Ebay fist-fucking: item I sold in shipment purgatory

[GaijinPunch]

Somewhat luckily I suppose w/ the volume of crap I've sold, I've finally got a deal going sour:

Long story short: sold a pricey-ish item ($350 USD + $60 shipping - although paid $100 shipping). Still in transit after a few weeks. Irksome for the buyer indeed, but I don't have the item either. It's USPS in a pandemic so yeah... shocking? Hardly. Anyway, Ebay sided w/ them somewhat abruptly I must say debited my account. I've emailed Ebay to ask WTF as they have the tracking number and can see it's still in transit. However, I have no way to talk to a real fucking human b/c it's Email. Same deal w/ Paypal. My bank will probably have someone to talk to me but not sure at what level they will get involved and as per below, I don't really see any activity of this shit in my bank statement.

Here's where things stand

- Seems PP was holding the dough, then negated it - unsure. Never hit my account.
- I see the amount the guy paid waiting for me, but also a negative in roughly the same amount sitting there. TBH I think Ebay makes it look like a wash so people won't raise a stink.
- Neither of these seem to have hit my bank account.
- According to USPS, the items is still on it's way there. It's been a bit less than a month for surface.
- I've messaged the buyer to ask him what he actually wanted, and what he planned to do when the item eventually arrived.
- Paypal is shit.

[Spacemonkey]

So the money never showed up in your account? I had that issue a long time ago and they said it was because it was an item that was prone to fraud so they were holding the payment until after the buyer received it and rated, I notified the buyer and canceled the transaction.

I am not sure how they do it now, but before it was that once the estimated delivery date passes, the buyer can claim they didn't receive the item even if tracking shows it's on it's way. I had buyers open a claim even though they could see the item was being delayed by the Postal service. luckily a day or two after the item was finally delivered and I'd call eBay and they'd close the claim.

Either the buyer is clueless and doesn't know how tracking/USPS works or they figure they can get the item for free.

[GaijinPunch]

What happened to you sounds like what's going on w/ me -- they change their policies so much. Honestly, ironically I've had a fantastic run through using Ebay (a lot of it selling) for $20 years. I don't think I've ever had to even submit a charge back. So, lucky in a lot of ways I think. I'm assuming they'll back things out once the item arrives but who knows when that will be. It has been near a month for USPS ground, but honestly I've shipped items the same distance and it took longer than this w/o the added congestion of December. It's not like USPS is good, or ever has been.

[Udderdude]

Really unfortunate but the fact is shipping is pretty fucked right now (Holidays + pandemic).

[Koa Zo]

I'm in the same boat.
$100 packaged mailed to NYC on Dec.9, arrived in Washington DC sorting center on Dec.11, buyer opened a claim Dec.16 whereby eBay froze my funds.
I emailed eBay, on Dec.19. They said they would add 10 days to their review period.
The package finally moved to a Brooklyn NY sorting center on Dec.21, but has shown no movement since then.

I decided to discontinue sales through the holiday as I couldn't risk throwing more items into the overwhelmed USPS.

[Dochartaigh]

If you haven't sold anything recently eBay likes to HOLD your money for a long time – so that's probably what happened. I forget what they told me exactly, but I know I was surprised on the amount I would have to sell to NOT have my money held... stupid policy but that's eBay for you...

Second, all USPS locations have a local number. Usually hidden but you can find it via google. Do NOT waste your time calling the nation-wide number. Call the local delivery hub, your local office, and the hub the tracking says it's stuck at (or between), and harass those people. I don't mean like be a dick to them, but call them, say YOU will call back tomorrow (they have never, ever, called me back despite 4+ people promising me they would numerous times...), or the next day to check back. Get their name. If they're rude talk to their manager. Document EVERYTHING. Start a complaint as USPS right now (not that I didn't have to make the same complaint THREE times to even get a 1-liner email back... but again, document you did so - it can help with the claim).

[GaijinPunch]

The weird thing about this is Ebay seems to have opened and shut the case within 4 hours, and says I have 30 days to appeal. WTF -- thanks dickheads. I've emailed them but not heard back as of yet. Not sure what the turnaround time is. Of course, neither Paypal or Ebay have even a fucking chat window to talk to anyone directly. Shocked they still have the market share they do (although it is pretty small all things considered).

