Has anyone else copped this 4% surcharge for Very High SNAD rate ?

[dontmissthese]

Since 21st January this little charmer has dropped in my lap.

Additional 4% fee for Very High Item not as described rates

Thing is, according to the metric break down, my rate is NOT Very High.

Called ebay and it is being rectified.

Seems like a money grab because ebay has specified 0.40% as a return rate

based on a 'peer' group yet they have provided no details about what this

peer group is.

[brerrabbit585]

You sound as though you're accusing ebay of deliberately selecting only sellers with the lowest rate of returns to compare you to, but their policy sounds to me as though they compare you to all the sellers in your category with similiar terms and prices (and places you post to). If they compared everyone to the sellers with the lowest rate of returns for INAD in a category then in digi's example they'd show her peers as being 0%, not .19%. In my case, my peers are 0% but that's because of what I sell, not because of ebay skewing the figures.

I don't know what you mean by encouraging buyers to return items but if you mean that they're pushing Plus because it includes free returns, that's a completely different issue because the returns are for change of mind rather than not as described.

[brerrabbit585]

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@digital*ghost wrote:

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@brerrabbit585 wrote:
Try looking at it from a different perspective. Buyers are leaving ebay in droves because of sellers who are sloppy with their descriptions, or deliberately lie. One of the best ways to pull those sellers into line is to hit them in their hip pocket as it seems to be the only thing that'll make some people listen.

I realise it's not fair if cases are opened and then closed in the seller's favour, but ebay have given sellers a fair safety margin.

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I see that perspective, I just can't agree with this as the solution to it, nor can I agree with how it's been implemented. 

In carrot vs stick situations, carrots are proven to be more effective.

If a seller genuinely doesn't care, they can just up their prices.

The case I referred to previously, the buyer opened an INAD with the wrong seller. They realised their mistake, the case was closed by the buyer, ebay refused to remove the case from counting towards this metric. 

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I don't think there's any really practical solution to the problem because whatever they do, some innocent sellers will get caught along with the others. 

If sellers put their prices up it may affect their sales.  Many would choose to start again under a different ID, in the same way that certain sellers always have a new ID starting off so it's established by time they need to ditch their old ID.  There's a big craft seller in the US who obviously does this.

Some sellers wouldn't recognise a carrot if it smacked them in the face so they probably won't work for the sellers they're trying to target.  Of course, as a rabbit I just LOVE carrots.  

[countessalmirena]

There is a problem when someone uses a carrot as the implement of beating... It's doing double duty then as both a stick and a carrot!

[digital*ghost]

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@brerrabbit585 wrote:

I don't think there's any really practical solution to the problem because whatever they do, some innocent sellers will get caught along with the others. 

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I also understand this, that with any system that uses data (verifiable to the seller or not) to come up with a statistic or algorithm in order to mete out consequences, there will be a percentage of innocent sellers caught up in it, in hopefully rare, outlier cases. 

All systems like that have a bias, some are subtle, some are overt, and some are unknown. In this case, it's a little of all 3.

While I do take some issue with that, the primary issue for me is the system available to redress a wrong - for a person who becomes one of those outlier cases to be able to contact eBay, get a human being to look over their individual circumstances, and determine whether the outcome was appropriate.

This system not only doesn't provide the opportunity for that, it literally encourages outlier cases by making every INAD case that is opened count. It doesn't matter if the buyer made a mistake, it doesn't matter if the seller provides an instant resolution like a refund, it doesn't matter if the seller contests the case and wins. That is an unconscionable bias towards getting eBay more revenue. 

[joztamps]

According to the chart on my seller hub, I'm Peerless.

[digital*ghost]

I sell in a couple of other categories, but not nearly as much volume, so I got a couple of those, too. 

[wide-world-of-stamps]

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@joztamps wrote:

According to the chart on my seller hub, I'm Peerless.

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So are we.  An elite group 😄

[twyngwyn]

me too...lol

[eol-products]

I have an account that sells lego and it shows I have no peers. 

[davewil1964]

I am also peerless.