eBay

gemaddict · ‎10-29-2015

As anybody that has read my messages over the last few weeks know, I am about fed up with both eBay and CPC. From losing parcels, to ridiculous delivery estimate dates, to unwarranted defects, to buyers who don't seem to know what they are doing...etc...etc..etc.

I had a buyer from Finland message me saying the order that I sent on Sept. 29 was still not there on Oct.27. The estimated deliver date to Finland it was Oct 5-Oct.7. Later the same day it showed up. It was sent light packet international. It has been my experience that four weeks is not too uncommon for overseas shipments. However, thanks to eBay putting the expected delivery dates in flaming neon (well they may as well) I have had more buyers asking me then ever where their items are because "By golly eBay said it should be here by this date"). Um really? To top it all off some buyers use the "item not received" question which in turn gives you an automatic defect because it automatically opens a case. How fair is that?

I recently had one shipment to the U.S. that I ended up reshipping as it was a no show. The second order I put tracking on at my expense. The customer messages me to let me know that not only did it show up, the first order did as well. This was 41 days after the initial shipment!!!

Shipping tracked packet works on a very few of my orders as it is too expensive for most of what I sell. I had one tracked packet that I had to file a lost claim on because even though I handed it over the counter at CP it was never scanned into the system therefore didn't exist. Thankfully it finally showed up once it hit USPS. At least one postal company was doing it's job.

I have another order sitting on my desk that I mailed Oct.13 to Quebec. I got it back two weeks later saying that the address didn't exist. I had another one to Ontario three weeks ago that had the same problem. Funny though because after contacting the customer I find out the address is correct so I reshipped and they received it. I haven't reshipped this one as I have repeatedly tried to contact the customer with no results. I will be forced to cancel the order because of address issues even though chances are the address is fine. Naturally I will most likely incur another defect due to a very unhappy customer. Then there is the matter of orders coming back to me because CPC can't tell the difference between the sender and receiver address. I do highlight the "To" now to make sure..though I've still gotten one back. Sigh.

I lost my top rated seller status because of two defects that should NOT be on my account. I am going to call eBay and try to get them removed. However I am not sure I should bother because I expect I will be receiving many more. I can't imagine that I will still be an eBay seller once the new defect for ship time comes into effect, unless of course eBay comes to their senses.

In the meantime the only thing I think I can try is to go through my shipping and change everything to economy or standard. I refuse to change my handling time as I do believe buyers pay attention to that and if I list a longer handling time my business will become even slower then it is.

It would seem eBay is confused on what to rate sellers on and CPC is falling apart at the seams. Not looking very optimistic by any means!

gemaddict · ‎11-02-2015

@dutchman48 wrote:
Why did you not cancel due to address problem. You don't get a defect.

I did cancel due to an address problem...that is the problem.

gemaddict · ‎11-02-2015

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
How did you cancel and refund? Did you use the cancel order on ebay?

I simply clicked on cancel order in eBay. To which I had to select a reason. I could choose from either I didn't have it in stock or it was the buyer's choice / address was incorrect. Naturally I picked the second one. The refund was automatic.

momcqueen · ‎11-02-2015

I don't understand the reason this caused a defect. Is it an order-of-operation thing? Refund first, cancel second? Cancel first, refund second? Does it matter? Is it supposed to matter? Does anyone know? I don't.

I've had to cancel three paid orders because of legitimate address issues where I couldn't reach the buyer to have it clarified (before shipping) and none resulted in a defect.

Yours should be even more straightforward than that since OBVIOUSLY it wasn't out-of-stock if you SHIPPED IT and it was returned to you as a result of a problem with the address.

It simply makes no sense.

Have you tried the Board Hour on Wednesday?

gemaddict · ‎11-02-2015

@mjwl2006 wrote:
That matter with the extra defect is extremely unfortunate. If it were me, I'd call back.

When ebay leaves me on hold for 30+ minutes, I take the phone into the bathroom (because you know by then I'm doing that special dance people do because they drank yet another cup of coffee to stave off thoughts-of-suicide provoked by that wretched muzak) and, sure enough, at the most inopportune time possible, the rep will miraculously surface. It works. Every. Single. Time.

Too much information, I know.

