Ridiculous Ebay/Paypal Situation

I'm disgusted by the ebay process. A buyer in Slovakia alleges that s/he has not received his/her two items and started two ebay cases against me. Although I am able to supply proof of postage, Paypal has blocked money in my Paypal account EVEN THOUGH THE BUYER HAS NOT OPENED ANY PAYPAL CASES AGAINST ME. Because my Paypal account is now in the negative, I cannot pay for an ebay item I purchased the other day so I've had to ask the seller to cancel the transaction. As for my Paypal balance, it may take weeks for ebay or Paypal (who knows who?) to review my case and release the funds. How can I do business in a situation like this?

if you have a delivery confiration number then escalate the claim yourself it will go faster, if you mailed it with stamps your most likely screwed.

These stories are more and more common. Buyers and sellers getting hosed by ebay and PayPal. Bottom line, Don't ship to places like Slovakia. Even Germany is a pain in the butt (search my recent postings Germany registered if interested). Unless you can prove delivery, which is unlikely, your best bet is to make a claim with USPS assuming you had insurance. Otherwise ebay will side with the buyer who may not admit to receiving items. The only positive is your loss might feed a Slovakian family for several weeks.

"if you have a delivery confirmation number ..."

We don't have this system in Australia unless the buyer pays extra for registered postage, which hardly anybody ever wants to do. I photograph the envelope at the post office after the post office clerk has cancelled it (or get her to photocopy it). It's the only solution available in Australia.

I am unable to escalate the claim - as you can see, all it says is "Awaiting buyer's action." There is no means for me to do anything at this stage.

Crouse, I can't afford not to sell to 'places like Slovakia.' I have no idea in advance which countries will be a problem for me. Up until now, the only problems I ever really had were with China (PRC).

It's actually possible for someone in any country to claim that they haven't received their item/s, so it seems silly to exclude buyers simply on the basis of the country they live in.

What gets me is that ebay sellers are being penalised for what is 99% of the time the inefficiency of the postal service.

What's more, sellers with a proven track record of service shouldn't be punished financially if they can provide evidence of postage. Otherwise, ebay is saying to the seller that a risk of selling on ebay is losing both the item and the money. If this is to be the case they ought to start offering seller insurance to cover us for such eventualities.

It's an honor system. You assume the buyer is honest and actually did not receive the item. The buyer assumes the seller did ship the item. And meanwhile you hope the post office did their job and not screw the whole thing up for you. And meanwhile ebay is leaning in the direction of protecting the buyer. Depending on your feel for the situation you can always put the buyer on your "blocked" list but that doesn't do anything in this situation. Unfortunately you probably will get to eat the loss. Been there and had that done to me.

You could just give the buyer the money back and that should lift the PayPal block. Wash your hands of it and move on.

Try to fight it and the buyer will get their money back anyway from you and you would receive a strike on your record.

Third option - contact the buyer directly and ask for more time - ask for two more weeks in case the postal system between Australia and Slovakia are just screwed up. It doesn't take much for that to happen. Ask him to contact you if it arrives within those two weeks and if it doesn't to contact you at the end of those two weeks and you'll refund the buyer. Kill with kindness. I just wish ebay would make buyers and sellers contact each other directly to work out issues like adults instead of those dreaded notifications from ebay that make you feel like a criminal about to be sentenced.

If the decision goes against you, do double check that ebay credits your fees back for the transaction. I'm not real sure about their book keeping lately.

ebay doesn't automatically refund final value fees. You have to file a "Final Value Fee Credit" request and hope the buyer complies (why getting your fees back on a return/refund is contingent upon the whim of the buyer, I have ZERO idea, but then again it's ebay).

Also, "proof of postage" is meaningless, unless ebay Australia operates differently than ebay US. ebay seller protection requires Proof of *DELIVERY*.

I would just refund and move on. Otherwise your account will be tied up for a while.

Battlestamps, the buyer opened two ebay cases against me without contacting me first, which is very rude, I think. It's only been a month since the items were posted and I'm finding that 5-6 weeks is not unusual for international mail these days.

revenuecollector, no seller can provide proof of delivery unless an item is sent with tracking. The minimum charge for a tracked item here is about $4.50, if I recall correctly, for a domestic registered item. Most people who buy stamps on ebay will not pay this much. Internationally, the cost rises quite significantly to over $15, and almost NO ONE is willing to pay that for an item that costs less than, say, $100.

Even with a tracked item, delivery cannot always be confirmed. Items are not always delivered correctly in Australia, let alone countries like China where posties may not interpret address details properly.

There are a lot of things I could say further about this matter. For one thing, it stiffens my resolve to only sell high value items off ebay, so that I am free to insist on payment by direct bank deposit. Things take longer to sell this way, but they do tend to sell in the end.

But for now I want to say how much easier life would be for ebay sellers in Australia if Australia Post only offered a Proof of Postage service. Only about ten minutes ago, I received this from a British seller (I've scrubbed some of my address details, which were given correctly):

Wouldn't it be nice if post offices around the world operated that way? In the computer age, how hard can it be to keep track of something? Not hard at all if the will to do it is there.

Exactly!

There are a lot of problems in Australia because of Australia Post inefficiency. I've seen no evidence whatsoever that Australia Post has the will to resolve the relevant issues.

I fail to see how the Proof of Postage system helps. All it proves is that you dispatched e item over the counter at your sending postal service, The buyer still can say that the item never was received, and ebay has to assume that it was lost, stolen or destroyed in the receiving country or local post. Consequently,100% of the risk in international sales on ebay is borne by the seller. If you can't accept that, get out, or only sell to countries where you have determined that the risk of loss is less, through personal experience. Like First World states.

eBay/PayPal don't care about proof of posting - they require proof of delivery or you the seller loses every time.

The seller can only reasonably be expected to post the relevant item/s.

If anything goes wrong after that, it's not the seller's fault.

If what you say is true then ebay is a conspiracy against sellers.

I would change my selling strategy quite a lot as a result. I would only sell Buy It Now lots valued no higher than about $5. Everything else would go elsewhere.

Hi jimjamtwo being an Aussie seller myself I recommend you choose and set your postage locations to avoid selling to certain countries altogether where chances are the mail will never arrive there. I find there are more than enough buyers in the rest of the countries esp UK & USA where there are loads of great buyers. I block many other countries if a buyer from one of those countries wants to bid then they can message me first. Upon agreement of them paying $20 registered from Sydney to their country then you can accept single ebay ids to bid as you go. It is annoying Aust post don't offer online tracking but please be aware that you can track Oz post international registered letters on other countries websites. Russia has a good track and trace site that picks up Australian registered letters & parcels. I have used Australia post registered to ship to places like India but only when buyers have agreed in advance on the postage. I successfully ship to remote locations in Latin America to although the postage is slow it does get there. I use google translator to communicate with the buyers in advance from other countries so they know what is going on. If you're not sure with places like Slovakia you need to have them blocked in your postage rules. If buyer from there vreally wants the item it must go registered. Then track it on the Russian site. In nearly all cases this works for me. And all my regulars get standard airmail. Everyone's happy after 6000 transactions things are running smoothly. In your case I would refund the bidder take the loss and block him. That would /should free up your paypal. Cheers