I'm waiting on a pair of earrings from Korea that I ordered on the 12th November! I buy quite a few things on eBay and i know that the expected date on this item has been changed. It now shows as 6 Jan.
2 months to send and receive a pair of earrings???? How is it coming? By pigeon?
Sellers always blame shipping, or Australia Post, yet I can order an item 2 weeks ago from Hong Kong and get it in 10 days, so mail is clearly not being held up at this end.
I emailed eBay about this changing date. They say that there is no way sellers can change the estimated date as it is based on mailing standards to Australia etc. What they didnt say was that this expected date is controlled by eBay itself and it changes daily based on mail and shipping information. Its fine in theory save for a couple of things.
1) They have altered my contract with the seller without notifying me and without my permission.
2) It prevents me from opening a case for a refund until after the 6th of Jan.
3) Given that this date is changed daily it is feasible that a case will never be able to be opened since the date just gets changed and changed and changed.
The other big thing they need to investigate is sellers trying to blackmail the buyers into leaving positive feedback or changing negative feedback in order to receive a refund. I have had a couple of Chinese sellers say that they will refund me if I change my negative feedback. I wont do it because other buyers should see the real story of the seller. I I actually had one seller who sent me the wrong sized item ask me to accept 25% of the price of the time plus an extra 1 Euro if I changed my negative feedback!!!!!! In the case In these cases I just open a refund case through either eBay or Paypal but constantly changing the expected date means that cases cant be opened until it expires, and if they change it every day it may never expire on item not received cases.
eBay's standards are really slipping now.They have become lazy and greedy. Why do we buyers have to point out to them that a seller suddenly has XX negative feedback comments on their account and that they should be investigated? I did this on a missing item I had.
Why can sellers offer you a small percentage of the purchase price as a refund when they screw up and send the wrong item or wrong size?
Why does the buyer have to pay for return postage up front and then try to recoup the cost of the postage from the seller? To me thats crazy. I return an item to the seller which means that I have paid for something I no longer have and have paid postage to return the item that they screwed up in the first place. So I have paid 2 lots of postage and paid for the item and now have no item and no bargaining power. The seller can merely ignore your refund requests or string you along until the date to claim a paypal refund has passed. Why wouldnt they? They have your money and the item, and negative feedback appears to mean nothing to eBay.
Lift your game eBay.
