INR Abuse and Exploiting of Ebay's TOS

[321continuegames]

In regards to a recent Item Not Received Return Request and how I attempted to bring certain concerns to Customer Support at Ebay.

I sold an Item --  a video game (loose disc Nintendo Gamecube game). Item was sold and shipping method was Canada Post - Oversized Lettermail, which has no Tracking Number. I do this for low cost items that can fit in an bubble mailer evelope to compete with Ebay.com American sellers who have better shipping rates then us here in Canada. I have shipped out hundreds of packages out this way to great success.

Seller left a note with Instructions for me during shipping, this is what it said ;

Buyer note

"Hi Please do not include any invoices, receipts or paperwork inside the package. Also, please test it thoroughly/clean before shipping out. Will leave positive feedback for your efforts. Thank you!"

I, the seller package and ship the item & Mark as Shipped, Thursday April 27th 2023.

Buyer Messages me back exactly one week later with this message;

"Hi, I noticed that this order hasn't shipped yet. Could you please provide me with the tracking information? This is a gift and I need to make sure that it arrives on time."

Seller (me) I send a reply to the buyer right away ;

"As stated in my listing and per method of shipping shown at checkout this game shipped out Canada Post Oversized Lettermail. This method does not come with a Tracking Number."

Buyer : Never Replies to this Message.

Today May 8th Buyer opens up a Item Not Received Claim Requesting a Full Refund.

One of my Options as a Seller is to Contact the Buyer so I sent him this message this morning;

"I’ll refund you. Next time look at shipping details of packages if you expect tracking you will pay more. I sent it lettermail, no tracking as stated in my listing. Seeing as this package isn’t even going to you and was a “present” it might have been a good idea on your part to get tracking on it.

Thanks for your business but I do not condone drop-shipping off of my page because things like this happen.

I am not sure what ebay has for policies on drop-shipping but I will be contacting them to find out more and use this scenario as an example.

Have a great day!

I do not expect to receive a reply from this buyer as when I looked at his feedback he has 4 Negative feedback from the last 6 months and a common theme is that this account does not reply to messages.

Upon doing some more inspecting of his feedback page I noticed this account joined in 2021 and has (11,000+ Feedback). Most are positive feedback from other sellers who most likely leave feedback as soon as they ship out an item, before they have to experience any INR's. This account also had 0 items for sale, however it looked like they had sold items in the past in a tune of 384 items. Another thing I noticed about this users feedback page is that they do not leave any feedback for any of the Ebay stores they buy from.

I decided to speak with Ebay Customer service and explained the situation to them. I also explained what I believe this account is doing. I informed Ebay Customer Support that my reasoning for contacting them wasn't because I had to refund the money (it was a very high amount) but my concern for the abuse of their refund policy system that they have in place and to hopefully bring some attention to it. I was told without supplying a tracking number that Ebay would ultimately side with the buyer. I explained what I believe is going on and asked for them to look into it and rest assured I will issue the refund. It didn't seem like the Customer Service rep really cared about what I was saying and just told me to make sure I have tracking number on my packages. I can post the whole transcript here, if somone can clarify that I am allowed to do so.

The meat and potatoes and what I think this user is doing in using Ebay's protection for buyers as an exploit.

They are changing their address in their profile before purchasing an item from a Ebay Seller with 100% Feedback Rating and Good Feedback comments on Shipping Speeds. They then use their own website or social media or other platform to sell these goods. They buy from reputable sellers that ship packages using Canada Post Oversized Lettermail knowningly that it will come without a Tracking Number. They then wait a week and send a message highlighting the fact that they haven't received the package and ask for a tracking number. They then wait for the cut off delivery estimated date and create a Item Not Received case and the Seller is left with no choice but to offer a refund to the buyer.

If this is the case the buyer is sourcing for "free" not handling, storing, picturing, packing, shipping anything. Then they open a claim and get a full refund for the item they most likely sold at a markup. Double dipping at it's finest.

If this is what is going on can't Ebay look at a buyers history of opening Item Not Received Claims and getting refunded?

I also have screenshots of everything I posted in here, I can post those too. I'm just not sure if I am allowed to do that here?

[pjcdn2005]

ebay will look at a customer's number of open inr's but they may not automatically do it unless there are a number of reports from sellers.  And when there is no tracking, I doubt that they will pay much attention to the complain  as there is no proof whether or not the item was received.

