Items not arriving
Summary: The discussion revolves around issues with items not arriving as expected. Various participants, including gav1615, sandypebbles, and *casey*, engage in sharing their experiences and concerns about delayed shipments. clockwork_planet also contributes to the conversation, while others like springyzone and skyrider12-au add their input, making it a broad discussion on postal and delivery challenges faced during the holiday season and beyond.
I have tried 3 different sellers to buy an item over the last 9 weeks, same story.
1. Item marked "sent untracked".
2. Does not arrive, commence Ebay process.
3. Seller claims lost by courier, will refund within 2 days and item now out of stock.
4. Ebay intervenes and issues refund.
On my last attempt my message to seller was
" do not accept my order if you do not provide tracking number",
All 3 never had or sent the product, they claim they are now out of stock but continue to offer it for sale.
What is this nonsense ?.
My honest negative feedback was deleted.
GOOD NEWS - I tried Amazon for the first time. Same item.
1. Ordered Sunday 21st December
2. Arrived Wednesday morning 24th December.
Within 2 business days Xmas week !
One thing left to say - Goodbye 👋
clockwork_planet
·9 months agoEbay removes any negative feedback if the seller asks for it. There's no point leaving feedback, and there's no point checking it. So many sellers fail to supply these days. Even if you refuse their request to cancel (so they have to cancel), if you leave a neg with "supplier cancelled order" it will get removed.
It's a cess pit.
lezned-toycollector
·9 months agoOf course such a comment would be removed - and rightly so. You have absolutely no way of knowing whether the supplier cancelled the seller's order.
As you are aware, leaving feedback that doesn't relate to the transaction is grounds for removal. What else would you expect?
I would suggest taking a little more care when wording your feedback comments in future. I suspect you actually wanted to write "seller cancelled order", which is an entirely different scenario. Unless you purchased directly from the manufacturer, your seller and the item supplier are totally different entities.
springyzone
·9 months agoI don't think they always remove it, it depends on circumstances and probably also to some extent what ebay rep the seller gets to speak to.
So my advice would be to continue to give feedback. I've seen plenty that is still up that says something along the lines of 'My order was cancelled' etc.
Even if you're not game to say that, just say something along the lines of "I was very unhappy with how this transaction turned out.'
I had a friend (a seller) who tried to get feedback removed because of an unfair complaint and the ebay rep said-cannot be removed as it is about how they feel.
And it is definitely still worth checking feedback. Even though some gets removed, there is often enough left to get a feel for any recurring problems (if any).
sandypebbles
·9 months agoIf you don't want your feedback removed, don't post comments which are against policy
No, eBay do not remove ANY neg feedback
They remove it when the person leaving it thinks the policy doesn't apply to them
Simple
Of course you could stop supporting dodgy sellers so you would not have the need to neg
Just clicked on two random in your feedbacks
96.8% and another with 97%
That IS a cess pit and you made the choice to support them anyway
Funny how you complain about eBay removing YOUR neg but you ignore many many many negs from numerous scammer seller you are helping stay in business
Why do you believe your neg would be the one to turn other buyers off?
clockwork_planet
·9 months agoOh you are so tiresome in your responses, and you respond to me as though I am newbie. I have been buying and selling on eBay since it launched in Australia. I was a powerseller for several years. I ran a business that was actually quite successful, until eBay drastically changed the fee structure for stores, essentially putting me out of business overnight as I was selling specialized, high value spare parts that could take months to find the right buyer. But that is not the point of this thread.
You repeatedly blame the victims of low quality sellers. Perhaps you are fortunate in that all the things you want to buy can be found from sellers with 100% positive feedback. I am not, and many others are not. Most sellers have feedback less than 100%, and the comments left by buyers are often not particularly clear. But even at 96%, one must assume that the majority of sales complete successfully. Most of what I buy on eBay is pretty low value, I'm not freaking out at the thought of losing $20 but I am annoyed when a purchase I thought was done and paid for and on its way to me turns out to instead be a back and forth with a seller who wants me to cancel my order. It's tedious and frustrating.
