New Seller Dashboard

[nevillesdaughter]

I just spent a reasonable amount of time with eBay's customer service department attempting to clarify how the new seller dashboard will operate and was told some things I didn't understand before.

On looking at the pop-up page i was surprised so see that I had an open case against me that I had never been aware of. I was told it was from May 2013 and which sale it related to. The sale in question related to a new garment which the seller found had a damaged press stud. She contacted me, I immediately offered a partial refund to have it repaired, or an immediate full refund. She chose the full refund which I processed immediately through Paypal, and posted her an addressed pre-paid satchel to return the item, which she did. Apparantly she also opened an item not as described case (which I was never informed about - possibly because the money had already been refunded), and the record remains against my account as an "unresolved  case". When I complained about this I was told to talk to Paypal.

My next question was about the defect rate for "items out of stock or sold to someone else". I had already spoken to them about this because I had some recorded, when I had never given this reason for refunding, mainly because I don't carry lines of stock, or sell anywhere else.

It was explained to me that from now on, ANY refund through Paypal will automatically count as a defect against the seller, ANY case open against a seller - no matter whose favour the dispute is resolved in - will be counted as a defect against the seller, AND the buyer can still go on and leave negative feedback. The person I spoke to could not give me an example of a case where such a dispute would NOT count as a defect against the seller.

I was told this system was to encourage sellers and buyers to resolve issues themselves. I said "But if I do that and refund all or part of a buyer's money, I still get a defect for processing a refund through Paypal, and if I don't refund and the buyer opens a case, I get a defect automatically - regardless of the outcome". CORRECT.

She also told me that there was no "work around" of this in a case where the seller is not at all at fault.

In the past I have given people their money back for whatever reason, just to keep the peace and my feedback intact but right now I don't know what to do. If someone asks me to cancel a transaction - I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't....

I don't know about the rest of my fellow travellers in the selling game, but this scares the bejesus out of me....

Marina.

[donnashuggy]

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@nevillesdaughter wrote:

I really hope so because this bothers me way more than the FVF issues - in 10 years on eBay I have NEVER told a buyer that I don't have their purchase item for ANY reason, but according to my dashboard I've done it 4 times in the last year!

Cheers,

Marina.

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Mine was like that too, unfortunately you are not alone. I just asked on the ps board.

[nevillesdaughter]

Thanks for that - I'll give it a bash because once I was told it would be fixed (2 weeks ago) and it wasn't and twice now I've been told there's no way to fix it. Off to the PS board I go (ever hopeful!).....

Marina.

[nevillesdaughter]

I have just contacted eBay and went through it all again. Again, I was told that there was no "protocol" to remove the "automatically logged defects" that happen with a Paypal refund.

I directed him to the Power Seller board (which he was not aware existed) where whole bunches of people were saying that they had successfully cleaned up the mistakes. He now says he will check into this and get back to me tomorrow. For what it's worth he did seem genuinely hepful (as opposed to some) and if I don't get a response, I'll be back onto them.

He also said at one point that I needn't really be concerned because the current pop-up related to the last 12 months, but because I'm a high volume seller, only the last 3 months will be considered when the system goes live in August.

I mentioned that this still leaves me copping "defects" if I refund someone partially or fully for a postage overpayment or any other reason (without a mutual cancellation request or a case being opened) - and to me this means a reduction in my level of customer service. He suggested a way around this would be to do it by direct deposit because then eBay wouldn't know. Talk about backward logic.....

So, I'll see how I go, but for the moment, if I want to refund anyone for excess postage, I'll be putting concealed cash in their parcel, and if anyone wants to cancel a transaction for something that was in no way my fault (eg the child of my husband's first wife used my eBay account to make an unauthorised purchase because she was raised badly by aforementioned first wife - true story), then I'm afraid the answer is going to be "No".

Let's wait and see.

Marina.

[donnashuggy]

Thanks for keeping us updated

[cherry*135]

The point I am trying to make is that regardless of what eBay says in its seller guides, the system is (at present)  AUTOMATICALLY imposing a "defect" for any partial or full refund put through Paypal.

I have done that often ( in the last 6 months).. partial refund through paypal (voluntarily refunded part of postage costs when they are more than actual costs) and have no 'defects' when looking at the new seller standards thing on the dashboard.

[donnashuggy]

It's not happening to everyone it seems, my refunds were showing as defects but now I have none

[oz_survival_gear]

I Think there may still be a way to partial refund a customer without this effecting us, 

If you need to send a partial postage refund , dont click refund ,

Just send money to the customers paypal address and include a note. 

I think that way it wont have any tracking on the actual original payment.

what do you think ?

[nevillesdaughter]

That should work, it just seems so silly for us to work out ways around that a system automatically sanctions us without a reason.

Cheers,

Marina.

[ejholden1963]

Oh Yes, YES, YES .... says the ebay CEO as he rubs his hands with glee .... More PayPal profits for me !!!!!!!

When you do any sort of refund thru' PayPal, part of the refund comes from the PayPal commission you were originally charged.

If it's a full refund, PayPal returns all the commission & keeps the 30c transaction fee.

If you do a seperate transaction to make any sort of refund, PayPal keeps the original commission, charges you an additional 30c transaction fee plus commission on the new transaction.