I intend on calling back. They are really not doing so well when they estimate the wait time, maybe CPC is supplying them. When I first got on the line it said the wait time was 3 minutes. Too bad we can't give them defects. Thank you for the advice. I will drink a pot of coffee before I call tomorrow 😉 Whatever works!

gemaddict · ‎11-03-2015

@mjwl2006 wrote:
I don't understand the reason this caused a defect. Is it an order-of-operation thing? Refund first, cancel second? Cancel first, refund second? Does it matter? Is it supposed to matter? Does anyone know? I don't.

I've had to cancel three paid orders because of legitimate address issues where I couldn't reach the buyer to have it clarified (before shipping) and none resulted in a defect.

Yours should be even more straightforward than that since OBVIOUSLY it wasn't out-of-stock if you SHIPPED IT and it was returned to you as a result of a problem with the address.

It simply makes no sense.

Have you tried the Board Hour on Wednesday?

I don't think it's an order of operation at all. It is pretty much automated. Select cancel order, then you select the reason and eBay automatically refunds. As simple as that...except for me not so simple. Thanks again eBay! I have cancelled for buyer's before without issue. Naturally it was not a tracked order so maybe eBay is assuming I am lying. Sheesh. I have the order sitting here in it's envelope with CPC stickers on it stating that there is no such address and return to sender...of course it is also postmarked. I am trying really hard to not become too disgusted with eBay and CPC...it's getting very difficult though.

I could try Board Hour however I am fairly certain I will be told to phone CS which I plan on doing again even though I'm coming to dread that as well.

momcqueen · ‎11-03-2015

There's an automatic refund?

Today apparently was not a good day to call eBay. I'm thinking there were some site issues.

gemaddict · ‎11-03-2015

@mjwl2006 wrote:
There's an automatic refund?

Today apparently was not a good day to call eBay. I'm thinking there were some site issues.

Yes there was an automatic refund. I had to give eBay permission to issue the refund if I recall correctly. It's the first time I've cancelled an order that was already paid for so it was news to me.

I was trying to take advantage of free listings today and was not very successful. It was almost impossible with all the errors. Either that or you would get to the very end of the listing and when you went to post it would lose everything. I imagine that was the reason for the extra long wait times to talk to CS.

momcqueen · ‎11-03-2015

Are you enrolled in the managed Returns program? Maybe this has something to do with the unwarranted defect(s). A parcel returned by the post office isn't the same as one returned by a customer so perhaps there is an internal misidentification by eBay of the reasons...? I'm sure that you weren't the only seller who said lately that they're getting defects for orders cancelled due to address issues, and I wonder if that's the missing link.

pjcdn2005 · ‎11-03-2015

My memory isn't always that great but the only recent problem I remember hearing about is the seller who said they got a defect for cancelling a bid. In that case I wonder if their defect report actually stated that was the listing that received the defect because I've never heard of that happening before.

rose-dee · ‎11-03-2015

@mjwl2006 wrote:
Are you enrolled in the managed Returns program? Maybe this has something to do with the unwarranted defect(s).

I could be wrong, but I thought Managed Returns was (at least at this time) still only available to U.S. sellers (I'm sure 'pj' will correct me if I'm mistaken, but I seem to recall asking Raphael about this quite some time ago).

At any rate, there is another report on these boards (from a Canadian seller) of a cancellation generating an automatic refund, so it may be that eBay's programming is currently set up that way. However, as usual they may not have thought through the entire process to also ensure that sellers don't get defects for such cancellations where the reason indicated by the seller is a problematic address.

There is another factor involved I think: eBay must be very busy in the background -- or will be very soon -- gearing up for February 20, 2016, when their entire defect system is going to have to be completely rebuilt. It must be a programming nightmare, and I think we can all expect more monkey business going on in the foreground as a result.

pjcdn2005 · ‎11-03-2015

Managed returns is basically like the regular return system except the seller can set it up to generate labels automatically and to take off a restocking fee for buyer remorse returns. According to the help pages, anyone can register for it but the label setup only works if both buyer and seller are in the U.S. I don't see how managed returns would have anything to do with this problem anyway because it wasn't a return. It was an undelivered item.

Until we hear from the OP, my best guess is that a refund was done through paypal and no cancellation was done so the system may have assumed it was a seller cancellation. Or, if the buyer filed an inr, a defect would kick in then but if the seller has online proof that the package was returned because the address was wrong, the defect should be removable.

momcqueen · ‎11-03-2015

You're right, one of the instances I was thinking about was where another seller said the transaction defect was due to a cancelled bid which also makes no sense. The part here that made me wonder if this was Managed Returns is the automatic refund; I've never had or heard of a refund that would generate automatically so I wonder how or where things changed with that.

