Do I need to buy seller's shipping insurance?

I purchased from ******** (chinese company) and my package never showed up. Whether it was stolen or lost i do not know. All i know is the tracking # said delivered to my address. Everyone refused to compensate me the full $70. I was given $10 coupon.

They said next time buy insurance ...... i could have maybe filed a claim with my CC but that would be some effort after trying for 30mins trying to get right department that closes at 5pm

porchemasi wrote: ↑ I purchased from ******** (chinese company) and my package never showed up. Whether it was stolen or lost i do not know. All i know is the tracking # said delivered to my address. Everyone refused to compensate me the full $70. I was given $10 coupon.

They said next time buy insurance ...... i could have maybe filed a claim with my CC but that would be some effort after trying for 30mins trying to get right department that closes at 5pm

Sorry to hear about your experience. Now it's making me think twice about spending a few hundred dollars on a cellphone from overseas. I was thinking of getting the Xiaomi Mi 9 Lite. But now I'm finding stories online about the battery draining when it updates to MIUI 11. I have ordered from the first two places I've mentioned above and always received my item. But they were low cost items.

RCML27 wrote: ↑ I was looking at buying a Xiaomi cellphone from Banggood, Geekbuying, or ********. Do I need to buy their shipping insurance for loss or damage if I'm paying for the item with PayPal? Or am I just wasting that money by duplicating the coverage?

Yeah, they started doing that because as with any insurance, its easy profit. They even sell insurance on untracked shipments .. which is contradiction of terms.

Just so you know, if the tracking # says the item was delivered to your address, no amount of insurance will reimburse you (PayPal or not) - otherwise scammers would flourish. Some sellers (ali_expresso or dhgoatie <-- I hate that I have to do that on RFD, sigh) have fairly robust dispute mechanisms, while others do not. Don't forget that these companies have the entire world (largely quite poor, with shoddy mail systems) trying to scam them all the time so you shouldn't be surprised they are skeptical towards "oh, I didn't get the $1000 gadget you sent me" arguments.

Bottom line is: for higher-value items, pick a vendor which you think you can trust; and ship via fastest shipping you can afford (DHL, AliStandard/Canada Direct/UBI, ePacket); never cheap out and send via Registered Mail or untracked) .. and in most cases you'll be fine.
Most is not all, tho. You must accept that even if you take all the precautions, accidents sometimes happen and you may be "rear-ended" by a mailman who stuffs your package to a wrong mailbox. Just yesterday I chased the mailman around the subdivision because he put someone else's package in my mailbox .. not sure most people would do that and instead just take the gift. There is nothing you can do about these kinds of mistakes tho, and in most cases everything delivers just fine.