Do Two INRs in a few months hurt my selling metrics?

[wheredidiputthatremote]

Hi, I don't know what's going on with the USPS for the last 4 months, but I have two INRs that I just closed with a refund in the past few months.  I use professional packing material including a 4x6 thermal label on every package and the invoice enclosed inside.  Twice now in the past 3 months I've been hit with an INR.  Does it count against my selling metrics when I close the INRs by just refunding?  Thanks in advance.

[rfmtm]

What did the tracking show?

Did you make a claim with the carrier?

Where they to weather affected areas where ebay is making exceptions?

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Announcements/Seller-Protections-are-in-place-for-sellers-impacted-by-...

[soh.maryl]

What did tracking show? Did you suggest that the buyer contact the carrier to see if they info that showed exactly where the package(s) were delivered? 

[wheredidiputthatremote]

in both cases tracking showed they were scanned at the outgoing hub and then the tracking was not updated for a month or more.  they just disappeared.  in both cases I opened up a where's my package request on usps.gov website.  both cases the usps just closed the case and asked me to file a claim.  in both cases i shipped Ground Advantage, so I assumed they are not insured - so I just ate the cost of the items.

[pjcdn2005]

You woukd need to have quite a few to affect you at all.  You can check your seller metrics by going to Sellers Hub and at the top you click on Performance and then Seller Metrics.  Near the top of that page  you can choose to see metrics for item not as described OR item not received metrics.

[ebooksdiva]

@wheredidiputthatremote 

"in both cases tracking showed they were scanned at the outgoing hub"

What do you mean scanned at the outgoing hub? Were those items shipped EIS? If they were and they were delivered to the shipping hub you should not have refunded it was eBay's responsibility once items are delivered to the hub. 

[12345jamesstamps]

So just a heads up. 

I also had tracking that has not been updated since February 2023...they are still opened. It doesn't mean items never got to the buyers. Apparently. my buyers left positive feedback for items received even though tracking did not show "delivered".

I never ask a buyer did they receive item. I wait for buyer to contact me first.

Items do not always get "scanned" as delivered" or even some tracking that show moving in the system.

Just sometimes it depends on honest vs. not honest.

I now do put tracking in....but I stopped telling buyer the tracking  number or it got mailed. I will let eBay do that now.

[wheredidiputthatremote]

Not international shipping. Domestic shipping here in the US. Both packages made it to the Chicago hub and then disappeared. The first package was 3 months ago in late to October. The second was late December.

[dolcetreasures]

INR absolutely damages your metrics. I’ve mentioned this before, I had 2 in 221 transactions which according to eBay put me at .90 VERY HIGH verses .13 they claim is my peers. So that doesn’t get you a 6% increase in FVF, however I can no longer claim 50% off of returns despite being Top Rated+. More and more sellers are gonna realize this is happening to them.

[easydoll2211]

I think USPS ground advantage IS insured.

[pjcdn2005]

@dolcetreasures 

Two inr’s at the op’s volume shouldn’t affect them.  Actually. I’m surprised that it affected you as according to the service metrics policy page:

• A service metric rating is High or Very High, but the rate of reports/requests is less than 1% of transactions

• A Very High rating won't affect your account unless it involves at least 10 reports/requests with 10 unique buyers

[rfmtm]

Two will put a mark on your metrics, if buyer filed an INR, but not enough to cause you a problem.

GA is insured, file a claim.

[dolcetreasures]

Received a return request back in December about an item sold in November, on the literal 30th day. eBay gave the buyer an additional 3 weeks to return the item. 15 days later buyer prints the label. I received the item back used and broken tags nearly two months after I shipped it to him.

When I got the item back I attempted to use my TRS+ to take a deduction. The option was no longer available to me. I called the concierge, she went through my account to figure out what was the problem.

She checked my metrics and her conclusion was that there is a stipulation regarding INR, and it is that if the system feels your performance is not up to par they may limit your ability to collect the deduction and she believed that is what’s happening. There’s no particular threshold for this as it seems to be dynamic. 

[pjcdn2005]

The situation you’re referring to was not  an item not received (INR)  claim like the op was asking about, it was a not as described  (NAD) return.  With that being said, some of the penalties are the same for both.  

I just reread the sellers protections page and it does specify that some seller protections won’t be allowed if the seller has a very high sellers metric so I can understand why the concierge came to that conclusion and  that might be the  exact reason.  You would think though it would give you a warning somewhere about that on your seller performance or metrics page.

I still think it unlikely that 2 inr’s in a few months for a seller that sells approx 300 items a month would be affected.  But it wouldn’t be the first time I was wrong. 

[dolcetreasures]

You’ll see that there is mention of it. It’s kinda haphazardly thrown in there under the assumption that all previous conditions must be met. But that may not be the case obviously.