Thanks you for an articulate and well written post.
I sympathize, it is an unfortunate situation and not your fault
eBay had announced changes late last year that meant you could only get a defect if you did not have the item available or failed to make a refund. I think these changes apply from this year but am not certain about the dates.
I thought that now, or soon, if you posted within your stated time that you could not be defected for postage time, or could have it removed.
Suppose that only applies to tracked mail and as you say, tracked mail costs outside Australia are just horrendous.
Overseas mail sent from Australia can be a nightmare, the costs of any tracked service are very high, whilst fuel prices fall to historic lows.
Gave up sending overseas this year and could not be happier.
It was causing most of my headaches for a small percentage of transactions.
eBay's delivery time estimates are completely unrealistic on most overseas transactions and many Australian ones as well.
It needs to be scrapped entirely and replaced by a system that allows a seller to manually add an estimated delivery time based on the location the item has been sold to, or better still, no delivery time estimates at all.
IN most cases, as a buyer, within reasonable grounds I DO NOT CARE about delivery times, could not give a hoot, I just want what I paid for. Surely, most people would feel this way except if they wanted something as a gift by a certain date.
I buy a bit of material from overseas and the delivery estimate times are just insane, no way does some (most) mail arrive within those times.
Because I know how unrealistic these estimates are I ALWAYS say YES in the box that says "Did your Item arrive on time?" whether it did or not.
That is because I am an experienced seller, but most eBay buyers are not and do not understand by ticking NO to that box can potentially cost a seller their eBay business, as may have happened in your case.
Very unfair. I am sure you posted on time and after you posted the item, how can you be responsible for the delivery time?
It is fairly obvious, eBay only want you to send items sold via eBay by tracked mail, especially overseas.
If you can, look at any transactions you sent tracked mail, that have defects.
Any of these, if you posted within stated time, you MAY be able to prove on time shipping and have the defect removed and that may make the difference to your account that is required to get it reinstated.
Otherwise, I am not sure what you can do to be re-nstated, perhaps nothing, perhaps other posters here may have another opinion.
Maybe your product is just not viable overseas by standard mail via eBay any more, or maybe you can find some local customers, as the Australian retail market is diverse and surprisingly resilient.
All the best with it.
