Defects due to combining invoice and giving discount

I now have 8 defects for cancelled transactions due to giving customers shipping discount. My buyers would pay separately and I would manually refund the transactions and send them a combined invoice. I have been doing that for awhile on ebay.

 

To my surprise, now they have been registered as defects despite the fact that the buyers pay in a new combined invoice.

 

I've called ebay but they say they will only removed the defects if the buyers requested the discount. Now I am being penalized for being nice to my buyers.

 

Anybody know how I can get a redress for this issue. I have called three different raps and they all can't help.

 

 

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Defects due to combining invoice and giving discount

Too late now unless they are within 30 days. What you should have done was resolution centre ---> I want to cancel a transaction ---> find it ---> choose buyer request. No defect.

A full refund without selecting a "blame buyer" reason is always a defect. I used to make this mistake as well. You are not going to get these reversed.
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Defects due to combining invoice and giving discount

Why would you refund a bunch of separate payments instead of just refunding the amount of the over payment?

 

Partial refunds will not trigger a defect

 



"What else could I do? I had no trade so I became a peddler" - Lazarus Greenberg 1915
- answering Trolls is voluntary, my policy is not to participate.
Message 3 of 9
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Defects due to combining invoice and giving discount


@recped wrote:

Why would you refund a bunch of separate payments instead of just refunding the amount of the over payment?

 

Partial refunds will not trigger a defect

 


Yes, this is the only method that makes sense now.  

 

I simply calculate the difference (shipping over-payment) and refund that amount against the highest-priced item to avoid making a full refund on any one item.  If the shipping refund is greater than the total of the highest-priced item including its shipping, then I'd divide the refund up and make a partial refund on 2 items (or more if necessary).  

 

Of course, you won't get your FVFs on the shipping back from eBay this way, but you will avoid defects.  To recoup your shipping FVFs, you can deduct the amount of those FVFs from the total repayment owing, and simply refund the difference to the buyer if you wish.  I tend not to deduct the shipping FVFs, as a courtesy to my buyers, unless the dollar amount is substantial, but it's up to you. 

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Defects due to combining invoice and giving discount

Yes, this is the only method that makes sense now.

 

I know sellers did this in the past but it NEVER made any sense.

 

Common report years ago, buyer pays separately, seller refunds all payments and sends a revised combined invoice, buyer never pays. Even if the buyer would pay, when PayPal stopped refunding the 30 cent transaction fee when the full payment was refunded it made no sense whatsoever unless you enjoy giving eBay money they don't deserve.

 

 



"What else could I do? I had no trade so I became a peddler" - Lazarus Greenberg 1915
- answering Trolls is voluntary, my policy is not to participate.
Message 5 of 9
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Defects due to combining invoice and giving discount

'recped', I think you may have misunderstood me.  I meant that your comment pointed to the only option that makes sense these days to avoid serious implications for the seller, i.e. making a partial refund of the shipping over-payment, rather than trying to refund/reverse all the transactions.  

 

Clearly, refunding/reversing an entire set of transactions could be done years ago without any direct punishment from eBay, but not now where any full refund will generate a defect.  The OP should have probably read the 2014 Spring Seller Update thoroughly. 

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Defects due to combining invoice and giving discount

Thanks for all your advice, now I know. I am just trying to save my buyers some postage but I get the defects. It sucks because I lost of top rated seller and discount.

 

It seems to me like more money grabbing tactics from ebay and paypal.

Message 7 of 9
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Defects due to combining invoice and giving discount

Never put down to conspiracy what can be blamed on stupidity and sloppiness.

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Defects due to combining invoice and giving discount


@reallynicestamps wrote:

Never put down to conspiracy what can be blamed on stupidity and sloppiness.


I hope you were referring to the stupidity and sloppiness of eBay, not the OP.  Poor guy, he was just trying to do the right thing for his buyer and got caught in eBay's web of anti-logic policies as a result of a lapse in keeping up with the ever-changing rules and regulations on this site.  

 

In fact it seems that many of eBay's convoluted, complex and contrived policies seem to be so sloppy and stupidly conceived that they themselves have trouble figuring them out.  Typically it takes months for them to realize that they've either forgotten something critical, created a nasty loophole, or angered a whole bunch of otherwise well-meaning and useful people (usually the sellers who are making money for them).  It then takes eBay a few more months to make new rules to sort out the old mess, and on and on. 

 

I'd say the OP has found himself in a classic "no good deed goes unpunished" scenario. 

 

 

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