Why is there no loner a call back option with "customer support"

[bountyhunter]

I encountered something new that I really don't like. Apparently customers are paying ebay directly for fedex shipping labels. I don't offer fedex as an option because it is not a convenient drop off location. Now I am unable to use a free priority box or take advantage of free pickups. I wanted to speak with someone at ebay to discuss this moronic idea but the call back feature was disabled. It only offered an email option that said they would respond within a day. I submit an email and it says we will respond in 24-48 hours....ebay strikes again. So my two questions are how do I disable this pay ebay directly for a fedex label (it was sneakers in case the category matters) and what happened to the call back feature?

[bashort]

Even if they did talk to you they would be of no help.

Make sure that you do not have fedex listed in your listings as a additional shipping option. 

[mcdougle4248]

@bountyhunter 

If the information below does not apply to your situation, please disregard it.

I did not look at all of your listings, however, I did see that you have sneakers with the Authenticity Guarantee. With Authenticity Guarantee for sneakers, eBay requires that you use the FedEx label provided to send your sneakers to the authentication center. Does this apply in your situation? 

Here is more info:

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/selling-tools/ebay-authenticity-guarantee?id=4644 

https://pages.ebay.com/authenticity-guarantee-sneakers-seller/ 

[bountyhunter]

This is something different. It was a $50 pair of hokas. It's shipping directly to the customer not to an eBay authenticity center.

[theteamsetguy]

@bountyhunter ,

You can schedule FedEx to pick up your package. Call 1-800-GoFedex to schedule.

Easy peasey.

[valueaddedresource]

@bountyhunter  looking at that item, it *did* have the $14.95 eBay shipping method, so @mcdougle4248 is right to point you in that direction.

Just testing it out by clicking "sell now" on that listing, I' m seeing that shipping method either available or not available in the listing form depending on what BIN price I choose.

As of today at least, $75 appears to be where the cut off is, but it may have been different when you created the listing - eBay often adjusts the price threshold to qualify for authentication at different times and I've even seem some evidence it may be dynamic based on which shoes you are listing (one pair might be at $75 but then immediately after that if you list a different brand/model it could be at $150).

Did you start the listing out higher and then revise the price down at some point? Or I see that you also had strike through pricing on that with the "was" price at $89.99, so maybe it was going by that?

Either way, it looks to me like when you created the listing, something about it triggered eBay to say it qualified for authentication, which would then also force the $14.95 shipping, but then once the item actually sold, it didn't go to the authenticator, which can happen for a variety of reasons - the final price didn't meet the minimum, buyer's address is somewhere that is excluded, etc.

I've seen other similar examples where the final order ended up not going to authentication for whatever reason, but because the way the initial listing was set up forced that shipping option, that is still what the buyer gets charged, they pay eBay and eBay provides the label to the seller with the buyer's shipping address instead of the authenticator.

In order to avoid that happening in the future, you'll need to pay close attention when creating listings to make sure it doesn't default to the eBay Shipping option...if it does, that means eBay has determined those sneakers will ship that way and you can't add a different shipping method, so you'll need to either figure out how to get that package to FedEx or sell those shoes somewhere besides eBay.

[bountyhunter]

Your probably correct about the original price triggering something but if it was part of the authentication process why did it give me a shipping label to ship directly to the customer not the authenticator? It's just really strange and led to the issue of no callback. eBay has been weird lately.

[valueaddedresource]

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@bountyhunter wrote:

Your probably correct about the original price triggering something but if it was part of the authentication process why did it give me a shipping label to ship directly to the customer not the authenticator? It's just really strange and led to the issue of no callback. eBay has been weird lately.

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@bountyhunter like I said, that can happen for a variety of reasons like if the final sale price doesn't meet the minimum threshold  or if the buyer's address at check out doesn't qualify (those are the main reasons I've seen, but there could be others.)

For example, previously they excluded PO boxes and Puerto Rico, and though that has recently changed, they still exclude some territories like Guam, Virgin Islands, North Mariana Islands, American Samoa and Palau and Armed Forces postal locations.

So the item might initially be eligible for authenticity guarantee, but when the buyer completes checkout, if their shipping address is one of those places, it will be routed to them directly not to the authenticator.

In your case, from looking at that listing, I believe it's likely the issue was that the actual final selling price didn't meet the minimum threshold (which is why it isn't showing the authenticity guaranteed badge) but something in your initial listing process triggered the listing form to say it would be eligible, forcing that shipping option, which then "stuck" even though the final sale ended up not going through the authenticator.

