Courier Marked a Fake Delivery Attempt? What Sellers Can Do
A fake delivery attempt is when a courier marks your parcel "buyer not available", "refused" or "address incomplete" without really trying to deliver. You can still act: answer the non-delivery alert within hours, confirm with the buyer, ask for a reattempt with proof, and report any parcel that comes back correctly in GST.
- A failed delivery shows up first as a non-delivery report (NDR), an alert that the courier could not deliver. That is your window to act.
- The buyer is your best witness. A short message through the platform's own channel often settles whether the attempt was real.
- Escalations work when they carry proof: the tracking time, the reason code and the buyer's reply.
- A parcel that returns to you still reduces your sales for GST, through a credit note under section 34 of the CGST Act.
- Track failed attempts by pincode and courier. Patterns persuade a support team far more than single complaints.
In this guide
How do you know an attempt was fake?
You rarely know for sure from your desk. But some signs point strongly that nobody knocked on the door. Look at the tracking history and the buyer's reply side by side.
| What you see | Why it looks wrong | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Attempt logged late at night or very early | Couriers rarely deliver at those hours | Screenshot the tracking line with the time |
| "Buyer not reachable", but the buyer says no call came | The buyer's word against a status code | Get the buyer's reply in writing on the platform |
| "Address incomplete" on a full address with house number and landmark | The address was fine when the order was placed | Ask for a reattempt with the same address confirmed |
| Several parcels in one pincode fail on the same day | Suggests a delivery person skipping a route | Note the pincode and raise one combined escalation |
| "Refused by customer" on a prepaid order | A buyer who has already paid seldom refuses | Contact the buyer before accepting the return |
None of this proves fraud alone. Together, they give a support team a reason to look.
Why it costs more than one parcel
A parcel that comes back after a failed attempt is a return to origin, or RTO. You lose forward shipping, often reverse shipping and packing, and the stock sits in a van for a week. Your cancellation and return numbers rise, and marketplaces watch those numbers when they rank listings. The general fixes for RTO are in our guide on how to reduce RTO and returns. This article deals only with the attempts that should have been deliveries.
What you can do, step by step
- Check the NDR list every day. Most platforms give a short window to respond before the parcel is sent back. Missing it means the return goes ahead by default.
- Contact the buyer through the platform. Use the masked call or message option your panel offers. Ask one plain question: did anyone come or call? Keep the reply.
- Request a reattempt. Add the buyer's confirmed address, landmark and a good time slot in the remarks. A clear note makes the second attempt harder to skip.
- Escalate with proof. Raise a ticket with the order number, the tracking screenshot, the buyer's reply and what you are asking for. One clean ticket beats five angry ones.
- Do not cancel the order yourself. A cancellation from your side usually counts against you, even when the courier caused it.
- Log the pattern. Keep a simple sheet: order, pincode, courier, reason code, buyer's reply, outcome. After a month you will see which routes fail.
- Inspect what comes back. Record a short video while opening returned parcels. If the item is damaged or swapped, our guide on filing a wrong return claim covers that next step.
Each marketplace names these buttons differently and sets its own response windows. Their seller help pages open only after login, so we could not read them on 13 Nov 2026 and give no button names or time limits here. Your seller panel is the place to check.
Who controls what?
| Where you ship from | Who picks the courier | Your strongest lever |
|---|---|---|
| Marketplace logistics | The marketplace | The NDR response and the support ticket, with proof |
| Self-ship from a marketplace | You, within the platform's rules | Changing courier for pincodes that keep failing |
| Your own website | You | Choosing a courier that shares call logs or location proof of attempts |
On your own store you can also ask the courier partner for the delivery person's call record before you accept an RTO. On a marketplace, you work through the marketplace.
A worked example
Neha sells cotton kurtas from Jaipur at Rs 945 each, which is Rs 900 plus GST at 5%. In one month she gets 40 non-delivery alerts. For 25 of them, the buyers say nobody came.
She replies to every alert the same day and requests reattempts with the buyers' notes. 15 of the 25 get delivered on the second try. Taking her own cost of an RTO as Rs 140 (shipping both ways and packing, an illustration, not a marketplace rate), she saves 15 times Rs 140, which is Rs 2,100, and keeps Rs 13,500 of sales she would have lost.
The other 10 still come back. Those 10 kurtas, Rs 9,000 before GST, were in the sales report when they shipped. If her GSTR-1 counts the shipments but not the returns, she pays Rs 450 of GST on sales that never happened. Small in one month, but it repeats every month the returns are missed.
What happens on the GST side?
An RTO is goods coming back to you. Section 34 of the CGST Act lets you issue a credit note for returned goods and reduce your tax. You report it in the return for the month the credit note is issued. The outer limit is 30 November after the end of the financial year of the sale, or the date you file the annual return, if earlier.
Marketplace TCS (tax collected at source) follows the same logic. Section 52 calculates it on the net value of supplies, which means sales less returns in the month. So the marketplace's figure already subtracts your RTOs. If your return does not, the two will not match. Our guide on sales returns in GSTR-1 shows where each one goes.
The mistake people usually make
The usual mistake is treating failed attempts as bad luck. Sellers let the alerts expire, accept the RTO and move on. The courier's record shows a buyer problem, your metrics take the hit, and nothing changes on that route.
The second mistake is arguing about every order. Pick the cases with clear signs, escalate those with proof, and log the rest. Our Seller Intelligence report lists fake attempts among the common causes of RTO, so you are not alone in this.
Is it worth paying for help? Not for the courier side: an hour a day on alerts is enough for most small sellers. The GST side is worth setting up correctly once, so returns flow into every month's filing.
Sources
- Section 34, CGST Act: credit and debit notes (CBIC) (checked 13 Nov 2026)
- Section 52, CGST Act: TCS on net value of taxable supplies (CBIC) (checked 13 Nov 2026)
- PIB: 56th GST Council meeting, rates from 22 September 2025, apparel up to Rs 2,500 a piece at 5% (checked 13 Nov 2026)
How AprilTax can help
Failed attempts become RTOs, and RTOs have to leave your GST return in the right month. AprilTax has a free GSTR-1 tool for online sellers: upload the sales reports from Amazon, Flipkart or Meesho, and it subtracts returns, runs about 30 checks and matches your net sales with the TCS your marketplaces reported. You upload the JSON file on the GST portal yourself.
Frequently asked questions
What is a fake delivery attempt?
Can a seller complain directly to the courier on a marketplace?
What proof helps when escalating a fake attempt?
Should I cancel an order after a failed attempt?
Do RTO parcels reduce my GST?
Does marketplace TCS already account for RTOs?
How can I reduce fake attempts in future?
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