Question For Ebay Sellers - Arrival Date

KRelyea, I always thought if you let it lapse for ebay to make a judgement, it impacts your top seller rating status? I truly don't know for sure but somewhere in a lone brain cell in the back of my brain, I thought I recall seeing that somewhere. Definitely could be wrong though.

It's interesting you can appeal and get that back. I've never heard of that before but always thought that should be a thing.

If the item arrives and I get to try the appeal route I will report back, I never heard of it either.

"Fair performance evaluation"... from ebay's Seller Performance language...

You'll be recognized for on-time shipping if tracking shows your item was either shipped within the stated handling time or delivered by the estimated delivery date. If there's no tracking available, we'll check with your buyer. If your buyer confirms the item was delivered on time—you'll be recognized for on-time shipping.

We'll only consider a shipment as late if:

Tracking shows the item was delivered after the estimated delivery date, unless there's an acceptance scan within your handling time or there's confirmation from the buyer of on-time delivery
The buyer confirms the item was delivered after the estimated delivery date, unless there's an acceptance scan within your handling time or there's delivery confirmation by the estimated delivery date.

My lost item tale is nearly done.

After I contacted ebay I decided to contact the buyer. I explained I wasn't ignoring the problem but ebay had advised me to let the case run it's course. I did think he was a little unreasonable filing a lost item claim when Election day was just around the corner, but I decided to take the high road. He responded congenially and we both waited. There was no tracking updates from Oct 26th to Nov. 6th and then it arrived in Augusta but still not in South Carolina. ebay closed the case and issued a refund on the 7th and 12 hours later the item was delivered.

The buyer contacted me and asked if it was OK if he sent me a check for the item and I concurred. I checked and ebay had given me a defect as expected. I called them and referred them to the earlier phone call and they immediately removed the defect. Case closed!!

One important piece of advice if I may. I often call ebay when I see a potential problem coming and tell them I want to explain and get it on the record. This has helped me many many times. Always ask the rep to put your conversation in the record if only to save time explaining everything twice when you call back.

On October 15th I mailed an ebay shipment from New York to Puerto Rico. Last week the buyer put in a claim of non-arrival. I told the buyer to please give it a bit of time and he did. Yesterday ebay however put the heat on me to do something about it before they did so I went ahead and sent a refund. Later that night, the buyer emailed to say he received it and wanted to refund the refund (we figured it out via PayPal - ebay is no help).