Unreliable shipping notice

[francoism999]

Hi Everyone,

Hope you are having a good long winter.

As I was suspecting, the shipping notice that I receive by email from eBay (your item is being shipped) and also showing up against a purchase item (this item was shipped) is not reliable.

The reason I am saying that is because I won an auction at a low price since I was the only bidder.

2 days later I receive the usual notice that my item has been shipped.  It is also showing up has being shipped on my purchase list.

9 days after the supposed shipping date, I get a message from the seller saying that the item is no more available and that he must refund me ???

I have not much choice other than accept the refund.  However, I was not expecting the order to be canceled.  A good way for the seller to avoid a negative feedback IMO.  I should have been able to leave a feedback for that transaction. 

And I wonder why, when i leave detailed feedbacks for the shipping time, eBay shows me the date at which the item was shipped.  That simply doesn't mean anything.  That seems to only be the date at which the seller says he shipped the item, not necessarily the actual date.  eBay even states that it could change my shipping rating if they find that the shipping date is "acceptable" and I leave a low rating???  No wonder why most sellers have shipping time rating close to 5/5.

Anyway, all of this to say that the shipping date is not reliable and seem to be abused in some cases.

[pjcdn2005 · Accepted solution]

You should still be able to leave feedback for that transaction.  Click on your own feedback number to go to your feedback page. Near the bottom of the page click on leave feedback and that transaction should come up. 

If the seller just marks that an item has shipped but there is no tracking number showing that it was scanned by the carrier, that date isn’t really used by eBay for rating the seller.  You may see that date but as you said, that is no guarantee the item has or has not been shipped.  

When they cancelled the transaction, did they use the reason that the item was out of stock?  If so, they will get a mark against them from eBay.  But if they said there was a problem with the address or that you requested the cancellation, you might want to phone ebay and complain so that they know it was an out of stock situation,  sellers who do things like that frustrate buyers and that can affect all sellers.

 If you had refused to agree to cancel, you would have still been refunded  (not sure when though) but I think that might cause a mark against the seller...I’m not totally sure how that works though.

[francoism999]

You are absolutely right. Even though that transaction was no more on my purchase list, I was able to leave a feedback using the steps you mentionned. This is really not obvious. Thanks.

Now I left the negative feedback to the wrong seller... Another problem I will need to deal with. Should have waited when I would have been less tired.

Anyway, I do not see where that transaction went. I can not find a cancelled transactions list, nor the reason the seller indicated for the cancellation.

I suspect that the seller was expecting much higher bids and simply cancelled because he did not reach the minimum price he wanted.

The reason the seller gave me is that it was a "hot" item (to use his words) and that it was out of stock from the supplier for at least a month and that the best thing to do was to refund me. Not to sure what to do about this but it was very disappointing. I did not have, myself, to accept or refuse the cancellation. Not exactly sure how he did this but I did receive the refund for sure.

Thank you very much for your valuable help.

[femmefan1946]

@francoism999 

The reason the seller gave me is that it was a "hot" item (to use his words) and that it was out of stock from the supplier for at least a month and that the best thing to do was to refund me.

That means your seller did not have the item at all, and was dropshipping using a supplier for his photos, descriptions, and shipping.

From a buyer's point of view, this also means that every single seller of that supplier's product is also out of stock , although some may not know it yet.

For future reference, when you see a number of basically identical items, usually where the only difference is price, your Best Practice is to contact the seller and ask if he will be shipping from his own personal location, or if it will come from elsewhere*.

Your seller was naive to mark your item shipped when he notified his supplier of the sale. 

At best, he is out his FVF and has your feedback on his page.

At worst, he cancelled as Out of Stock and now has a Defect on his account.

Dropshipping seems like the easy way to sell online, but that is only true for the supplier. The seller takes responsibility for pictures, descriptions, titles, shipping, and quality, but has not control over any of those vital parts of the transaction.

The "low price" problem can be solved by only buying from Fixed Price listings, where the price is set by the seller where he is comfortable** and you can buy as soon as you see the item.

Auctions are a dying part of eBay, now less than 15% of all transactions.

*Elsewhere is often overseas, so look for a location overseas too.

** Although he may opt to accept reasonable Best Offers.