Selling account restricted permanently

[jpamboris]

Hi all,

My selling privileges were restricted yesterday because of the new ebay ratings. My DSR was very good but i had several cancelled transactions because of an item that i ran out of stock.

I know that i should not have something listed that i did not have avaialble however this was only for a short period (7 days). Most of the buyers were happy to wait for this dvd but there were some that wanted it cancelled and refunded. Now i feel like i should not have communicated to these buyers as i would not be in the position i am in right now. But yes, i advised all these buyers that i ran out of this title and i would have it within 7 days but i am happy to refund it if required.

I have never used the ebay inventory manager tool as i have my own system that i pay a subscription for to manage my stock levels and ordering.

I contacted Ebay customer service yesterday and was advised from their call centre in the Phillipines that this decision was final and irreversable. I argued that i was a loyal ebay customer for 10 plus years. Had paid all my fees (approx $500.00 per month) on time without delay, had feedback of >99% and my DSR's were of a high standard. I also mentioned that my rating changed on 20/08/14 and that i had 20 days to try and fix this before my account was suspended. Their response to this was "we understand but the decision is final". I then asked to be transferred to comeone who was based in Australia and who had the authority to do something about this. The response was that they support the Australian opertations and there was no one else i could contact.

I have sent an email via Ebay last night in the hope that it would get escalated somewhere but the call centre i spoke with.

Has anyone else been in this position and if so who did you contact and what was the outome?

Help and assistance needed please?

Regards

John (In2 DVD)

[englishrosegardens]

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@digital*ghost wrote:

Re: the seller with 96.3% FB...

5% of defects is the maximum eBay allow for a seller to have, that being 5% of total transactions - they clearly haven't reached that yet on the FB received.

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My point exactly!  If they haven't reached the cut-off point for defects there's absolutely no reason they should be banned from selling, any more than any other seller.

The OP received 2968 selling feedback in the last year.  Even if you ignore the transactions he got no feedback for, 5% would be 148 defects.  If you add something on for the transactions that he got no feedback for, that would take the number of defects higher still, so he obviously already had a LOT of defects before the Popeye incident.

[donnashuggy]

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@punch*drunk wrote:

The fact that ebay protects the big sellers doesnt justify other sellers doing the wrong thing. Its a totally separate issue and its always gone on, look at that machinery company with the magically disappearing neg feedback.

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I think it is relevant when you find yourself restricted and would make an excellent shake up of eBay. I'm a bit over making excuses for eBay when they treat sellers harshly and promote far worse sellers in prime positions, there is no denying this fact as it is in your face.

[mbselections00]

Taking it to the media will give ebay sellers a bad name, especially those who support other sellers who've done the wrong thing.

Basically, a petition to do away with the defect system is saying that sellers think they shouldn't have to be responsible for their actions - not a good advertisement for the site.

Below is a copy of what I have written elswhere.  I don't wish to inflame this discussion but I don't see how this will give Sellers a bad name, nor do I see it as showing my support for Sellers who have done the wrong thing.  And I most certainly do not think that sellers shouldn't have to be responsible for their actions.  I just happen to think the system seems unfair and gives little or no opportunity for revision or re-assessment of Suspensions.  I bend over backwards to offer good Customer Service and I post within 24 hours.  To the very best of my knowledge I have never and will never list an item I do not have stock of, I actually endeavour to maintain back-up stock to cover any cases of Items lost or damaged in post.  Having said this, and slightly off track, sorry, I did have issues at one time when re-listing before I realised the system re-listed the original listed quantity and did not take sales from the original listing into account.  Fortunately though, it never caused any issues as I never sold out completely of any items.

For me now, it's not so much whether the OP was guilty of intentionally listing knowing he didn't have stock, it is what stems from that  :-  the issue that the system does not appear to treat all equally and with at least some consideration of past trading history.  There are many reasons, both valid and invalid (eg.  Buyers being vindictive or spiteful, or simply not understanding how the system works) which can effect a Seller's Rating and this is what I think is unfair and needs to change.  It also concerns me that it can happen very easily to anyone of us no matter how hard we try and do the right thing  - NO QUESTIONS ASKED - NO WARNINGS - JUST   YOU'RE GONE !

It seems eBay no longer maintains an equal playing field for all Sellers, which I find totally unfair.

Dishonest, unscrupulous Sellers who blatantly violate policies and who have been reported on more than one occasion are allowed to remain, when one who has done everything possible to make the best of an unprecedented & unexpected situation has been unfairly crucified and they are not the only one affected by this new system.