As far as dropshipping, that is allowed in certain forms but only if a seller has an arrangement with a wholesales. They don't want sellers dropshipping the way that seller might be doing.  All you can really do is report the seller at the following link.  Even if they do look into it, ebay won't let you know what the result is.

https://www.ebay.ca/help/action?topicId=4850

Keep in mind that ebay and million of sellers and buyers and they reply heavily on AI bots to find problems as well as reports from other members. They don't seem to have the manpower to act on all of the reports.  

Also keep in mind that not using tracking is an automatic loss if the buyer opens an item not received claim.  I think that in the majority of situations, no claim is opened as buyers are generally honest.  But keep the risk in mind.  Many of us Canadians ship the same way and have an imaginary 'cookie jar' insurance fund to cover those losses when they do happen.

[flipistics]

You could also report it to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre as well as whatever Canada Post has. I doubt anything would come of it since the dropshipper is probably in another country, but worth a shot if you're mad enough 🙂 At least it'll feel like you're doing something.

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

If you have reason to believe a customer abused the Money Back Guarantee, you can present it to an eBay CSR. If it is compelling enough, they will forward it to the security team. They will also instruct you to use the report buyer feature.

Usually, once an INR is opened for an untracked item, you have to satisfy it with a refund. Even if a buyer is removed from the money back guarantee program, eBay requires you to resolve the INR.

Buyers are usually removed if 1 or more seller reports them, and they have a high ratio of INRs opened compared to the amount of items they buy. Keep in mind, eBay loses money when buyers abuse the INR system, because they refund fees.

This sounds like a unique situation with a drop shipping account. I am not sure what eBay's policies are in relation to that. I suspect you're still stuck resolving the INR. If this is against the TOS, there is a very small chance that eBay's security team might outright delete their account, and the case will be left hanging without you having to resolve it. I have only seen that happen once with a case (Not As Described, not INR). Usually, eBay will simply remove the buyer from the Buyer Protection Program, but you will still have to resolve the outstanding INR.

There is no perfect solution to untracked INRs. It's an unfortunate cost of doing business with Canada Post and items that cost less. For items above a certain amount, you may want to check the buyer's feedback profile and then decide if it is worth it to pay for tracking as a form of insurance. eBay just introduced a new Canada Post Expedited service that is only about $8 for anything under 200g. There is also registered lettermail, which is an additional $9.75 on top of the lettermail price. 

[reallynicestamps]

The phone reps have a terrible reputation for getting you off the phone as soon as possible even if that mean giving you the advice you want to hear instead of the advice you need to have.


https://www.facebook.com/eBayForBusiness/ — Message button in upper right on landing page.

https://twitter.com/askebay?lang=en


https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/How-do-I-contact-Customer-Support/m-p/32016431#M1783851 -> Automated Assistant, type AGENT -> enter. You will then get more options.


The social media Chat accounts are covered by trained eBay employees with some authority.
And you get a transcript so you can compare what you heard with what you were told.
 

Your best option would be to establish that the buyer is using you as their supplier for dropshipping. EBay frowns on this.

They particularly detest it when the reseller uses Amazon as the supplier, because of the branding. The final customer quickly figures out that they were cheated and could have paid less on Amazon.

But they don't like members using other members to supply a third party.

[joels-retrocade]

You can extend your handling time to 10days, it pushes out the estimated delivery date when you do that and they can't open a case against you so quickly.  You will still get top rated seller discount for both Canada and US.

[rocketscollectibles]

Probably been said already. But there is nothing to do against INR when shipped untracked. Shipping is seller's responsability, and there is no proof of shipping. It's a waste of time to focus on those.

Even if your suspicions are legit, that we know this is most likely a dropshipper, and that he most likely made a false claim. At the end it's all based on assumptions. There's no real proofs.

As i wrote many times in previous threads, you do more by accepting to lose a package once in a while, than shipping tracked every order. It's just the game we're into as canadians.

Buyers making an abuse of the money back guarantee gets flagged and lose the ability to claim refunds at some point. I did read more than once stories on reddit where people could not understand why the 'return' button disapeared.  

I also had this kind of messages from US buyers asking for tracking, then claiming INR. They seems strong on that. From experience there is more INR claims from americans than canadians.

I'd recommend to use 'standard shipping' as shipping method on listings. This way buyers cannot premeditated INR, they can't know your shipping method. If you show lettermail and letterpost, you put a sticker on your listings that you ship untracked. You will be more targeted. 

[321continuegames]

"I'd recommend to use 'standard shipping' as shipping method on listings. This way buyers cannot premeditated INR, they can't know your shipping method. If you show lettermail and letterpost, you put a sticker on your listings that you ship untracked. You will be more targeted."

Thank you for this tip, I did not know. Apprecaite it.