The eBay Money Back Guarantee means that, as a buyer, you’re protected if the item you ordered didn’t arrive, is faulty or damaged, or doesn’t match the listing description. From Thursday next week, the 3rd of September, there are changes to the time frames for item not received cases and return requests.
3rd September eBay Money Back Guarantee changes
- The time a seller has to respond to a return request or an eBay Money Back Guarantee case will change from 8 calendar days to 3 business days
- Once a return is accepted, the time a buyer has to ship the item back to the seller will change from 14 calendar days to 10 business days
For sellers, responding to a request within 3 business days should not be an issue. Frankly, it’s ridiculous that a seller could wait over a week before responding in the past. 3 business days could still, over a weekend, mean that a buyer is hanging on for up to 5 days before a seller processes their request and that is quite long enough.
We would recommend that business sellers, and indeed all reputable sellers already do, check on return requests and action them within 24 hours on working days. It’s what you would expect as a buyer and, bearing in mind that a return request already means an unhappy customer, the longer you wait before you respond the more irate the buyer will become. If there is a problem with a sale, you can still delight your customer by offering great customer service.
From the 3rd of September, if you fail to respond to a buyer within 3 business days, they buer can ask eBay to step in and help. eBay will review the details of the buyer’s case and make a decision within 48 hours and the reward for the seller is a ding on your account for a case closed by eBay without seller resolution. If this goes above 2 cases or 0.3% of your total transactions then expect your account to go Below Standard with the selling consequences this brings.
The change to timing for a buyer to ship an item back from 14 calendar days to 10 business days appears to be less a change and more a word change. 14 calendar days is two weeks and 10 business days (setting aside bank holidays) is still 10 business days.
8 Responses
The problem here is not that sellers don’t respond within 3 days, but that effectively they have to refund the buyer by then. Otherwise, the buyer can simply appeal to Ebay.
This is a problem with overseas sales, e.g to USA with the chaotic USPS situation.
The buyer opens a case, is asked to give it a little longer as it just outside the estimated delivery time. The buyer then goes straight to Ebay and is instantly refunded and you get a sting on your account.
Also, Ebay is allowing buyers to open a “request” even after the deadline to do so has passed. Even though a seller is not obliged to refund, these requests appear exactly like the ones which are valid and have the same warnings attached for inaction.
Overall, the way cases and returns are handled is another area of contention for sellers, where the system is not always fair to both sides.
BTW making sellers return items in 10 business days instead of 14 days amount to the same thing.
So sellers get tighter rules but not buyers.
Does Ebay think we are fools?
What about if the seller is on holiday and doesnt have access to the internet for several days ?
I am sorry but ebay are not giving enough tome to process. I used to sell shoes which are one of the higher products for returns due to fitting etc.
Many a Monday morning I would receive up to 50 returns at my door. On opening the returns you get notes saying “refund please” , “exchange for size 10 please” with often an unreadable USER ID, no name and address or no information at all!
It used to take hours playing detective trying to identify which buyer the item returned was actually from. This, despite putting return instructions in every box.
Not a good move reducing this now to 3 days. ebay are not factoring in the logistics of up to a third of customers not identifying who the return is from.I would often spend up to an hour on one return with no info in box.
You have to question an organisation that attacks its own sellers in this way.
If it reduces a sellers sales, Ebay also loses.
It just does not make sense.
BTW have had a first taste of this 3 day bullsh*t.
An overseas buyer claimed INR in the US and agreed to wait another week to see if it turned up, with a guarantee of a refund if it didn’t. They suggested waiting another week, which seemed fair enough.
After 3 days, without warning, the buyer escalated to Ebay overnight (our time). Received an auto message from Ebay saying they had stepped in and would respond within 48 hours. Twelve minutes later, another email arrived saying buyer had been refunded and I had received a defect. All in the small hours of the night with no chance to respond and refund the buyer myself.
This is just one more reason why I don’t trust Ebay as a selling platform any more.
Let’s face it, the changes are to reduce ebay funded refunds for INR cases. With the current state of Royal Mail’s delivery metrics, you will see many cases where the buyer will get a free item. If the buyer opens the case quickly enough, the deadline will come up before RM delivers … result!
This is the same reason why ebay has stopped accepting RM24 + 48 delivery confirmation numbers on INR cases. Until recently, they would accept these as proof of delivery and in worst case fund the refund themselves. This has now stopped (no doubt because of RM’s delays costing them too much).
The only way around this for a seller is using fully tracked services (at a cost which will have to be passed on to the buyer) or increasing the handling time (and in turn then missing out on premium services and TRS discounts). Either way – win-win for ebay.
We have been shifting more and more lines from eBay to our website over the last 12 months, so will just withdraw any non-profitable lines or increase the prices dramatically (pulling buyers away from ebay to our website, where it is miles cheaper). The times when my business was reliant on third party marketplaces have long gone!
Faltly items need to be returned with buyers cost first now. Although before there was a system the seller can issue returning label. It’s totally wrong!!
I bought a faulty electric item from Chinese seller (which turned up on UK only search). They require return (with my cost) first. I rejected it and put it in the bin.
I never buy item could need return for faltly again on eBay, never!!