If the new Defective Rating system must remain (although I do not believe it should), then it needs to be clearly spelt out to Buyers as they leave their Feedback - not in some convoluted automated general message that they will probably never read anyway.

Buyers need to be made very clearly aware that a 3 is NOT NEUTRAL, which is what they are still led to believe, it is NEGATIVE

If I were not a Seller as well as a Buyer, I could see easily how a Buyer might leave positive comments but with a 2 for item description if the item was not Received - how can they say it was As Described if they didn't get it. That would be the sort of logic I would apply as a Buyer. I would leave positive Feedback, because I would be happy the Seller contacted me and offered Refund, but could not honestly say Item was as Described, I also couldn't/wouldn't say 'Item Posted Quickly', so that would be another Defect. I would not realise the damage this could cause a Seller’s Account.

So the only way, in my opinion, for the Defect system to make any sense to Buyers is to spell it out when they actually leave Feedback - maybe a 3 Star Rating needs to be removed altogether - so it's either Negative or Positive ! Which would also need to be made clear 1 & 2 is Negative 3 & 4 is Positive

To quote just 2 Sellers who have been adversely affected (by which I mean they have been permanently suspended) as a result of this new defect system of rating :-

Seller A • Feedback of 99.8 and only 11 neutrals and 2 negatives over the last 12 months with over 1300 positives. Called 3 times, finally spoke to a Supervisor and still got nowhere. I am not aware of the reason for this suspension, but the point is this new Defect system does not allow for individual assessment or consideration of a members previous good standing and history.

Seller B • Loyal eBay customer for 10+ years. Paid all fees (approx. $500.00 per month) on time, had feedback of >99% and DSR's of a high standard all 4.9 and above. Mentioned that rating changed on 20/08/14 and had 20 days to try and fix before account was suspended. Response to this from Customer Support “we understand but the decision is final". My understanding is this suspension resulted from cancelled transactions.

Again, my point being the new Defect system does not allow for individual assessment or consideration of a members previous good standing and history.

Please eBay, show some compassion and consider these cases individually, you are dealing with people’s livelihoods !

[digital*ghost]

I think it's fair to say that we really can only speculate, unless someone from one of these 'special' stores comes along to shed some light on what kinds of advantages they receive above the ones that are publicly disclosed (disclosed advantages are, as far as I'm aware, free promotions and advertising - I would personally be very susprised if fee breaks weren't included, and I also tend to think that if eBay go out of their way to get them here, it stands to reason they would go out of their way to keep them here - for some reason, they seem to think recognisable brand names providing a higher than average amount of poor customer experiences is benefiting the site. Maybe the master plan is to get everyone to see eBay's little guys are actually the best of the best, then they'll cull all the big names once buyers are convinced they don't ever need to shop with them again, only eBay, and the sellers who someone managed to survive.... ). 

It is a bit galling to think that much of eBay's talk and policies regarding buyer experience, along with the push to get the average seller to have 'perfect' customer service and selling practices, amounts to little more than lip service if some sellers are allowed to consistently disappoint and frustrate customers. That's what really sticks, that one seller (not referring to anyone in particular) can hit a single issue a blam, they're out, while another can continually have the same issue, never actually take any measures to improve, and eBay's like "hey, here's another way we'll get you some more customers to let down, or at least, a couple hundred of them, anyway, as long as it's not a few hundred and 1 per month, we're sweet". 

eBay always encouraged me to "continue to exceed customer expectations", without seeming to realise that eventually it becomes completely impossible. The defect system also doesn't take into account the fact that just because a buyer leaves a "defect", it doesn't mean the seller did anything wrong - there is something really backward to me about the assumption being made by eBay that it does.

Some buyers (like me) start a seller a 5 stars and only lower the score if something goes wrong, but other buyers start a seller lower and only mark higher if the seller did something exceptional, others mark low if they just don't end up liking the item they bought, so there is not exactly a great deal of room to move for the average seller

@catspjs

"But some defects have more sting than others (for some)

The cut and paste from site map as posted on a similar thread means that regardless of your overall defect count and seller status that you are skating on thin ice very quickly if you have relatively few paypal cases found in a buyers favour.

Cases closed without seller resolution

To meet our minimum standards, you can only have 2 transactions (or 0.3% of transactions) resulting in cases closed without seller resolution over the most recent evaluation period. The percentage requirement applies after the account has exceeded the maximum number of occurrences."

True, I didn't think of that, but I suspect DS and many businesses like them would probably refund before escalation (wherever possible), which counts as seller resolution. I didn't see any mention of PayPal cases in the FB, anyway (though I only took a quick peek at the first pages). They also seem to use couriers, so it would likely be rare, I think, for them to lose an INR case if it was escalated. 

