Evidence of eBay removing cases/poor feedback

4 Responses

1. Loud applause for Whirly! – nice one

   Here’s my ‘Seller Protection’ story.

   …I really do feel protected and reassured that eBay will do the ‘right thing’ for all their sellers.
   
   [5 emails to the customer, 4 responses to the case she opened].

   The gist of the claim is that the customer didn’t press ‘Add Message’ for the details she wanted putting on the item she purchased (personalised item) when paying by PayPal so the message was lost…

   I try to help the customer by offering a return/resend of the item, providing she pays the postage. She’s not happy about this and wants to blame everyone but herself for ‘forgetting’ to click the ‘Add Message’ button, even though I provide a ‘how to send a message if paying by PayPal’ on the invoice, she even mentions this in the message at the foot of this page. First it was my fault, then after explaining her error she then wants to blame PayPal for not making it clear to her she had to click ‘Add Message’, btw, this is an 853 feedback customer, this is not a newbie.

   So you guessed it, a case was opened as ‘Item not as described’.

   She wanted and tried to contact PayPal (after I gave her the links), she wanted to complain to them about the injustice she had suffered and how much pain she is going to go through for not getting the item personalised. PayPal replied, we can’t help because a case is open on eBay, sort it out with the seller.

   We are busy so I now suggest she pays one way of the resend and I’ll pay the other, that’s 50/50, so we can at least move on. She was having none of it and insisted she wanted something done about the ‘Add Message’ not being clear to customers. Obviously I can’t help any further and she escalates the case.

   Confident that common sense would prevail and eBay would read all the messages, they would find in my favour, I’m very confident all will be well. After all I had done nothing wrong, to the contrary, I had gone beyond what is expected, jumped through all the hoops, bent over backwards (two or three times), put up with all the accusations and kept a straight, smiley face, all the way through.

   Then I get the decision:

   Final decision:
   This case was found in favour of the buyer.

   I rolled on the floor, literally.

   Here’s a couple of the messages:

   —
   Additional information:
   “I bought a ***** which needed to be personalised with a name . The instructions said do it at time of paying , which i did. I wrote the name in capitals in the “add message” box. However the item has come today and it is not personalised at all. I contacted the seller and they said they had no notification from me of any names . I know i did notify in the payment section. The seller has told me to check with ebay / paypal. Hence the reason im opening this.

   Buyer’s message:
   “Thank you for replying and offering what you did. I am trying to find a way of contacting paypal with regards to there screen were you put the messages as ive just done something else and you have to actually scroll further down on to a part that isnt visible to actually press the add message button at the end . Even though it says add message at beginning and you would presume when you send the message to paypal that it would send along with it . I cant find a way of complaining to paypal as it says ive already got a case open. Im not sure what to do as i feel paypals screen is very misleading and want to complain about them NOT you.“
   —

   I’ve read a lot of the stories over time and believed they were probably ‘sour grapes’, then I get this decision. I find it quite astounding that this case was merely ‘found in favour’ of the buyer. Had anyone at eBay, with just a single brain cell, read the case details, they would know it was a complaint about a web form on PayPal, not about me or something I had/had not done. The product was perfectly described, including the process to get it personalised. I thought the processes I had in place were fool proof, then eBay got involved.

   The customer has since decided she is happy to keep the item after all and closed the case as resolved. I now have a case as ‘not resolved by seller’ mark on my account, even though I had already offered her more than eBay offered her, once they found me ‘GUILTY’.

   I have to ignore the rhetoric about seller protection Chris …my true story above is seller protection eBay style 2013. Forgive me, but I have to take it all with healthy dose of scepticism, my experiences dictate this.

   Sorry it’s a bit longer than I wanted it to be:/

2. .
   If the item was not trackable, the case would automatically find in the buyers favour.

   If it was would be pressing the appeal this decision button or even phoning the resolution centre staff…
   Take a screen shot of the paypal payment screen, as this will show no message & hence no case to answer…

   Beyond this, I agree the seller protection is just another smoke screen by ebay.

3. Sounds a bit harsh on you Pete. Here’s the deal, I’ve known Chris and Dan for donkeys, if anything drops in my inbox that I think might be of interest I’ll send it over to Tamebay.

   I’ve no idea whether the contents of the emails eBay send to me are a true reflection of the action they take, I’m certainly not known for being an eBay fanboy, if anything the opposite, I have a lifetime eBay forum ban for posting non flattering comments about eBay, I trade on eBay because it makes money, when it stops making me money I will leave, the BS I put up with is fine as long as I stay in the black.

   Good luck.

4. Sorry to say Pete_M that your experience mirrors ours in that logic, common sense and natural justice seem to be completely absent from the process.
   Plus the effort involved in dealing with and escalating these issues within eBay is out of all proportion to the actual monetary value at stake normally.
   If you have an eBay account contact then use them.
   The only (very small) consolation is that if you think eBay are harsh just try dealing with Amazon over a VeRO related dispute!