Transaction Defects - New performance Standards

[canukadin]

As a relatively low volume seller I keep an eye on my transaction defects since ebay is focusing on them to document my performance standards. I had 4 items with defects out of 217 in the last year. 1 neutral feedback (buyer used feedback to ask a question) 1 item not received case (item sold Nov 29 - case opened Dec 30 - case closed by buyer when item arrived Jan 7th) 2 cancelled transactions (software that could not be registered in the buyers country and they requested a cancellation of the sale prior to shipping). I contacted ebay about this and was informed there is no way (presently) they can remove any of the 4. If the item not received had been escalated and they ruled in my favor, it would not show, I was told. Apparently, all of this is to "provide for a more positive buyer experience". We all know 100% buyer satisfaction is the goal but there will always be buyers with unreasonable expectations. There has to be a recourse or appeal mechanism for transaction defects other than the standard line "you are doing great, sorry, I have no way rectifying the problem".

[pierrelebel]

I suggest you bring your comments and questions to the staff and management of eBay.ca tomorrow (Wednesday) at 1:00pm (Eastern) during the "Weekly Board Hour":

http://community.ebay.ca/t5/Weekly-Board-Hour-Session/bd-p/23000000073

[thebarterersdog]

Did anything come of this post? I too am having a hell of a time with the same kind of issues affecting my TRS score. I even think buyer's remorse is another issue involved with my issues but there seems to be nothing I can do about any of this. Ridiculous after thousands of sales, I'm left with a terrible outcome because of the 3 buyers, mostly new, who were too lazy to read the description or contact me first with issues/questions. I would be interested in reading how your question was answered, or if you received a good response at the meetings about this.

Janet

[rose-dee]

---

@thebarterersdog wrote:

I would be interested in reading how your question was answered, or if you received a good response at the meetings about this.

---

I agree with your comments, I think all smaller sellers are now living in fear of those few defects knocking them down the competitive ladder on eBay (or restricting their selling entirely). 

Personally I doubt eBay will be changing anything about this defect system.  In fact, I won't be surprised if they tighten it even further in the Spring 2015 Update (which I'm dreading!).  Once they saw how popular the TRS programme was, they probably realized it was a mistake having permitted so many smaller sellers to achieve it, and tey had to think up a system to weed a lot of them out.  The defect system clearly favours sellers with high volumes. 

One point to keep in mind though is that the defect rate won't affect your status until you have transactions with defects from at least 5 different buyers (for TRS sellers), or 8 different buyers (for regular sellers).  That might be some comfort, as little a concession as it is. 

[whotoldya]

Thank you for the link.

This is very helpful.