[sapphire_studio]

Sometimes you can get a call back if you tell the automated chat over and over again that you want a call back. They're likely to be less helpful than the people in this thread.

[valueaddedresource]

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@sapphire_studio wrote:

Sometimes you can get a call back if you tell the automated chat over and over again that you want a call back. They're likely to be less helpful than the people in this thread.

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And just to add to this, if you're on social media, often the best bet is to contact eBay's support channels through Twitter or Facebook.

https://twitter.com/AskeBay

https://www.facebook.com/eBayForBusiness  

[bountyhunter]

I've used that feature many times before but it was not an option today. Only email. 

[dhbookds]

I believe blues  have said that if a particular "subject" is overwhelmed with calls, the call option will not be available presumably because there are not enough knowledgeable agents in that area available......   There are also time constraints as to when live agents are in.......don't remember the times, but know it's more of a business day time, not open 24 hrs......

[toomuchstuffagain35]

It seems to me that if an item does NOT qualify for the AG shipping at the time of sale then that requirement should be dropped.

Why should a seller be forced to use an ebay imposed shipping service (and cost) when the seller is shipping direct?

[kensgiftshop]

If they were going to the AG center, FedEx  is how they ship and nothing you can do about that.

[valueaddedresource]

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@toomuchstuffagain35 wrote:

It seems to me that if an item does NOT qualify for the AG shipping at the time of sale then that requirement should be dropped.

Why should a seller be forced to use an ebay imposed shipping service (and cost) when the seller is shipping direct?

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@toomuchstuffagain35 I don't disagree but I think this particular issue gets complicated by the general fact that the shipping method(s) which are available to sellers during the listing process and offered on the listing don't really have any way to take into account what the address of the eventual buyer will end up being.

In some ways it's not entirely unlike how PO boxes are handled on regular listings - if you only select UPS and/or FedEx shipping methods, blocking PO boxes is still a separate additional option that needs to be checked and even if you do check it, sometimes a buyer might sneak one through depending on how they enter the address and whether eBay's systems recognize it as a PO box.

That can leave sellers in a tough spot where they may only offer services that do not deliver to PO boxes and/or the shipping costs they charged aren't enough to cover what it would cost to ship via USPS instead - you can find many examples of this just searching here in the community.

A listing may have things that make it "eligible" for Authenticity Guarantee when the seller creates it (which then limits the shipping method allowed) but that basically just means it will be authenticated if all of the criteria listed in the t&c are met. If there is anything about the sale (final price, buyer address etc.) that doesn't meet the criteria, it doesn't go to the authenticator but at the point at which that is determined, the shipping method and costs can't be changed.

In the early days of authentication, eBay struggled with weeding out shoes that should not qualify and in fact some sellers even figured out ways to game the system to get the authentication badge when they shouldn't have had it (I personally had a $39 pair go through the authentication center when they minimum price should have been $150.)

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Buying/Why-Is-eBay-Showing-Sneakers-Below-150-With-Authentication/m-p/... 

As "headcount and expenses have outpaced growth", leading to recent layoffs, eBay's authentication programs are coming under increasing scrutiny for the costs and risks involved in running these types of labor-centric warehouse operations (which is also one reason eBay started that $14.995 shipping program to begin with - they need to start finding ways to monetize authentication to cover some of the costs.)

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/eBay-Lays-Off-1000-Employees-CEO-Blames-Macroeconomic-Headwind...

Given that, I believe eBay is trying to make sure they are catching items that may appear to be eligible for authentication at time of listing but end up not meeting qualifying criteria in the final sale to have those shipped directly to the buyer and avoid wasting time/money/resources having them go to the authenticator when they shouldn't.

Ideally of course all of that should be happening on the front end during the listing process to avoid the disappointing and confusing buyer experiences we hear about here from time to time where someone thought their item would be authenticated and it wasn't. But this is eBay - they aren't exactly known for their technical execution skills and as with many things around here, if it meets the minimum standard for "works well enough" for the majority of transactions...well that's good enough for them.

Not saying I think any of that is the right way to handle it necessarily, just that it's a complex issue because of the way various parts of eBay's systems are either connected or not and the fact that some information (such as shipping address) by nature can't/won't be known until the point the sale is completed.