eBay

musicyouneed · ‎10-21-2016

I went out for breakfast and there were no seats so I asked to sit down with a guy who looked like he was almost finished. We got to talking and he was on his phone trying to purchase something on ebay. I told him that I sold on ebay and so our conversation got started.

He stated he had a couple of bad experiences recently and I asked him about it. He said that he had ordered 4 things (all the same), 2 from 1 seller in California on Oct 10 and 2 from 2 other sellers on the same day. The 2 from the other sellers arrived on Oct 14 and the 2 from the other seller did not arrive until Oct 19. They were all being sent to his address in the US so there were no customs issues. What he was upset about was the fact that ebay told him he would receive it by Oct 17 and it arrived Oct 19. He was going to give the seller negative feedback because he was supposed to receive it by Oct 17, he was blaming the seller.

I asked him who told him that he would receive it by Oct 17, was it the seller and he said that it was ebay. I explained that ebay gives an estimated delivery based on what type of shipping the seller was using and that those were extremely tight and somewhat unrealistic. I also explained that once it is put in the mail, the seller loses control and shouldn't be blamed for all the delays. I also asked him about the sellers handling time and he said he didn't look at that.

I think that those dates that ebay provides to the buyer create an unrealistic expectation of something arriving by a certain date and that if it doesn't arrive by that date, it has created a negative experience for the buyer. Why would you want to create such a negative experience for them, they may not come back. I sent a CD from Vancouver to Victoria and it took 5 working days, I could have walked there faster.

momcqueen · ‎10-27-2016

Well, that page contains different information. However, if it's still live on an eBay.ca Help page, eBay should be required to honor it. Otherwise, how does it expect people to follow rules that are secret?

But that's another thread for a different day.

I don't see the situation reflected in the original post specified in that eBay.com page. Can anyone speculate where it might fit in?

i.am.vivian · ‎10-27-2016

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
That policy was replaced a while ago but quite often the .ca pages aren't updated. Customer service is supposed to follow this policy now.....

I didn't look up defect removal, I looked up feedback removal. I saw an open question, a good question that I didn't know for sure either, and looked it up. I didn't wait quietly for someone else to answer so I could channel my energies and time into making a show of "correcting" the other member. There is nothing on the FEEDBACK REMOVAL page that says "This policy is no longer valid" and the eBay policy page is there with eBay's information. Defects and negatives are not synonymous terms although they do sometimes coincide.

pjcdn2005 · ‎10-27-2016

Well, I can't make you believe me but If you click on your link, replace the ca with com, you'll see the link that I gave because that policy replaced the old policy. I realize that most people aren't aware of that so I was trying to be helpful. Unless something is directly Canadian related such as trs standards, it's best to search the help pages on .com because they are more up to date,

You were obviously offended by my post but that was not my intention.There are constant changes and I don't think anyone of us is aware or can keep up with all of them.

i.am.vivian · ‎10-28-2016

Nah, I wasn't offended. Its OK, we're good. It's all good. Thanks for the reply and clearing it all up.

In spite of Canada's manifestly second class status with eBay, as mjwl pointed out the information on http://pages.ebay.ca/help/policies/feedback-removal.html#what is up, "live" and appears fully operational. Therefore eBay should stand by it, enforce it, and abide by it right up until the page is removed. It is unacceptable to suppose that, while other aspects of eBay Canada are imposed without exception due to the location (like no eBay Bucks), some policies will be visible but not viable. They can't keep it a secret or expect people to guess. And they really can't expect users to presume that some policies are the ones on dot com, but some not, and to know which is which, and when. That's just not on.

More to the point is that eBay Canada currently has both: pages for feedback removal, and pages for defect removal. Two to choose from, ostensibly depending on what ails the seeker.

http://pages.ebay.ca/help/policies/defect-removal.html#guidelines

The defect policy page then says eBay will remove negative FB when

We can determine through valid tracking that the defect, feedback, or late shipment was the direct result of systemic delays in shipping

but they use examples of hurricanes and Customs stoppages. Is typically slow mail service a "systemic delay"?

In some instances it says, Sellers may appeal in these cases;

You upload tracking that confirms the item was shipped within the handling time or the item was delivered by the estimated delivery date, but the late shipment rate wasn't automatically updated because the tracking isn't integrated with eBay

Some days I feel I must be developing that cheesy, hole-riddled early-onset Alzheimer brain because I have read this over and over and it still sounds like gobbledygook.

So,

You upload tracking that confirms the item was shipped within the handling time or the item was delivered by the estimated delivery date,

Or? Can that, then, be said to imply

You upload tracking that confirms the item was shipped within the handling time BUT the item was NOT delivered by the estimated delivery date,

(even though)

the late shipment rate wasn't automatically updated because the tracking isn't integrated with eBay.

But what if tracking WAS integrated and the buyer STILL left a neg for getting an item on the 19th and not the 17th?

I give up. Can anyone else make heads or tails of this?

momcqueen · ‎10-28-2016

I cannot.

Like me I said earlier, it seems illogical and grossly unfair that a seller can ship on-time and within their handling time as proven by an acceptance scan and tracking yet still be hit with negative feedback if the carrier screws up and delivers it late.

Yes, I understand negative feedback does not mean defect, however, it still reflects poorly on a seller to show it.

I also understand that the (ahem) Feedback Specialists were wasting their days arguing with sellers about this which is the reason it was abandoned. To shut us up and make us go away.

But this brings me back to my first point. It's not fair that a seller can get negged for shipping on-time if the carrier delivers it late. It's not like sellers are allowed to deliver items ourselves, or I'd be subcontracting to the Mo Phoney Express with my own postage labels and tracking and driving stuff across town myself when possible.