SELLERS BEWARE!!! eBay/PayPal deception/rip off

[saustin75]

Firstly I'd like to begin with saying that my selling practices have not changed in the last year-doing exactly has I had successfully done to obtain Top Rated Seller status for.

Now with new policies, it has made my status decline & I'm fed up with loosing such large amounts of money to dishonesty, deception & greed.
Below I will highlight some areas sellers should be absolutely aware of now.

1/ With the new eBay moneyback guarantee it requires ALL ITEMS BE SENT WITH TRACKABLE POSTAGE....PERIOD, to receive seller protection.

If a seller does not send an item via a trackable means of postage, any & every buyer can open a request, even when they have received the item, to claim their money back. Even when the buyer has declined paying for the upgrade to trackable postage. eBay has opened itself up to abuse via dishonesty.

2/ Now I had always offered free postage with several options to upgrade that to a trackable form at the buyers expense, that typically buyers waive at checkout.
eBay receives a fee of that postage amount if a buyer does upgrade which is utterly wrong as eBay do not provide that service at all. eBay already receive a fee from the collection of those funds through PayPal.
Estimated delivery on items is misleading. Countless times I'm asked, 'said my item was to be here <such & such a date>. Australia Post policy states that a standard delivery item can take up to 10 business days. eBay should be following Australia Posts policy, not their atomatically generated 'estimate' which buyers mostly take as being a guarantee of delivery.

3/ Returns: A buyer can now open a returns request. The seller can accept the return. The buyer does not need to return it & can escalate it later to receive a full refund. Appealing this does not gain a result. Buyers do not need to provide tracking of the return.

4/ Below Average Seller status results in PayPal freezing available funds for up to 21 days. The Financial Ombudsman Service www.fos.org.au is eager to hear from all who have this issue.
Simply go to the website, click lodge a dispute (green button to the right), then lodge a dispute button again (green button bottom) & fill out the form.

The only way to increase your status & release funds quicker is to provide tracking numbers.
Funds are released when feedback is received, so PayPal have informed me.
Now a dispute process is already available, so the 'freeze' of funds is unwarranted.

5/ Every request opened becomes a defect on your seller status. ie, your positive rating declines.

6/ Negative or Nuetral feedback when unwarranted or unjustified even when you can prove it, will still not removed when reveiwed by eBay. Basically, as long as there is no profanity, contact information or threats, then a buyer can say whatever untruth they wish without having to worry eBay will reveiw their account.

I have maintained a 1 business day mailing out policy as I have done for over a year now.
Had my great service reflected in the excellent feedback I was receiving. (Yes you'd have those customers who are not satisfied with any solution to a problem & would leave negative or neutral feedback.)
Now since eBay have introduced new policies without prior warnings of the changes, my seller status has dropped to 'below average' even tho I have not changed a thing.
The new moneyback guarantee is to blame.
It has given free reign for all standard mail items sent to be refunded if the buyer opens a request.
Simple solution is to increase the prices, yeah. In theory. eBay is all about the lowest price gets the sale. Increase in my price means I wont get the sale. Bigger stores have better postage deals with Australia Post and therefore can sell cheaper.
The returns request has also been changed & can easily be manipulated. I've had several buyers ask for a return. I accept as I should. Item does not arrive, buyer escalates for review & I have to refund & the buyer keeps the item, no return tracking needed.

Recently I was in hospital for just over 3 weeks. Arranged for someone to maintain the processing of my daily sales. Messages & my PayPal account were not.

Upon coming home, I was fuming to find that both eBay & PayPal had been refunding my money. In PayPal 2 large $$$ trackable purchases marked 'delivered' had been refunded by PayPal because I had not responded to their requests for the tracking information. I appealed and gave the information they had requested. It was rejected as I had not provided the information in the time they had asked for it. in eBay was simply the requests to say the buyer had not received their item. Item packaged & sent. Even if there was an issue like Australia Post loosing an item or unsecure letter boxes, (which I have always replaced at my expense in the past when it occurred), the sharp increase in buyers saying their item has not arrived has to lie with dishonesty. & as the seller, I pay the price.
Yet again, dishonest buyers getting the approval to continue being dishonest without any consequence.

