Request to waive 6% fee penalty - Defects due to emergency / Orders successfully completed
Summary: milshald_0 shared their experience of being penalized with a 6% fee increase on eBay due to order cancellations that occurred during a family tragedy, despite all orders being eventually completed with customer satisfaction. Several participants expressed sympathy for their loss and provided advice on how to contact eBay customer service for assistance. There was a discussion about the challenges of dealing with automated systems and the importance of contingency plans for sellers. Some participants emphasized that eBay rules are strict and apply equally to all sellers, making exceptions unlikely, while others encouraged seeking direct contact with eBay to address the issue.
Hello. I’ve been a Top Rated Seller for 10 years. My account dropped to Below Standard with a 6% fee penalty due to order cancellations during a severe family tragedy (the illness and passing of my father). However, my loyal buyers agreed to wait, and I have since successfully completed all of these orders! Every customer is 100% satisfied. The automated system penalized me incorrectly based on the initial status. Can a human representative please review my completed orders and remove these defects? My username is [milshald_0]. Thank you!
chapeau-noir
·1 week agoNext step here is devising some strategies to recover from this. You do not have to deal with a bunch of negs over this (feedback makes no difference, but the optics are important to future buyers), this situation came about because of an emergency, not an ongoing pattern of poor business practice, so it's just a matter of accumulating enough sales to move back to above standard and dig out of this.
inhawaii
·1 week agoThis is not ebay.
This is the eBay community board made up of buyers and sellers like you.
Sorry to hear about your father.
As far as your complaint, I agree with ebay.
The rules are the rules. No exception.
ebay can not make exceptions for sellers with a "good excuse".
Where do you draw the line?
Death in the family
Serious injury/illness
Natural disaster
House fire
ebay does not have the time or manpower to determine who has a good excuse and who doesn't. They treat all sellers the same and hold all sellers to the same standards.
luckythewinner
·2 weeks ago · EditedSeller ratings are objective criteria. The fact that you don't LIKE the criteria or that you think the criteria are UNFAIR does not mean they are "incorrect". In eBay's eyes, what was incorrect was when you either:
(a) canceled orders; or
(b) failed to properly respond to disputes
Those are the only two things that put a seller below standard, and the criteria are available to any seller from the day they sign up as a seller. IMHO contingency plans are a necessity.
milshald_0
OP2 weeks agoThe orders were canceled because I urgently flew to another country to be with my dying darling father. I agreed with my long-term clients that I will cancel, but when I return back I will put it up for sale again. that I did. Anyway, orders were executed but only later.
shire123
·1 week agoWhile we all sympathize with your situation, that doesn't change the fact that you messed up with your ebay requirements to ship within your stated handling times.
Ebay cannot and will not make exceptions to their rules which we all agreed to when we signed up with ebay.
Canceling orders is one of the worst things you can do on ebay as a seller and must be avoided at all costs. All sellers need to have a back up plan in place in case something happens like your situation.
Even if the buyers agree with what you want to do, you have still created what ebay calls a "bad buying experience (BBE). Just be glad you are not in a foreign country in which case your account may have been suspended as the rules for foreign sellers are more stringent regarding BBE.
milshald_0
OP1 week agoThe fact of the matter is that the rules say that it is deleted if out of stock, but I had these items in stock and were only re-sold after a while while I was going through grief and loss. and my customers were waiting for me and I did not receive a single negative review, since for 10 years of sales my reputation was impeccable. Some of the awaiting orders included my regular buyers who had been shopping in my store for more than 8 years. This is why we are people and not robots, in order to convey to the public and employers, in order to find ways to compromise and improve the rules of operation of automated systems. I am a deep introvert and have never brought anything up for public discussion, but in this case I am interested in public opinion, so this is the first time I have entered into a discussion in the community. For now, I live with a feeling of deep injustice both to me and to my customers. I have removed more than 3 thousand products from the store and, as a matter of principle, will not trade with the additional costs of 6% fees.
shire123
·1 week ago@milshald_0 Sorry to hear about your removing items. Unfortunately, that action just perpetuates your seller status as the only way to improve things is to sell more.
Good luck with sales elsewhere.
tobaccocardyahoo
·2 weeks agoNot ignoring the tragedy which has befallen you and your family, you are dealing with an automated process and the likelihood of success in reversing the reduction in your seller level is close to non-existent.
The appropriate action you should have taken was to place your listings on vacation, as soon as you realized the risks.
When I was hospitalized for emergency heart surgery, I placed my online listings on vacation from my phone in the ER. Others have similarly avoided the draconian costs of being Below Standard.
gloryglorygifts
·2 weeks agoI'm so very sorry about the passing of your Father.
I hope that you get the assistance that you need from ebay.
milshald_0
OP2 weeks agoThank you everyone for your support, sympathy and advice ❤️
bashort
·2 weeks agoebay is a machine, machines have no empathy
mam98031
·2 weeks agoI am VERY Sorry to hear about your loss. That is a very tough thing to go through and deal with.
You can try to have Ebay help, but they may not. Don't get upset with Ebay if they don't, you have to remember that they don't know one way or another of what happened in your life. That doesn't mean they don't care. It means they have close to 20 Million active sellers to keep track of and individual important issues, such as you experienced aren't always something they can help with.
At the top and bottom of every page in Ebay are links to contact Customer Service.
There is not just one way to contact Ebay and there has always been multiple ways to get in touch with them. I hope you will save this information as it can come in handy from time to time. At the very bottom is a link in which you can request Ebay to call you.
Here are your options for contacting Ebay Customer Service. Please be aware that for social media CS, you send them a Private Message and briefly explain what your problem or issue is. Feel free to leave your Name, address, phone number and/or your email address in this message. It is private and secure and it may help to speed up the response for you.
https://www.instagram.com/ebay/
https://www.instagram.com/ebayforsellers/
Your options will be on the left. If you use the link below you can only get to the Automated Assistant or Chat box type AGENT or ask an Agent to call you, in the box and hit enter. You will then get more options. Not all options are available 24/7. It will depend on staffing available. So sometimes you can request a call back and sometimes you can't. Sometimes you have the Chat option available and other times it won't me. If it is important to you to use one of those options, just try back later.
If you use a cell phone or other mobile device, you may need to turn off your Spam filter so that Ebay can call you.
If you are a seller outside of the US or Canada, you will need to use the Chat Option.
https://www.ebay.com/help/eua?id=5275&mkevt=1&mkpid
From this link you can request Ebay to call you in the USA. The option is available when Staff is available to respond, so NOT 24/7/365.
https://www.ebay.com/help/home
grann-4629
·2 weeks agoOff topic, but I am very sorry to hear about your father.
krazzykats
·2 weeks agoYou need to have an agent call you. Scroll around until you find that option.
eBay Customer Service