Severe glitch with SMP auto-emails

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We’re hearing from a number of sellers that there are some severe problems with emails being generated by SMP. The main problem appears to be that buyers who bought two or three weeks ago are now receiving dispatch emails saying their goods are being sent today, though payment reminders may also be affected. In no case have these emails been generated by the seller.

What isn’t clear is whether these emails are duplicates, or whether there’s a 2-3 week delay in the eBay system: if anyone’s managed to clarify that with a buyer, please do leave us a comment; my own feeling is that if a buyer’s annoyed or concerned enough to be contacting a seller about a glitchy email, quizzing them about what else they’ve received is likely to make the matter worse.

There’s been no official acknowledgement of the problem from eBay, so all we can really advise is that those affected notify Customer Support and make an executive decision about whether to email buyers manually or not. Cross your fingers for that communication DSR.

Update
: seems pretty clear that these are the original emails delayed (not duplicates). So manual emails to buyers saying “your thing’s been sent, and btw if you get another email in three weeks telling you the same thing, ignore it” might be in order, crappy though that does look.

15 Responses

  1. I can only speak for SMP ‘despatch’ emails. They are shown as pending in the email log until they actually go out. They are NOT duplicates.

    The longest delay that I have had is 9 days.

    There is a further problem with the emails when sent as they pick up your latest SMP message wording rather than the wording that was current when the message should have gone to the buyer.

  2. Mine was a ‘winning buyer’ email that was sent 10 days after order & payment.

    The buyer was pretty upset & stroppy 🙁 Thinking I was accusing them of not paying 🙁

    It was definitely not a duplicate according to SMP email log. And I now see it is not the only one that has been sent late, or not at all yet 🙁

    I reported to PS support who promised to investigate and call me back – yesterday. Needless to say – no phone call.

    eBay should suspend ‘communications’ DSR immediately.

  3. Saturday I received a copy of my message to a buyer about clearance time for their paypal echeque. The sale date was 10 days prior and in that time the cheque had cleared and goods dispatched. Buyer will have received goods by now but has not left feedback. Let’s hope she overlooks ebay’s email delay when she does ….

  4. It is situations like this that allow buyers (sorry ‘little hitlers’) to play games with DSR on dispatch, comms & whatever their finger feels like.

    We have noticed on our main ID, that the number of buyers now NOT leaving any feedbacl atall is growing…..
    Usually we have a 90-95% feedback rate on this ID, but now have over 300 items sold with NO feedback left.
    This, a couple of months’ ago would be maybe 30-50 buyers.

    This suggests ebay’s buyers are becoming tired of the continuing changes on ebay & cannot now be bothered atall.

    Think we can say ‘Told you so ebay’ ……………!!!!

  5. It would be nice to have star ratings for eBay – I wonder what their DSRs would be for “item as described”

  6. This has been going on for months with “pending” delays from a few hours to about 36hrs, however seems the system hit melt down in May and has been monkeyed up since.

    Ebay claim that the problem is with the buyers mail servers being clogged up with the ever increasing Spam on the net. However if that was the case then all the emails that person is receiving would be delayed as well regardless if sent from ebay or their mum. Or they claim there to be no problem at all.. depends on who you talk to.

    The problem is that this will effect sellers in communications with customers thinking we are ignoring them or taking our time answering them. It will also effect sellers dispatch rating as the customer may receive a email 3 days after the item has been sent, just saying it has went out. Making the seller look slow and lazy.

    I would say expect to see a rise in low ratings for Comms and Dispatch due to this problem.

    Without a doubt there will be some sellers to loose TRS due to this “glitch”.

  7. SMP mail always seem to end up in the buyers spam file.
    We have 1 ID where the buyer has to advise us of colour choice (no multi-variable listings in this cat’) All we get is flat dinials that buyer even receive mail.

    This is a big problem & comms/dispatch DSR are affected badly, with the buyers BLAMING US of course.

    Ebays’ PS support don’t have much to say about it, beyond, (you will like this) don’t use SMP, transfer all mail into mymessages & then send.
    What planet are they on, I’d be here all day & night sending mail that way.

    Mind you, just another way of ebay saying we don’t care about our sellers, JUST giveusthemoney!!.

  8. I think it is astounding that Ebay still have not seen fit to advise sellers that there is a problem with this. It is not a momentary glitch, it has been going on for many days now.

    Clearly, this will be perceived by buyers as a fault of the seller and not Ebay, and will score the seller’s DSRs accordingly.

    When I spoke to CS, I was told that buyers don’t just judge the receipt of messages, but the content also. I had then to explain that they couldn’t see the content if they hadn’t actually received the message!

    It is a nonsense for Ebay to measure (and punish) sellers on communication scores when there is this problem and sheer arrogance not to acknowledge the problem and consequences.

  9. leave feedback leave it within a day or two
    Possibly true, but we find buyers still leaving FN for weekssss after.

    And when the buyer leaves FB within 1-2 days, hey he thinks, I never got a advice of dispatch….Comms’ 2 -3 DSR score.

    We still get 20-25% of buyers leaving 3-4s for postage charges (some 1-2s). We are the cheapest in our Cats’ & use PPI, so who’s scoring DSRs right then!!.

    Hey, but who cares, ebay don’t more money with sellers loosing their discounts everyday.

  10. Automatic payment reminders are now live on the uk site.

    Sellers are opted in by default.

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