You accuse me of thinking that the policy doesn't apply to me. Which policy states that I can't leave feedback saying the seller cancelled the order? You seem to have an answer for everything, you should be able to manage that.
davewil1964
·9 months agoIn your 20 years you obviously haven't worked out how buying works.
Your Powerseller account was not obviously this one, so why reference it? I have three eBay accounts, the other 2 are Powersellers. Relevance?
clockwork_planet
·9 months agoRelevance? I'm hoping it will persuade a certain member that they don't need to talk to me like I just fell out of a tree.
But please, what can you explain to me about buying that I haven't worked out?
*casey*
·9 months agoclockwork_planet
·9 months agoThanks Casey. And there was just another one - the seller told me they could not ship to me, and asked me to cancel. I refused. They cancelled "problem with buyer's address". I waited for the refund then left a neg with "seller cancelled order". It got removed.
But I'm sure there are some deities here that can explain to us all how I'm the problem.
lezned-toycollector
·9 months agoOf course it was removed. The seller wouldn't even have to request it, as it would be picked up by the bots. In fact, the seller is probably completely unaware that you left negative feedback at all. Most times the bots do their thing before the seller notices.
Would you be so kind as to share why you think eBay policy shouldn't apply to you? I mean, after all, you did agree with it.
The correct procedure would be to contact an eBay agent PRIOR to leaving feedback, and have the cancellation reason changed to "out of stock". Once that is done - neg away
*casey*
·9 months ago*casey*
·9 months agoAnd in regards to 'policies', let's not forget the Order Cancellation Policy
Abusing the order cancellation process
"Sellers aren't allowed to abuse the order cancellation process.
A seller should never cancel an order and select an incorrect cancellation reason"
sandypebbles
·9 months agoWell aware of the basic policies
I am sorry you taker offence at factual replies
You keep saying how experienced you are yet you make the choice to support dodgy sellers who have mountains of negs and complain when your neg was removed
You are not a victim, nor do I blame ‘victims’
I point out simple facts
check feedback before buying
if something goes wrong, open and follow through with a dispute
no blaming victims, just people not wanting to take ANY responsibility for their own buying choices
If you think 96% is good, despite them having neg after neg from unhappy buyers then nobody can help you with that
I am not lucky, I care about who I buy from and I choose not to support dodgy sellers and then complain about it
If I blame ‘victims’ as you claim, decent sellers are the victims of buyers supporting dodgy sellers over the decent sellers
Your status as to your seller rating and business interests do not get you special treatment but only highlight that you should care more about who you buy from
But since you brought up the angle, since I had a selling account for almost 20 years, with a couple of thousand sales etc etc etc, I should also have the right to post factual replies with zero sugar coating
springyzone
·9 months agoI haven't had it happen to me where a seller cancelled an order but yes, it would be frustrating if it happened a few times and doubly frustrating if a seller lied about the reason eg problem with address.
I understand why the sellers do it as no one wants their account impacted by too many out of stock cancellations, but it is a bit sneaky if it blocks you from giving feedback.
I thought lezned's post was very interesting, where it was pointed out that a buyer would need to contact ebay and get the seller's cancellation reason changed to out of stock before giving feedback.
I'd be willing to guarantee that the average buyer wouldn't realise that and I have no idea if ebay would oblige or not. Guess it depends on what was said in private messages.
I think sometimes ebay is very unfair with what it removes. Some time ago (a couple of years) I had a feedback comment removed. I had included photos as well and I could have sworn I had not broken any policies. The seller never ever answered messages from me (or other buyers it seems) but boy they were quick off the mark to get negatives deleted.
In my opinion, ebay should read the negs. If there is just a section in there that breaks their policy, delete that part but let the rest stand. Okay, some shorter comments or comments that were just rude might have to be deleted in their entirety but I bet a lot of others wouldn't.
countessalmirena
·9 months agoOne helpful way to avoid the faked shop closing down scam: reverse image search. Copy-paste the image (of an item supposedly being sold by a respected Australian shop) into Google, and see where else it is being used. It will almost certainly pop up in Temu or similar.
Also… assume a closing-down sale ad is fake… unless you’ve verified it.
