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ebay's Standard Envelope issues & how their NEGLIGENT BUSINESS PRACTICES generate MILLIONS IN FEES
Hello there seller community
I am curious to see how many other sellers out there are purchasing the eBay Standard Envelope labels from ebay only for no or late tracking, no or late delivery receipts, no or late carrier scans, cards that start tracking but then just disappear in the USPS network. And, your thoughts on how eBay not only hasn't addressed the issue, but is generating millions in revenue via penalizing seller accounts with 6% fee's on EVERY transaction for being a 'below avg. seller'
If eBay wants to call me a Below Avg. Seller...that's fine. But I am fed up with paying an additional 6% in fees because a product I purchase from them is faulty and, per my last discussion with ebay customer support, they are VERY AWARE of this issue yet continue to penalize sellers via fee's to boost their own revenues (much like the banks who paid billions in class actions for allowing their customers to continue overdrawing their bank accounts in order to assess them an overdraft fee when they could have just not allowed them to overdraft their accounts). IMO, this is criminal and, at very least, we should be reimbursed for the additional 6% fees we are paying. I am a responsible seller who ships my cards out on time, every time. But I don't control the mail and I can't control dishonest buyer behavior
I know I am not the only seller dealing with this as I have read this same story on Reddit and other forums so why isn't ebay doing anything about it or, at the very least, having some leniency?!? I personally have bought cards that were sent via the eBay Standard Envelope (ESE) which I received yet they show no delivery receipt or any tracking at all. But I don't open "item never received" tickets because I'm not a dishonest scammer and my integrity is worth more than $20.
If anyone reading this is an attorney, I believe this has been going on long enough, and eBay has been aware of it long enough, and eBay has generated enough $$ in additional fees (6% on top of their already highest in industry fee rate of 13.4%..give or take .5%) by downgrading seller accounts and refusing to right this issue or show leniency. The Consumer Protection Act was created specifically for these types of business practices and certain provisions of this act apply directly to online marketplaces & fee's. [Removed by Moderator]
And, Frankly, I sell software for a living which pays the mortgage and I do fine for myself so, while this is about money, my primary incentive is based on principle. There is not a single statement I've made here that eBay can dispute. Knowing who I was dealing with and their lack of business ethics, I record all my calls into customer service so I have their agents on record acknowledging this issue. I know other sellers have done the same and even gone to great lengths with USPS and Pitney Bowes to fully understand this issue and, more importantly, what we sellers can do about it.
Sorry for the novel. Needless to say, this subject fires me up so I've bulleted below for all who don't want to read this and prefer a summary:
SUMMARY OF MY COMPLAINT AND WHERE I WOULD LOVE OTHER SELLERS TO CHIME IN WITH THEIR OWN EXPERIENCES:
- eBay is selling a product to their customers which they know is faulty.
- eBay is then using the faultiness of their own product to penalize their seller customers and downgrading their "seller rating" leading to increased seller fees
- eBay assess an additional 6% fee on their "below average" seller customer accounts for each transaction which is generating tens, if not hundreds of million dollars annually.
- eBay refuses to fix this widely-known issue, and has helped to create a culture within their ecosystem that allows dishonest buyers to take advantage of no tracking or delivery receipts or both to receive free product at the cost of their customer who paid ebay directly for a label which should include both tracking and delivery receipt.
- Because these fees are ebay's primary source of revenue, at least 6% of that revenue is being collected via fraudulent, negligent, or even criminal business practices.
- eBay advertises and pushes the use of their ESE labels in a MAJOR way. Advertising specific features despite their awareness of their products issues. They advertise the "convenience" of their ESE labels to their seller customers pointing to specific features such as "tracking included" and "tracking info automatically uploaded" ... which they know is untrue in an unacceptable % of ESE labels mailed.
- They are aware of this issue per the last customer service rep I spoke with and at times, will even have notifications in their app and online marketplace regarding issues with tracking (I've seen this once over 2yrs and 1000+ transactions)
- eBay refuses or just ignores the problem and will not address the issue because it boosts their fee revenue by downgrading customer accounts to 'below avg sellers' which initiates a 6% ADDITIONAL fee on top of their already highest-in-market fee
- I am an honest buyer & seller but I am sick and tired of losing the card& hence the value of said card + reimbursing buyer + paying 6% in additional fees + my listings are being driven to the bottom of searches.
This is, at best, negligent business practices. At worst, it's criminal business practices and I have had it. [Removed by Moderator]
I have never left a Yelp review (good or bad) in my life. I will do ebay reviews every so often but this write up is WAY out of character for me which I mention only to illustrate how frustrated I am with their negligent & fraudulent practices.
[Removed by Moderator]
disneyshopper
Mentor5 months agoThe ebay standard envelopes are "read" by the scanners at the sorting machines in the hubs, which is why there are size and thickness requirements. Then they are sent to your local post office for final delivery. That is why they show as DELIVERED several days before actually being delivered to the buyer.
You can try tracking the envelope at any of these sites:
https://www.trackmyshipment.co/
https://www.trackmyshipment.co/shipment-tracking
https://parcelsapp.com/en/carriers/easyship
If you have to refund the buyer for an Item Not Delivered case, you can get reimbursed here:
https://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/shipping/ebay-standard-envelope.html#m22_tb_a1__6