best way to respond to case opened on ebay.de

[montycorr001]

I have just had a buyer from Germany who has opened a case that he hasn't received his item yet (It wouldve been nice if he had just messaged me though first) Because the case was open on ebay.de i have to respond to the case on that site which is all in German, grrr. I have tried Google translate but it is not perfect in translating to english. Is there an easier way to respond to this case? and in English?

[chezzy]

When I am needing to communicate with German sellers/buyers I use freetranslation.com. Must admit I haven't tried others.

I try to keep things as simple as possible, translate it into German and then even translate the result back into english just so I can check over what it is saying. Sometimes I have to try a few variations of translating and translating back until I feel happy. Sometimes I copy and paste both the german version and the english version underneath it.

What is it you are trying to say/get across?

[montycorr001]

I've responded now. I think I was more worried in pressing/clicking on the wrong button or choosing the wrong response from the drop down menus. It seemed they opened the case just to ask me when I had sent the parcel which i had only sent a week ago.

[chezzy]

You didn't update your listings to show item was sent then or upload a tracking number etc?

[montycorr001]

I did update the listing the day I posted, but, I think he may just be worried that it's been just over a week since he paid but I've told him it can take between 5-17 business days to arrive from Australia. 

[chezzy]

I wonder if the ebay listing "their" end shows a time estimate- it would show next to Lieferung on the ebay.de version

[montycorr001]

You know what it says on their end: delivery within 3 working days.

[*crikey*mate*]

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@montycorr001 wrote:

You know what it says on their end: delivery within 3 working days.

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So the Germans think we really do use Superman for parcel delivery, eh?

[chezzy]

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@montycorr001 wrote:

You know what it says on their end: delivery within 3 working days.

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!! even so (unless the buyer is new to international buying) I would consider 1-3 weeks to be pretty normal?

[chezzy]

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@montycorr001 wrote:

You know what it says on their end: delivery within 3 working days.

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Youre not reading that as delivery to yourself? (check if the postcode is your own)...