Ebay Guaranteed Delivery Date. Is Ebay Taking Money From Your Account Too?

[lcristel11]

So I just noticed this by accident. I need to find a better way to track this. But anyone who has been shipping during this pandemic knows that USPS has been INCREDIBLY unreliable. I had a buyer who got upset at me that USPS delayed his delivery past Ebay's "Guaranteed Delivery Date". He opened a case, he later closed the case. I was just randomly going through transactions and I noticed he got a "partial refund". I thought: "Well that's strange, I never refunded him back any money, and the case was closed by him". Ebay went into my paypal account and refunded back his shipping charge on my behalf. Is this how the Ebay Guaranteed Delivery Date works?

Geez! I'm now wondering if they've done this on other transactions of mine. I can't seem to find a way to track partial refunds in Paypal. Anyone have any ideas? It's not showing up in the "Refunds" section in Paypal, but it does show up when looking at the transaction in Paypal. It says "Partially refunded".

[rebell45]

You may want to change your handling time or opt out of the Guaranteed Delivery program.

The following are excerpts from eBay's GD page:

Signing up for Guaranteed Delivery

Sellers need to register for eBay Guaranteed Delivery - opens in new window or tab. If you're eligible, you can choose the items you want to be covered by the program.

If the buyer paid for shipping and the item arrives after the guaranteed delivery date, it’s up to you to provide a refund and return label if they no longer want the item. If the buyer wants to keep the item, you’ll need to refund the shipping cost.

If shipping was free and the item arrives after the guaranteed delivery date but the buyer wants to keep it, we’ll send them an eBay voucher. In all scenarios, we’ll handle the returns and refunds experience for buyers.

[lcristel11]

Thanks for posting that. So if I offer free shipping then I'm not punished? Either way that's super cruel to punish a seller for a shipping company's mistake. Absolutely ridiculous in my opinion. Looks like I won't be shipping USPS any time soon, so I'll instead be paying more in shipping via Fedex/UPS..... sigh.

[lcristel11]

There's actually two mechanisms for "Guaranteed Delivery Date". There's "Handling Time" and "Door to Door". I'm signed up for "Handling Time" and not "Door to Door". Looks like I'll be giving ebay a call about this particular issue.

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/shipping-items/offering-ebay-guaranteed-delivery?id=4645

What screwed me over is that my local post office, during this pandemic is not scanning packages properly. So my item was dropped off at my post office but they didn't scan it into their system until the following day. That has been driving me nuts as of late.