Sellers have no protection unless you spend the $$ to buy tracking.
In my case, I sell items that cost from $10-$30 typically. Cost to send is $1.40-$3.50. Where's the justification in buying postage of $7.20 per item to get tracking? Plus the rediculously high eBay fees on top of that, then PayPal fees. Makes selling the cheaper items (which sell so well), not profitable at all. When sellers in my genre of DVD/Blu ray don't make much on each item sold to begin with.
Australia Post have teamed up with eBay for postage options. Why Australia Post is not doing 'large letter parcel postage' pricing is detrimental to them. Oh, but that's right, Australia Post 'claim' standard mail is not making them money so they want to cut it. Initiatives to increase sales in the standard mail forum would be more beneficial.

Anyway, theres my warning & rant.
Anyone else have views of their own on this sunject?

[harley_babes_hoard]

There have been numerous threads regarding the new policies since they were implemented. If you use the search function you will find them

[phorum_junkie*]

Sorry but most of what you say has been the case for years, you have always needed tracking to the buyer's address for seller protection.

If your return policy states that you refund item price only and the buyer pays for the return then that is what will happen for change of mind returns, for not as described if ebay find against you then you have to pay for the return postage if you want it back, it is what myself and many other sellers have always done.

You do not automatically get a defect if you refund a buyer before they escalate to ebay, if you refund voluntarily straight away then no defect is recorded.

If you dislike ebay so much you are free to go and sell anywhere else you think you can do so effectively.

[arlottstreetstation · Accepted solution]

If what I'm reading in O/Seas Press is correct, Ebay may soon be either in a HUGE MESS in the USA, or a thing of the past completely.....

Seems PayPal was propping it up financially & the split has now resulted in 2700 jobs gone. Their bid to move to a model of relying on the "Big Guys" & Chinese Junk Merchants hasn't worked & they're now realising their mistake by driving away the small to medium size Sellers.

Couple that with a couple of VERY large legal Class Actions brought by those past small to medium Sellers & it may well spell the end as we know it...... According to one Article I have read, Ebay, whenever challenged in the US Courts, always moved for Dismissal on different grounds & has generally gotten away unscratched...... But now a US Federal Court Judge has ruled that at least one Class Action cannot be dismissed & must go ahead. The other looks likely to do the same.... If this is the case & they are successful, then it way open up a massive can of worms not only for more of the same, but it will pave the way for US Federal Prosecutors to go after them over breaches of Law.

This now explains why Wall St has now dropped them like hot potatoes....

Going to be interesting....

[lovedvds2013]

What you have said is untrue I refunded a buyer and payed return to them never got it back and told eBay them I got a default you ase so wrong just saying

[toysandthings12 · Accepted solution]

Yes, the new rrr ebay paypal system is breaching fair trading laws in Australia.

Have already had 2 claim requests since it started in november.

Both should never have been even attaempted to be claimed.

One was in transit and trackable with details provided.

And Paypal grabbed my money until the claimer released it,

Paypal n Ebay did nothing about the claim except

block access to the money.

It almosts seems like I'd have lost everything if the buyer did

not change the claim.

Another just occurred with a rc car, apparently worked well for

a month and now wont do a thing....return claim.

Luckyily I live nearby and collected it rather then the ridiculous

demands for refund n postage etc etc that sellers r being forced

to cough up.

Turns out this product had been fiddled with, after repluggin in

some of its parts, it mostly worked again. Steering didnt, seems

the steering servo had stopped working, ordinarily this would

be either user damage or warranty where it gets repaired, the

faulty part gets replaced. Not this ebay paypal system of full

refund, grabbing ur money etc etc and seller paying postage.