[kitten]

ebay support is radically understaffed even during lulls and they often just glance at a case and tend to rule in favor of the buyer in most instances (minus ones where the buyer admits something they're accountable for, like modifying the item from the received state, which is rare). this is, of course, an insane hell for sellers during a pandemic over holiday season.

if you're selling high value stuff and worried about getting a case brought up against you, try to proactively message your buyer that the item is safe on the way despite being stuck in shipping and that it's not lost. a lot of cases where buyers are moving to raise a case immediately aren't actually scammers taking advantage of the situation but people worried that if they don't open a dispute in the time window that they'll lose their opportunity to do so at all. GP - i'm really shocked at your situation, usually you get told a case is open and then get a window of like 5 days or something to work it out before the buyer can escalate to customer support resolution. this seems incredibly fishy 0__0;;

[GaijinPunch]

i'm not sure the buyer knowingly triggered this. He did ask me through the system what was going on, and I replied (twice) that they are just backed up... even went to the post office and they were like, "yeah, just wait dude, duh". They had reminded me to sort out the issue he raised, which I thought I had done. Then I get these emails like 5 hours apart. Was pretty drunk and emailed both support and the buyer. Luckily, I didn't say anything stupid. I did ask him how he wanted to deal with it when the item arrived. I ate $50 on the shipping - I believe even by Ebay's TOS he'd be responsible to ship the item back. Anyway, we'll see how this goes.

I can't believe Ebay is still as bad as they are.

[kitten]

that sounds like he initiated the claim process - which, if you, the seller, do not talk the buyer into manually closing, will default to ebay for judgment after a period of time. i've had an instance where i made the buyer agree they had no right to return something - outright SAID IN PLAIN WORDS they would keep the thing and it was their fault - and ebay took one look at it, defaulted automatically to the buyer's right to a return for whatever reason despite the auctions explicitly stating no returns, and i had to eat two-way shipping on an item whose value depreciated to less than the cost of me paying that shipping in the time span. guy said he "had to do it" because ebay told him to. nightmare. i think he was grateful for the situation to return it, though.

if you ship anything else in this climate and notice the tracking hasn't updated, pre-emptively send your buyer a message BEFORE this happens calmly telling them that the item is safe on the way, but shipping volume & chaos is wild and it may arrive later than expected. you may need to suck it up and refund the (partial or full) price of shipping in some of these cases just to please because it defaulting to ebay can royally fuck you. the underpaid foreign labor assigned to your case has to fulfill a quota of so many solved cases per day before they can buy enough soylent to live to do it again the next day, and it turns out that doesn't leave enough time for them to do things like "read" or "comprehend." once a buyer has initiated a claim it can be seriously complicated to talk them into figuring out how to close it or even knowing you have to do that, so you want to avoid it as best you can. it fucking sucks the onus falls on you, because the company is sure glad to suck like 10% or whatever out of every sale you made - and you'd at least expect that means they have SOME AMOUNT of seller assurance given the killing they're making.

[orange808]

I like to video boxing the item and weighing it. I make a second video of dropping it for shipping. Use a stealth camera recording app and just handle the phone casually in the UPS Store. All you need is to talk in the car, show the box, get a live audio feed of the drop off (camera will be pointing at walls), and wrap it up talikng to the camera in the car. Don't point the camera at the UPS people, just act natural.

Then, I email a still picture of the UPS drop off slip to the buyer in the UPS parking lot. I ask if they want the video. Most decline, but it's good to have documentation.

A determined scammer is probably still going to win with PayPal, but the video is handy for nervous buyers.

I stopped having problems when I changed my shipping preferences. I started requiring an adult signature and a residential address. Everything sells slow, but I have had better luck.

[kitten]

^ it may sound like orange is being madly overboard, but ebay is so genuinely against smaller sellers that you've got to watch your ass. extra documentation seriously helps calm a paranoid buyer down from initiating a claim or talk them into cancelling one. ebay also rarely manages to stop actual scamming sellers from making their money, too, and can shut you out of ever making an account again at the drop of a hat while people dedicated to the grift skirt from inauthentic account to inauthentic account using completely identical listing information to sell counterfeits, fakes, etc.

great fuckin website! glad to help make them rich because there's no competition for what they do and people crave the convenience of a single marketplace. so much for the market self-regulating itself to the benefit of fucking anyone but the board O__O;;

[GaijinPunch]

I don't think this guy is trying to scam me -- at least not yet. He has a legit complaint for sure... but I also think he should chill a bit. Don't they have like 60 days to file a claim? I actually do have like $200 or so insurance on the item. It would be more beneficial for it to actually not show up rather than show up after Ebay has written me off. O.o

[kitten]

i don't think he's trying to scam you but i think he's also probably concerned about the window of opportunity to get a refund. there's a million reasons for buyer paranoia making them quick to fuck a seller over - ebay is kind of hostile w/r/t experience operating on either side.