[digital*ghost]

"But some defects have more sting than others (for some)

The cut and paste from site map as posted on a similar thread means that regardless of your overall defect count and seller status that you are skating on thin ice very quickly if you have relatively few paypal cases found in a buyers favour.

[digital*ghost]

Cases closed without seller resolution

To meet our minimum standards, you can only have 2 transactions (or 0.3% of transactions) resulting in cases closed without seller resolution over the most recent evaluation period. The percentage requirement applies after the account has exceeded the maximum number of occurrences."

True, I didn't think of that, but I suspect DS and many businesses like them would probably refund before escalation (wherever possible), which counts as seller resolution. I didn't see any mention of PayPal cases in the FB, anyway (though I only took a quick peek at the first pages). They also seem to use couriers, so it would likely be rare, I think, for them to lose an INR case if it was escalated. 

[donnashuggy]

I wonder what is better for a buyer experience though, proving tracking or replacing/refunding.

Tracking doesn't guarantee delivery, eBay wont remove defects if you refund or replace. The system is stupid.

[imastawka]

FYI - Family member bought from DS.

They sent a totally inferior replica of what was ordered.

When they messaged them with an INAD complaint,

they were told that DS doesn't do returns, but to print out

the invoice and take it to their local B & M store

No paypal disputes there then!

[5kazam]

I think it it about time you went and planted yourself in a pot somewhere.  What a load of tripe.  

"The OP received 2968 selling feedback in the last year.  Even if you ignore the transactions he got no feedback for, 5% would be 148 defects.  If you add something on for the transactions that he got no feedback for, that would take the number of defects higher still, so he obviously already had a LOT of defects before the Popeye incident.

Just because OP didn't receive feedback for X amount of items, it is not up to you to assume they would have been negatives, and I think it is extremely presumtive of you to do so.

[jpamboris]

You are still not understanding! I manage my inventory outside of ebay and pay good money to do so. This means i do not use the ebay inventory tool as this to me would be double handling. So everything i have is listed and a large amount so i do not have to relist because i sold too many. I get emails telling me an item sold and i need to keep checking that the item is still listed.
I have done this for about 4 years without any issues and 95% of buyers are happy to wait. My feedback was 99.6, do you realise what this means? And on top of this, i was not selling 5 items per day like yourself so as your business grows it becomes more time consuming and more difficult to manage.
I would love to have the time to review every ebay policy that comes out, see how this affects me and take action but unfortunately i dont.

[thecatspjs]

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@jpamboris wrote:
You are still not understanding! I manage my inventory outside of ebay and pay good money to do so. This means i do not use the ebay inventory tool as this to me would be double handling. So everything i have is listed and a large amount so i do not have to relist because i sold too many. I get emails telling me an item sold and i need to keep checking that the item is still listed.
I have done this for about 4 years without any issues and 95% of buyers are happy to wait. My feedback was 99.6, do you realise what this means? And on top of this, i was not selling 5 items per day like yourself so as your business grows it becomes more time consuming and more difficult to manage.
I would love to have the time to review every ebay policy that comes out, see how this affects me and take action but unfortunately i dont.

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So ...  because you sell at higher volume, the same rules should not apply to you ... you are simply too busy...  lol

Maybe paying good money to manage your eBay inventory would have been a wiser investment.

It is clear that you have not noticed that 95% of buyers being happy is not enough for eBay they want 100% and have trumpeted this for many months now.  

Your lack of attention to this important detail is your downfall IMO. 

Don't agree with a permanent ban, but my goodness your attitude is very telling.

[englishrosegardens]

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@5kazam wrote:

I think it it about time you went and planted yourself in a pot somewhere.  What a load of tripe.  

"The OP received 2968 selling feedback in the last year.  Even if you ignore the transactions he got no feedback for, 5% would be 148 defects.  If you add something on for the transactions that he got no feedback for, that would take the number of defects higher still, so he obviously already had a LOT of defects before the Popeye incident.

Just because OP didn't receive feedback for X amount of items, it is not up to you to assume they would have been negatives, and I think it is extremely presumtive of you to do so.

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I made no such assumption about whether the feedback he didn't get would have been negative or positive.  All I said was that if he sold 4,000 items then he would have been allowed 200 defects before they closed him down (200 being 5% of 4,000).  It would have made no difference if the feedback he didn't get had been positive or negative, he still would have only been allowed to have his defects at 5% of his total transactions.

Perhaps you should read things properly before YOU make assumptions!