Regardless, if sellers are getting defects for reasons they're not supposed to get defects for, there is a problem that needs to be addressed. I'd rest a little easier if we could get to the bottom of it. Long ago, I complained my Tracked Packets to USA weren't being recognized as having been sent with shipping that was validated, and it's an error that has since blossomed. Like UPCS being wiped out on the Bulk Editor etc. It's always just a few people who see it at first before it becomes widespread. I have a sneaking suspicion that ebay uses certain sellers as test subjects for behind-the-scenes process changes without telling them and then waits to see who complains about what before rolling it out en masse to the rest of us. I don't generally subscribe to conspiracy theories, either. But that is a theory only. I have no evidence to support it. Only coincidence.

pjcdn2005 · ‎11-05-2015

The part here that made me wonder if this was Managed Returns is the automatic refund; I've never had or heard of a refund that would generate automatically so I wonder how or where things changed with that.

I just reread part of the thread and realized I had missed the part where the OP said she cancelled through ebay and that the refund was done automatically. When you cancel an order through ebay and an item has been paid for the refund happens at the same time. It's not managed returns but it is a change they made in the cancellation process earlier this year. If the seller gives the reason that the buyer changed mind/problem with address, there isn't supposed to be an defect given so I have no idea why one was given in this case unless the buyer filed an inr.

momcqueen · ‎11-05-2015

Oh! Really? It didn't work that way for me with my last Cancel Order and refund. There was a problem with the buyer address, I couldn't reach them before I'd be obligated to complete dispatch. I cancelled it, then refunded. It was y automatic. The following morning, the buyer repurchased with a corrected address so it all worked out in the end.

pjcdn2005 · ‎11-05-2015

@mjwl2006 wrote:
Oh! Really? It didn't work that way for me with my last Cancel Order and refund. There was a problem with the buyer address, I couldn't reach them before I'd be obligated to complete dispatch. I cancelled it, then refunded. It was y automatic. The following morning, the buyer repurchased with a corrected address so it all worked out in the end.

It was not automatic? Had the item been shipped yet? I think that the process is different for items that show as being shipped vs the ones who have not been shipped.

momcqueen · ‎11-05-2015

It wasn't. The buyer was in Italy and the address supplied fatally flawed so that I couldn't print a label. It routed to the old Cancel Order interface, the one we haven't seen for a year or two. Same with an unpaid cancel order request (child bought while unattended) that week for a buyer in France. Both went to the old screens we used to see, like they're on a different program yet to be updated on ebayit and ebayfr. Maybe that's the reason. I rarely if ever get paid orders to cancel although there has been a few, and none already shipped.

momcqueen · ‎11-05-2015

(Oh and I must have mis-typed something. In my post I wrote 'was y refunded' and it should say WASN'T. The refund was not at all automatic. I am on a mobile device and the boards are very difficult for me to navigate like this.)

gemaddict · ‎11-05-2015

Finally made it back to the boards! I went to call CS again yesterday over the cancelled due to out of stock defect. I checked my dashboard before doing so and may wonders never cease, eBay had already removed it! Could have knocked me over with a feather. Now If I could only get the item not received defect taken off I would actually get my TSR and discount back. I won't hold my breath.

Not sure if anyone else has gone to their dashboard but when I do it has a pop up showing what my defect rating/dashboard would look like using the new system starting Feb/2016.

Since they base the late shipment on FB left I had 22 FB between Sept.12 and Oct.31. Out of 22 one was considered late. My percentage was 4.55%. This was for Global setting. To remain TSR you must have 5% or less. So with only one late shipment I would be a teeny tiny step away from being booted out of TSR. This is even scarier then I imagined.

momcqueen · ‎11-05-2015

The new Dashboard preview is brand new, like brand spanking new. It wasn't there even this morning.

dutchman48 · ‎11-05-2015

And if you had 2, you would possibly be close to not being able to list. And it may not even be your fault.

That is what everyone is concerned about. because it is not based on transactions but feedback, and feedback left is diminishing, any bad one can make a seller look far worse than they really are.