[GaijinPunch]

The number of competitors these days compared to 10 years ago is substantial. Etsy for just about anything DIY or vintage. Chairish/1st Dibs for furniture (usually vintage). Any number of apps for clothes. I suppose they have a strangle hold on electronics / games still (correct me if I'm wrong). You'd think they would have better customer service. Oh well. Let's see how this turns out.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I don't think this guy is trying to scam me -- at least not yet. He has a legit complaint for sure... but I also think he should chill a bit.

He should calm the fuck down is what he should do, honestly. USPS shipping this time of year is always dicey but if you're shipping within the USA, it's a disaster currently, in part due to political interference and purposeful mismanagement that USPS still hasn't recovered fully from. I accidentally has something shipped USPS to Canada when I meant to say use UPS around the election and it took ages to arrive. No surprises there.

Dec 9 to Dec 16 means only 5 days in transit. That's like... nothing. Very petty to file a claim so soon. It sucks that it still wasn't delivered, but again, all the massive delays with USPS have been known about and on major news networks.

If you do ship anything, send it UPS or FedEx. They're delayed, but nowhere near as massively delayed.

[GaijinPunch]

Well, this escalated.

So Sunday after bending me over I appealed their decision. About 24 hours later they said the original decision sticks "because I did not provide tracking information in time". WTF? Tracking has been in since it shipped. Jesus these morons.

Looking at the tracking it is not very far from it's destination, so fuck USPS obviously. But, fuck Ebay harder. I've put an intercept on the package which will still cost me a bit but I won't be deprived of the item itself, if they catch it (which I can't imagine they can't at this point since it's barely down the street -- they've fucked up this much though).

After digging around the only recourse I have now is a generic "email us" to Ebay. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and see if they treat me like a human. The buyer in this situation has 22 feedback. I'm close to 900 as I've had this one account since 1998. I know that doesn't make me right and him wrong but you'd think they'd at least wipe the jizz out of their eyes and take a look at the case. This is worth ditching my account to me. Why you'd risk a 20+ year user w/ shitty service is beyond me. I'm a bit of an asshole when it comes to poor customer service and will gladly spend more money simply out of spite, so this could be my last hoorah w/ Ebay. I just don't find them the necessary evil they once were.

[Spacemonkey]

Yeah, fuck eBay, I sold something over the weekend, I went to drop it off today in the rain, today was the first day the post office was open, and I already got a message from the buyer asking if it had been shipped out, even though they got the tracking number.

They're moving away from Paypal and going to do payments directly to your bank account, I doubt we'll get the payments immediately, so basically not gonna get paid and have to deal with their BS.

[orange808]

The buyer messenging you can be an opportunity to build a paper trail.and cover your butt. Send them the tracking number and a photo of the shipping receipt. You can also screenshot the item tracking website on your side and toss into eBay messages. I use UPS and refuse to offer cheap shipping, because I buy the additional delivery confirmation and tracking. If the item gets really late, I probably (surprise the buyer and) refund the shipping cost without asking the buyer. eBay likes to see that stuff in your communications and it helps make cases break your way.

[GaijinPunch]

The buyer is actually being kind of cool about it. I assume he's young, TBH so I'm trying to not to hold him accountable. He sent a screenshot of what they sent him which was just "get another form of payment from the seller if the item actually does arrive". WTF ever... such ding dongs. At this point my guess is the intercept will go through and I'll wound up having paid to ship an extremely heavy item to my new residence on the west coast. Not a terrible outcome all things considered. If it does make it to him... well I'll figure that out when I get there I suppose.

Yeah, fuck eBay, I sold something over the weekend, I went to drop it off today in the rain, today was the first day the post office was open, and I already got a message from the buyer asking if it had been shipped out, even though they got the tracking number.

They're moving away from Paypal and going to do payments directly to your bank account, I doubt we'll get the payments immediately, so basically not gonna get paid and have to deal with their BS.

I am assuming they're do a combination of what Yahoo Japan did a couple of years ago and what Etsy does now. YJ forces you to use their payments system instead of bank transfer (which is still pretty cheap ll things considered). Etsy will send you your dough straight to your bank but they charge you the clearing fees on top of their commission. Basically the same as Paypal.

