@kaibacorp* wrote:
I just had a quick look and found this:
https://www.ebay.com.au/help/buying/returns-refunds/returning-item?id=4041
"Once you start a return, the seller has 3 business days to sort things out."
I think I see what's happened here. The buyer can "request to cancel the order" within 3 days of the purchase being made. But, it does not guarantee that the order will be cancelled.
The impression I had was that the buyer could do this without the seller's approval.
Okay, so that clears up that. 🙂 I was under the wrong impression.
I'm afraid you still are - returns are not cancellations, returns are when the buyer wants to send an item they've received back to the seller, and the 3 days is applicable in only some circumstances.
I want to address your other post, though (#20), because I think you're still looking at the issue from too narrow a perspective. There isn't just a void of time where nothing happens between an order being made, and an order being marked as posted. You speak of sellers not being inconvenienced, or getting credits on their fees and so forth, but you don't really seem to be thinking about the fact that it doesn't make any sense for a seller to operate their business to cater for those people who don't want the items they buy (and pay for) - the vast majority of sellers run their business under the (perfectly reasonable) assumption that the buyers want the items they've purchased, and to have them posted as soon as the seller's processing time allows.
Consider for a moment that not every eBay business is operated by one person, sitting at home, checking their computer for sales, packaging items, getting immediate notifications of messages, and can react immediately to requests to cancel or change orders. And that's if the message even gets through to the seller's inbox - they don't always, I've also received messages myself that were anywhere from half an hour to 2 days after the buyer actually sent it, which was determined through the course of the communicatoin.
A chain of events can be set in motion the second a buyer pays for the item, because some sellers receive orders and send them over to distribution centres or departments, while another employee or department has the responsibility of customer inquiries - many businesses allocate a specific window, once per day or even less, to read and respond to messages because it doesn't make any practical or financial sense to operate differently, which means even if you message a seller the absolute second after purchase, they won't see it and therefore be able to attend to it until it's too late (had this happen once myself, I wanted to change the address and a split second after confirming the purchase, I realised it still had a different address at checkout. The order shipped that afternoon, and seller didn't respond to me until the following day, which by then was of course too late. Thems the breaks when you do something by accident - it was my fault, and I resigned myself to having to collect the package from the other address, and catch a taxi home. One of the good things about accepting responsibility for your actions, though, is learning from it - I have never done that again).
This delay in processing orders and attending to messages about them doesn't just mean the seller may not be able to accomodate the buyer, it also often means resources have been spent on preparing the item for shipment (and by resources, I mean printing invoices, purchasing postage, wrapping and packing the item - not being marked as posted doesn't mean the seller hasn't incurred postage expenses, some of which are not recoverable.
So again, I suggest you take a little more time when considering purchases, and this isn't about inconvenience, because it's entirely possible once you pay for something, cancellation is off the table.