If the ad has a video announcing the closing down sale, you can probably still detect the AI nature of it. Same or similar script, voicing a bit off, some details not quite right visually… but this will all get harder to detect as AI develops further. However, for now it’s still a useful barometer.
Check when a website was created or domain name was registered (websiteage.org, WHOIS). Most fake sites will be recent as fake sites are taken down in the vast and ongoing battle to cut down on these scams, so new ones will pop up all the time.
eBay needs to do more. In the case of fake tracking, where a buyer on eBay has their claim denied, and it can be proved that the listing or seller was reported to eBay but eBay failed to take sufficient action, well… there is a pathway there for an outcome that eBay would not like.
countessalmirena
·9 months agoThe online buying options are global nowadays, and buying some items from here and some items from there isn’t an either/or situation. eBay is fine if one knows what to but on its platform and how to use it to avoid issues - but I agree there are some goods I’d not buy here (from some sellers).
springyzone
·9 months agoI still use ebay but before you pay over a cent to anyone, you need to check prices and on ebay, you also need to check out the sellers very carefully. It's not as if you are actually buying from ebay itself, you're buying from a seller who is just using ebay as their place to list their goods.
Ebay is not the best spot to buy quite a few things, especially electronics or anything electrical from China.
But it is still great for some items. If you're wanting an out of print book, for example, you might find it here.
Amazon is a collection of different sellers too but the difference is I think Amazon actually stores the stock from a lot of those sellers. And it is responsible for the postage and delivery, which means it has a lot more control over the whole selling/packaging/delivery syystem. If Amazon says delivery will be on X day, it is almost guaranteed that is exactly when it will be. That's why buyers love it-quick and reliable.
But do your homework and if an item you have been searching for is cheaper on ebay, don't be afraid to buy if the seller checks out as ultra reliable.
gav1615
OP9 months agoThanks for your response.
I'll still be using Ebay, mostly for used items offered for auction. I've had no issues whatsoever with private type sellers. I hope Ebay do sort out the issues with others.
Warm regards.
skyrider12-au
·9 months agoDodgy sellers in almost every category trading in Ebay, you seem to have had contacts with quite a few of them. Your decision to leave Ebay and give your business to Amazon is an excellent one, I have never encountered any problems during the several years of buying from them. Good luck to you.
*casey*
·9 months ago"I have tried 3 different sellers to buy an item over the last 9 weeks, same story"
They're generally shonky dropshippers and much of the time , it's the same shonky seller with multiple IDs.
"My honest negative feedback was deleted"
I noticed you wrote this in one of your feedback.
"Worst experience ever. Seller advised item out of stock and requested i cancel, they then declined the request"
Shonky sellers like this test the unwary buyers to see if they know the rules.
If a seller cancels a transaction due to being out of stock, they receive a defect from eBay.
If a buyer requests a cancellation, they don't receive a defect and any negative feedback will be removed if the seller reports it.
For a lot of buyers these days, it's getting all too hard and time consuming to find good sellers (even though there are plenty of them) and eliminate bad sellers.
The site is flooded with scams, dropshippers, Chinese sellers etc
Check their feedback, rearrange feedback from relevant to recent, check their country oif registration, check the item location although much of the time that's a lie etc etc
With so many online places to shop, buyers are fed up....and they're leaving.
I wouldn't want to be a new buyer these days.
In regards to Amazon , I can only speak from my own experience of buying with Amazon delivery only.
Search the item you want.
Narrow down the search on the left hand side of the page - easy examples:
Prime - Ships from Australia or
Free Delivery by Amazon
Seller - Amazon AU
Choose the item/s, add to cart, pay, delivered quickly.
All too easy !
gav1615
OP9 months agoThanks Casey, well said and excellent advice for Ebay and Amazon.
The seller feed back for one of my disaster buys was only 1 negative (quality related) and over 400 positive. ( funny they had 1.7 k transactions ?). This was the one where my feedback was deleted, I think.
I live rural and online buying is important.
It's a shame it has got to this, Ebay use to be brilliant, trusted, I hope they can get back there.
Sweet regards.
clockwork_planet
·9 months agoEbay won't get back there, they are well into their death spiral. Same as PayPal. Losing buyers hand over fist, trying desperately to squeeze every dollar out of everyone involved while providing awful service.
