eBay Can be Extremely Heavy Handed and UNFAIR

[esb96]

Sold a book to a buyer in Spain. Sent the book by surface and bought the shipping label through eBay. It can take up to 6 weeks for the parcel to get delivered. eBay gave the buyer the unrealistic expectation of having the item in 2 weeks. The buyer opens and inquiry and eBay immediately puts a hold on my funds. This is heavy handed and UNFAIR. I have talked with eBay representitives on at least 3 occassions about this and the reps all agreed with me that I did everything correct, however the hold on my funds remain. 

I since cancelled 200 items I had for sale and will not buy or sell anything on eBay. There's no way eBay should treat their sellers like this. I have sold over 240 items successfully with ZERO complaints, so why this bad treatment eBay?

[mrdutch1001]

well, unfortunately, no sympathies here...shipping ANYTHING "surface" mail these days is a huge, huge RISK! and definitely not something that should be undertaken unless you are prepared for any and all consequences...

While eBay may have not provided the correct estimated delivery time, eBay can and will with hold funds to any seller at any time for any reason...and that has been discussed at great length in numerous threads over the past few years...

as a seller you  it is your responsibility to know these things...as a seller it is your responsibility to know that you are responsible in every way for the shipping methods YOU select....and "surface" mail is at best a gamble no matter what the International destination outside of North America...

You may have been just "lucky " with all those other transactions but the reality is there are NO guarantees of anything here or anywhere else...

and if you think these payment holds only happen on eBay, well then you have not dealt with other large selling venues, that do exactly the very same thing...

Best  to think about this as a "lesson learned" and stop blaming the selling venue...

C'est la vie!

Que sera, sera...

[pjcdn2005]

I agree that the estimated delivery dates for international surface are way off which is why few sellers use that method to ship. Customers have been able to open a claim after the estimated delivery date for years so often sellers who use that method have to refund when the item doesn't arrive by the estimated date.  Perhaps you weren't aware of that.

It can be frustrating however, if you have had a number of successful transactions, are you sure that you want to stop selling because one transaction did not go well?

[brettjet38]

@esb96  "I have sold over 240 items successfully with ZERO complaints, so why this bad treatment eBay?"

A - eBay is following eBay policy.

B - As the Seller, you are responsible to know, understand & follow said policies, you agreed to them when you signed up.

One of those policies is that the Seller is responsible for an item until it is delivered with tracking to the Buyer...

So, if you decide to use untracked surface shipping to send packages to the EU or other far-flung places in order to get that "sale" via cheaper shipping baiting, you are responsible, not the Buyer.

It's like shipping items via letter mail without tracking and then complaining because the Buyer said they did not receive it...

As for ending ALL your listings because of your own oversight, OK.

I have sold thousands and thousands of items over the decades, and not one ever went via surface to any International destinations why because it has always been slow and full of risks...

[reallynicestamps]

The slowness of delivery is why the USPS no longer offers Surface rates.

Buyers want shipping cheap, fast and secure.

Surface seems cheap but is not fast. Allow about three months for delivery- actually in these pandemic times, allow six months.

It is not cheap, because you will be refunding your impatient customer.

It is not secure, because the longer any package is in transit the more likely it is to get damaged.

[fh991586]

Buyers don't want to pay 3 to 4 times the book's value in shipping, and that's what air rates are for book sent oversea.  And it's not even that fast from Canada.

But I don't understand why it's faster and cheaper to send the same weight/volume from France to Canada...  I know buying from there is easy, but selling to them is definitely a no go!

[mrdutch1001]

Most of what I sell, whether it be listed on eBay or my other selling sites, has shipping cost that is way more than the selling price of the item...

However, I don't even bother to offer shipping outside of North America anymore = simply not worth the effort, the pain, and all the risks...

"MOST" BUYERS look at TOTAL cost of the item...what is the difference:  $10 item with $25 shipping or same item@ $25 with $10 shipping?

If a book, or for that matter ANY item, is hard to find, not readily available locally,etc, a buyer will pay what THEY feel is THE price THEY are willing to pay...

Sellers need to leave the buying decision to the buyers...