[Koa Zo]

They're moving away from Paypal and going to do payments directly to your bank account, I doubt we'll get the payments immediately, so basically not gonna get paid and have to deal with their BS.

eBay forced me into this back in July or August. I ignored their emails about it, then had my store frozen until I confirmed my back account.
Their automated system wouldn't recognize my bank - the same account used to pay my seller fees for 15 years couldn't be recognized by their system. They instead required that I email a dated bank document showing my account number. My bank partially redacts the account number on printed documents so I had nothing that fit their criteria - I ended up sending a scan of a voided check, then my store got reopened the next day. It all seemed a needlessly convoluted process.

The payments have been transferred by eBay pretty quick, like 48 hours after the sale. The deposit emails started to get annoying some weeks. I've been meaning to look into options for deposit frequency as well as turning off notifications- one sale can generate like 5 or 6 emails now.
From what I roughly calculated eBay is taking a little over 13% between Final Value Fees and what ever transfer fees they may be charging.

[GaijinPunch]

From what I roughly calculated eBay is taking a little over 13% between Final Value Fees and what ever transfer fees they may be charging.

So basically just doing what Paypal used to do (maybe even charging more) and adding absolutely no value. I'm done w/ these clowns.

[stuminator]

It's unfortunate that the seller always gets shit on in these instances when you have no control over it.

I buy regularly from ebay and have had several instances when my purchase gets hung up in the postal system. I may have to wait an extra 3 weeks, but should I go after the seller or file a claim when I can clearly see it's been shipped and I know exactly where it is? Sounds like your buyer just needs to learn some patience.

[Steamflogger Boss]

I've been avoiding selling anything on eBay lately for this reason. Just with holiday packages to and from family, and a few transactions to people I trust I am seeing pure insanity in the mail. One sale I made to a long time buyer (61 transactions) I shipped late November via priority mail. That was delivered December 16th. I am sending him another package this week, might just use UPS if it isn't a huge difference...

[GaijinPunch]

For other items I sell from time to time, I don't think Ebay is the best venue TBH... just easy. For games (especially old ones) it looks like they still have the most reach.

[Steamflogger Boss]

For other items I sell from time to time, I don't think Ebay is the best venue TBH... just easy. For games (especially old ones) it looks like they still have the most reach.

Definitely. I probably could have got slightly more on eBay, just didn't want to deal with it due to the circumstances plus shipping three packages instead of one.

I intend to go back to listing on eBay, probably in about a month.

[Koa Zo]

The stuck package I was dealing with was delivered yesterday and the "case" against me was closed automatically by eBay.
Overall just another unnecessary headache of an experience with eBay and encouragement to look to sell elsewhere.

[dingsbums]

Most important questions:

How long is the package in the shipping process ? = When did you ship it ? And with what shipping company and what shipping method did you ship ?
Where are you and where is the buyer ? (Countries)

Just keep in mind that shipping overseas takes up to 2 months easily because of fucking Covid.
And also keep in mind that customs are SLOW AS FUCK in quite a few countries - Im in Germany and customs can take up to 2 months easily (I order regularly from Japan and I had it multiple times that the package was here from Japan to Germany in 3 days but then the custom process took up to 2 months and that was before Covid).

[GaijinPunch]

Most important questions:

How long is the package in the shipping process ? = When did you ship it ? And with what shipping company and what shipping method did you ship ?
Where are you and where is the buyer ? (Countries)

Just keep in mind that shipping overseas takes up to 2 months easily because of fucking Covid.
And also keep in mind that customs are SLOW AS FUCK in quite a few countries - Im in Germany and customs can take up to 2 months easily (I order regularly from Japan and I had it multiple times that the package was here from Japan to Germany in 3 days but then the custom process took up to 2 months and that was before Covid).

This is far from my first rodeo. In fact I'm probably a grandpa when it comes to telling stories of shipping items. This was all done domestically though. USPS, tracked, tracking in the system -- just slow, as per EVERY December and even more so b/c of a pandemic.

Anyway, update:
The intercept was supposedly successful. All parties are happy, although I'm only moderately happy. Wound up paying a lot to get a turntable to my new home which I don't exactly need but whatever. I did get a human* reply from Ebay where I was suggested to ship with insurance the next time. What the fuck does that have to do with anything? (And I did ship w/ insurance). Such morons.

*shitty

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I did get a human* reply from Ebay where I was suggested to ship with insurance the next time. What the fuck does that have to do with anything? (And I did ship w/ insurance). Such morons.

I'm glad it worked out for you. That's an extra-lovely fuck-you from Ebay, suggesting you're somehow to blame for someone else's sheer impatience.