Last week I had a sale to a local buyer. This doesn't happen often. She sent me a lowball offer but I'm a small potato seller and am thinking it's time to bail on ebay soon and clear out my stock anyway so I accepted. I charge a flat fee for shipping, most of my sales go to the US and I figure the postage evens out. I have an unofficial policy that if I can ship it for more than a couple of dollars cheaper I refund the buyers paypal account with a note explaining why.
Because the buyer lives so close shipping was almost half what it costs me usually. (also perhaps because I have finally figured out the best way to package things) With the price of the item the total amount was about 25% cheaper. I thought I'd give eBay a call and see if I could get a break on my FVF. The amount would not have been much but I guess I was bored that evening.
I spoke to a NA rep and explained my case. I was told that unless I was refunding the customer 80% of the full price including shipping I would not get a break on my FVF. I told the rep that I had honestly never heard of such a thing and asked if this was a new rule. I'm pretty sure a few years ago I had a similar situation where I refunded a more substantial (but not near 80%) amount to a customer of my own accord and got some of my fee back. He said that it was probably just a one time courtesy. I don't believe I was ever told this was a one time courtesy. I asked him where I could find this rule in the help file and to please give me the address of the page. He gave me an address that did not work and I told him I was on eBay.ca. He then directed me to a page, I think it was this one:
https://www.ebay.ca/pages/help/sell/credits.html
Which basically states there must be a conflict resolved through eBay. But nothing about 80%. I stated that I was being an honest seller offering good customer service and that the information was vague. He then explained that eBay doesn't include all the information in the help files because sellers will find a way to take advantage of it. I said it was also a good way for eBay not to inform their sellers of the actual rules so that they may take advantage of the sellers and that I would like to escalate my case. He pretended not to understand what I meant and I explained that I wanted to speak to his supervisor. He agreed and asked me to hold. The whole time I was speaking to him I could barely hear what he said. The repetitive music they play when they put you on hold sure is loud though.
So I got another rep (I doubt he was a supervisor as his title was the same as the first guy) and he continued to repeat what the first rep said, that I would not get a break on my FVF unless there was a dispute and I was refunding 80% of the total. At this point I had not actually put the refund through because I wanted to ask customer service the best way to proceed. He asked me how I refunded and I asked him if the way to do it was through paypal and he said yes. So I asked him to wait as I put the refund through paypal. He said that the refund did not come through on eBays end immediately and I would have to call back the next day. I said, how about I make a screenshot and email it to you? He seemed impatient at this point but agreed. I asked for his email (I realise they don't give out emails but he was making this difficult) and he said he would email me in a few moments and I could send it to him then.
Of course at this point the time I had invested in getting a tiny bit of money back far outweighed the reward but things like this just get under my skin. Ebay won't post the full rules because sellers will take advantage of them?
A couple hours later I recieved an email from a different person, same title, refunding 25% of my final value fee. Nothing was mentioned that this was a special one time courtesy.
Has anyone else had this or something similar happen?
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