Their MO used to be genuine people selling used items to each other. Then they got greedy and wanted to be the world's marketplace selling everything to everyone. It was a cash cow. A computer program staffed by a handful of uni graduates who fiddled with fees and store structures to maximize profit. Squeezed genuine small scale sellers out of business (ask me how I know). Bent over backwards for the Chinese category flooders.
The buyer's experience on Amazon is so much better they don't even compete. I live in a rural area and can order stuff at 9pm and have it arrive the next day, FREE. Issues are resolved swiftly and smoothly, directly with Amazon. I hardly ever need to deal with the seller directly.
I'd love it if eBay could return to the peer-to-peer, used item marketplace, but it's too late. Facebook et al have that stitched up now. So what's left? A few decent sellers and millions of spammy, scammy dropshippers that can't deliver and have your money for days or weeks at a time while you do the dance of trying to get a refund. And eBay don't have the resources or the desire to fix it. They'll just continue to milk it til it's dead.
sandypebbles
·9 months agoAnd buyers who don't have the desire to check basics like feedback, supporting the scammers and ensuring they stay in business
No dancing required
Buyers don't have support them in the first place
Buyers don't play games when them if they do
Buyers are shown the estimated delivery date before they buy, so no waiting weeks unless they have chosen to do so
I am not aware of any site that babysits customers and then gives special treatment to those who think the site's policy won't apply to them
But of course, I don't choose to support dodgy sellers so I do not face those avoidable problems
springyzone
·9 months agoI think every buyer these days should be checking things out carefully before they pay a cent anywhere, whether ebay or not.
There are a lot of scam sites around, the so called 'ghost shops' are rampant, there are a lot of Chinese sites trying to pass themselves off as Australian, people should not take it for granted that just because it is on ebay, it will be fine. They really do need to double check feedback and recent records.
Unfortunately, there are still a lot of buyers who just let things go. My own daughter was almost one of them years back when something didn't arrive. We're talking a cheap item, but her attitude was-I don't know how to do that (open a claim), it's only a few dollars, I haven't got time for complicated stuff (as if she is some tycoon or something).
I pushed her to make a claim. If buyers would just take the time to read up the help pages when things go wrong and follow up on things, it would soon make an impact on some of the dodgy sellers, I am sure.
sandypebbles
·9 months agoSo, so true
A Facebook friend posted this morning about fake sites claiming to be Dusk
And last year (I think it was) there were numerous warnings about fake Peter Alexander sites
People can only be warned so many times about the need to check and care about what they are buying and from whom
My friend said the fake 'Dusk' site looked 100% fake but people were still saying 'But it's Dusk'
No, it ain't
*casey*
·9 months ago@clockwork_planet
"while you do the dance of trying to get a refund"
You were extremely lucky to to receive a refund as quickly as you did.
In the cases of fake tracking scams, eBay always sides with the scammer / criminal first.
Buyers have to jump through hoops to prove the fake tracking scams and very often, even after fighting to the end,
still don't receive a refund.
We see it here from time to time but the US boards are flooded with fake tracking scam threads.
The difference between now and the early beginnings is that now eBay constantly aids and abets fraud.
Needless to say, I could fill all the forums with examples but here's just one very small example of a fake tracking scam which is fairly recent. The fake tracking was reported to eBay well before the OP of the thread left negative feedback,
which was the first of many.
What did eBay do ? Nothing. They left all the listings up for many others to be scammed .
https://community.ebay.com.au/t5/Buying/Am-I-being-scammed-Seller-sent-cheap-item-and-is-now-desperate/m-p/2633264
These buyers not only leave eBay, they tell everyone they know how much fraud there is on this site.
I remember the early beginnings here well. There were still plenty of scams but back then they were dealt with.
In fact on the very first New To eBay Board , which was always busy, we were able to to get examples of scams pinned to the top of the Board.
We had a team of members reporting fraudulent listings to great Trust and Safety Teams who removed the listings.
BUT the team of members were kicked to the curb and Trust and Safety no longer exists.
Comparing fake sites on Facebook and elsewhere doesn't really compare.