If I did not live nearby, very lucky, I would have lost all the money

and postage twice and ended up with a very well used product with

a faulty part that our suppliers would not refund due to its heavy use.

This has sooo gotta stop.

Or all sellers have to increase prices to cope with increases in

dodgy return claims and postage increase due to seller having

to pay return postage. Or all sellers start selling cheap **bleep**.

Due to risk of good stuff being abused in the returns refund process.

Never had these issues until this new policy turned up.

Now 2 in 2 months.

Anyways, complaint sent in to department of fair trading.

Would suggest everyone does this.

Perhaps Asic as well.

Also to stock exchange..nothing like bad suspect business dealing in the market news.

I dont like being held hostage by a third party and have informed them of such.

they of course dont listen or read messages sent to them or take notice of surveys etc.

[opmania]

hi it is clear you are frustrated with the situation as are many sellers

this frustration also comes across in your responses to your negative feedback unfortunately

the ebay experience should be a happy one for both seller and buyer and the money back guarantee that ebay have implemented

is to protect buyers from shonky sellers that evidently do exist

now that you are no longer a top rated seller you may consider revising your policies

fast'n'free postage gives the buyer an expectation of time that should be able to be accomplished

and i noticed in your refunds policy buyer can return unopened in sealed packaging

this may give the buyer the idea that they can return for a change of mind

ebays MBG as i understand is only for item not received or item not described correctly

if you line your refunds policy up with ebays and only offer a return for these two reasons you might not be leaving yourself open to

too high expectations from your buyers

maybe you could factor in a small charge say 3.00 send all your parcels reg post so they can be tracked

and or offer free postage for multiple items only and charge more for a single item

not trying to offend you but if things are not working for you its probably time to change a few things

[cherry*135]

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phorum_junkie* wrote:

Sorry but most of what you say has been the case for years, you have always needed tracking to the buyer's address for seller protection.

If your return policy states that you refund item price only and the buyer pays for the return then that is what will happen for change of mind returns, for not as described if ebay find against you then you have to pay for the return postage if you want it back, it is what myself and many other sellers have always done.

**You do not automatically get a defect if you refund a buyer before they escalate to ebay, if you refund voluntarily straight away then no defect is recorded.

---

** I don't believe that to be accurate.

Ebay MBG

Requests and cases can affect your seller performance

• An open request is counted as a defect (remember you can only receive one defect per transaction)
• If the buyer closes the request (or it closes automatically), the defect will remain.
• If eBay is asked to step in and help, and the case is found in your favour, or found to be neither the fault of the buyer or seller, the defect may be removed.
• If eBay finds the seller responsible, the defect will remain and the case will also be counted as 'closed without seller resolution'.

If buyer opens a request for a refund, the seller gets a defect, even if they refund immediately. Once they refund the case is closed, defect remains

If seller can't resolve the issue and ebay steps in the defect remains, plus that affects the sellers performance standards for having a case not resolved by seller marked against them. Can only have a limited % of these before a/cs are restricted etc.

[cherry*135]

For items that qualify as large letters (C4) there is a prepaid Registered Post envelope with tracking for $6.20.

There is a smaller size as well, not sure of the price.

[cherry*135]

Further to the above, this is eBay's justification for giving a seller a defect, simply because a buyer opens a case.

Items sent without tracking = defect. 

Only if the case is escalated and eBay finds in sellers favour will the defect be removed. 

Our most recent research shows that opened cases are most strongly correlated with buyers leaving eBay or reducing their purchases. In fact, opened cases for items not received and items not as described are the highest contributors of buyers leaving eBay or buying less. I have reviewed the item numbers you have provided  and investigated it however though you issued a refund, the mere act of having to open it impacts purchase behavior.I am afraid that theses items does not qualify for removal.

Also, we’ve set wider margins with the new defect rate so a single opened case will have a less of an impact on your performance rating than under the standards in effect when cases were counted before.