A parcel stuck stuck in China Customs without moving normally is normally caused by incomplete of customs clearance by recipient.

A return parcel to China is normally held in China customs until the recipient (your seller) makes customs declaration with 掌上海关 APP. Only the recipient can do it, because it needs recipient’s ID and phone number. You, your post office and China Post can not do it for him. If the seller doesn’t make customs clearance, the parcel will finally be returned to you (the shipper).

What you can do depends on the seller’s return policy:

1. If the seller authorized the return and gave you the return address, you have done your part. Receiving the parcel and making customs clearance is the seller’s responsibility.
   In this case, your need to push seller to make customs clearacne with 掌上海关 APP immediately. If he refuses to do it on purpose, please open dispute in Shop APP (or the payment platform you used) or call your card issuer bank to file charge back. Submit following evidence and ask for refund:

• seller’s return authorization and the return address he gave you
• your postage receipt and the tracking result which shows the parcel arrived in China and is waiting for recipient’s customs clearance
• seller’s messages which show he refuses to contact China Post / customs

Dispute and charge back have time limit, so don’t wait too long.

2. If you sent the parcel back without the seller’s authorization, or to an address which the seller didn’t give you, the seller has the right to refuse refund. In that case you can only wait for the parcel to be returned to you, then negotiate with the seller again.

One more possible case: Shipper didn’t write the recipient’s mobile phone number on the parcel. This will cause customs clearance failure. China customs needs to verify recipient’s mobile phone number. If there is no mobile phone number (or a wrong one), the seller can not make customs declaration in 掌上海关 APP and China Post can not deliver the parcel.

• If the seller didn’t give you his mobile phone number on purpose, it is the seller’s fault. You can file dispute / charge back as described above, with the return instruction he gave you as evidence.
• If the seller gave you the phone number but you didn’t write it on the parcel, it is your mistake. In that case the parcel can only be returned to you and the seller doesn’t need to refund before he gets the goods.