures available on that question come from the companies that sell them. What it will say is that footage is evidence, evidence helps a police report, and a report number helps the routes in Chapter 8. Whether that justifies the purchase is your call, not the book’s.
This edition has just been released. Rather than publish testimonials from people who do not exist, these spaces are held for the first genuine reader reviews. On a product whose whole argument is that unsourced numbers should not be trusted, that seemed like the only defensible choice.
If the delivery photograph turned out to show somebody else’s door, we would like to hear how that conversation went — and to publish it in your own words, with your permission.
We will not publish claims about amounts recovered. What comes back depends on a seller’s policy and an issuer’s investigation, and no document controls either.
Reserved for someone who found the statement date on day one and gave notice with weeks in hand. That is the chapter we would most like to hear worked.
In practice, almost always the seller, and that is who to contact first. As a matter of law, this book could not find a federal rule allocating the loss for a package stolen after a valid delivery scan, and it says so rather than inventing one. Your contract is with the seller; the carrier’s is with whoever shipped it.
Look at the delivery photograph and check whether it is your door. A misdelivery to a neighbouring address is the most common cause of a false delivered scan, and the photograph usually settles it in thirty seconds.
Sixty days from the statement that shows the charge — not from when you noticed the parcel was missing. That is the most commonly missed deadline in this subject, and Chapter 8 sets out how to give the notice so that it counts.
Yes, and worse. A different rule applies, the money has already left your account, and the FTC says plainly that you may not be able to get a refund for non-delivery. Chapter 8 sets out both routes side by side, from the regulations.
Usually not directly. Carrier liability runs to the shipper, is capped at $100 by default at all three major carriers unless a higher value was declared, and the claim processes are built around parcels lost in transit rather than parcels that scanned as delivered.
Because no government body measures it, and the two most-quoted figures were commissioned by companies that sell security products. They differ by more than three times. Chapter 3.
Both. Every purchase includes the PDF and an editable DOCX, so the letters can be filled in and sent rather than retyped.
Email sales@viralbydesign.co within 7 days of purchase for a full refund. No forms, no explanation required.
Open it, run the two-minute triage in Chapter 1, and look at your delivery photograph the way Chapter 2 tells you to. If it is not what you expected, email sales@viralbydesign.co within 7 days of purchase and you get a full refund. No forms, no explanation required.
If you take two things from this book: the sixty days runs from the statement, and the delivery photograph settles more cases than every letter in here combined. Do both today. The rest can wait until tomorrow.
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