A few months ago, someone else said " If only they'd work with us"
Because when I personally report 30 individual hijacked Italian accounts, each with 12,000 listings and hijacked by Chinese scammers who send the items from AliExpress .. and eBay does NOTHING..
Then eBay are aiding and abetting FRAUD.
Let's not forget the Chinese criminals can and will pass on all the buyers' details to other criminals.
springyzone
·9 months agoI agree with you 100% that there is far too much fraud on ebay and ebay not only fails to stop some of it, but it positively praises quite a lot of very poor sellers, leads buyers astray.
But I do think comparing fake sites on facebook does compare or has compared to ebay fraud, for one simple reason. I suspect more people use facebook than ebay.
I joined a facebook group about scam alerts and it is scary just how many people are seeing these ads. The problem is, if you do see an ad and click to have a look, that ad or similar ones will keep popping up.
So far, I have had 3 people I know who bought, thinking they were dealing with an aussie company. Two received shoddy goods from China and the other received nothing.
There is an absolute deluge of ads where the company gives itself an aussie sounding name eg Bentleigh Boutique, announces it is closing down after 20 years and has 80% off sales.
I was suspicious of them after I looked at one then tried to find it on google maps. Didn't exist. But loads of people are reporting being caught up in it, paying money, then receiving nothing or else goods that are not as described in the ads and that are a tenth of the price on Shein or Temu.
Same in almost every category of goods, as well as other scams to make you think you're dealing with authorities. The scams are getting better.
I personally would never buy direct from an ad on facebook, although I do see ads there that are for perfectly legit companies too.
But I would always access them myself, not via facebook.
The only thing I will say for facebook is that recently I saw what I was pretty sure was a scam ad so went to check it out and up came a warning that it may be a scam site. That never used to happen on facebook but I think they are working on identifying potential ghost sites.
I am not sure how much ebay is trying to stop ebay scammers. The trouble is, ebay collects commission on each sale and it benefits each time a disappointed buyer just lets things slide or gives up instead of opening a claim.
I do think ebay is being used less and less by younger people, they have moved to Amazon.
*casey*
·9 months ago"The only thing I will say for facebook is that recently I saw what I was pretty sure was a scam ad so went to check it out and up came a warning that it may be a scam site. That never used to happen on facebook but I think they are working on identifying potential ghost sites"
That sounds like a very positive move to help prevent Facebook scams.
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It's also important for new buyers to know that if they see a (linked) eBay item on Facebook, in order to be covered by eBay's Buyer Protection - MBG , the item needs to be paid for through eBay's official checkout.
springyzone
·9 months agoThe one thing I noticed with several ads that came up on my feed was that the wording was somewhat similar eg 'After 20 years, we are closing down etc'
The name would be completely different, location listed as different but it would usually be a site with few or no followers.
Now I am no expert at picking scams, so if I can see some warning signs, then I am not sure why facebook could not have picked up on them much earlier.
As I said, absolutely the only reason I think it is as big a problem as ebay is because of the sheer volume of people who use facebook on a regular basis, compared to ebay.
I have been extremely impressed with the way you have been able to identify scam accounts on ebay & to be honest, shocked at the volume too. I guess I don't know your background & skills and I don't mean this in the least rudely, but if you, a private person, can in your own time pick up on these, then I am astounded ebay, with all its resources, has not been able or willing to, if only to protect its brand.
safunskinbeauty
·9 months agoI just searched for "Mullein Gummies" under Item Location "Australia". I am THE ONLY seller in Australia on this item. Every other listing is a seller faking Location. That's 98% of sellers faking location on 1 item. That's disgusting.
sandypebbles
·9 months agoSee ya
No need to tell other members you are leaving
Just a random look at feedback left for you shows how many dodgy sellers you choose to support
One had 39 negs in the past month alone, as well as 116 neutral in the past month alone
What is this nonsense?
That would be your choosing to buy from dodgy as sellers and expecting not to have an issue
Not sure why you complain about your honest negs being removed (which they will be if you mention a dispute or refund)
But given you ignored all the negs the dodgy sellers you chose to support already had, why would another dodgy seller supporter take any notice of *your* neg ?