Top Rated Seller Tools Gone?

In the past, Top Rated Sellers were allowed to withhold shipping from buyers who abuse the system and claim Item Not As Described vs. Size, etc., to avoid return shipping costs. I distinctly remember eBay initiating this policy and allowing us to report the buyer and toggle off the return shipping when we did the return. It appears this has been taken away from Top Rated Sellers, or am I wrong? #ebay

paylessfashion

8475 View listings

Posted 1 year ago·Last reply 1 year ago

12 comments

mam98031

·1 year ago

Owner / Operator19752 View listings

@paylessfashion wrote:
In the past, Top Rated Sellers were allowed to withhold shipping from buyers who abuse the system and claim Item Not As Described vs. Size, etc., to avoid return shipping costs. I distinctly remember eBay initiating this policy and allowing us to report the buyer and toggle off the return shipping when we did the return. It appears this has been taken away from Top Rated Sellers, or am I wrong? #ebay

That is a tool that still exists but it is dependent upon a couple of things. What your return policy is AND what type of Request for Return the buyer opened.

To be able to do this the buyer MUST open a proper Buyer's Remorse Return. It has to be for a Buyer Remorse reason. What they said in messages doesn't matter, it is how they open the case.

And the seller needs to have a No Return policy or a 30+ day with buyer pays shipping. The seller can NOT have Free Returns.

Since you have a 30 day return policy w/ buyer pays shipping, my guess would be that the buyer did NOT open a proper Buyer Remorse claim.

wastingtime101

·1 year ago

0 View listings

@paylessfashion wrote:
In the past, Top Rated Sellers were allowed to withhold shipping from buyers who abuse the system and claim Item Not As Described vs. Size, etc., to avoid return shipping costs. I distinctly remember eBay initiating this policy and allowing us to report the buyer and toggle off the return shipping when we did the return. It appears this has been taken away from Top Rated Sellers, or am I wrong? #ebay

In part you are wrong. While sellers were given the function to withhold original shipping after reporting an abusive buyer, sellers could only withhold that original shipping in line with policy if the buyer returned an item in an altered state. If you were withholding simply because the buyer abused the system to avoid return ship costs but your item was returned in the same condition, eBay would see that as abusing seller protections. Sellers are only permitted to withhold when an item is altered.

That said, the part that's correct about the original post is sellers used to have the ability to withhold original shipping on abusive SNAD claims and it seems that option was removed several months ago. I'd love for @kyle@ebay to weigh in here, because a lot of sellers have been discussing this for months within seller groups on social media and offline and sellers are not happy.

Please tell me this was not eBay's response to the discussion we had here. Sellers asked for more clarity and in response eBay removed a level of seller protections - is that correct or incorrect? Can you provide some updated info, Kyle?

@gurlcat @robbie31415 @fern*wood @iamalwaysright

gurlcat

·1 year ago

2004 View listings

Ha I almost tagged you to this thread as well. -Don't forget the glaring problem with the original shipping withholding (after reporting the buyer as abusive) ...... taking advantage of it costed the seller their fee credits, and there was no warning of that, and withholding the original shipping was set as the DEFAULT, as if to encourage it. -Go figure; then eBay got to keep the fee monies.

Recall that when I utilized it, my loss in fee credits was greater than my savings in original shipping refund, so all I did was screw myself without knowing it was going to be like that.

Really the only sellers who "should" want to keep this feature would be if they sell pretty low-dollar items. Or really eBay SHOULD NOT make the arbitrary linkage between original shipping and fee credits, but if I had a buck for every "eBay should" .........

kyle@ebay

Admin1 year ago

Community Advisor0 View listings

@wastingtime101 wrote:

@paylessfashion wrote:

In the past, Top Rated Sellers were allowed to withhold shipping from buyers who abuse the system and claim Item Not As Described vs. Size, etc., to avoid return shipping costs. I distinctly remember eBay initiating this policy and allowing us to report the buyer and toggle off the return shipping when we did the return. It appears this has been taken away from Top Rated Sellers, or am I wrong? #ebay

In part you are wrong. While sellers were given the function to withhold original shipping after reporting an abusive buyer, sellers could only withhold that original shipping in line with policy if the buyer returned an item in an altered state. If you were withholding simply because the buyer abused the system to avoid return ship costs but your item was returned in the same condition, eBay would see that as abusing seller protections. Sellers are only permitted to withhold when an item is altered.

That said, the part that's correct about the original post is sellers used to have the ability to withhold original shipping on abusive SNAD claims and it seems that option was removed several months ago. I'd love for @kyle@ebay to weigh in here, because a lot of sellers have been discussing this for months within seller groups on social media and offline and sellers are not happy.

Please tell me this was not eBay's response to the discussion we had here. Sellers asked for more clarity and in response eBay removed a level of seller protections - is that correct or incorrect? Can you provide some updated info, Kyle?

@gurlcat @robbie31415 @fern*wood @iamalwaysright

Hey @wastingtime101 I'm glad to help clarify. Your first point is 100% correct; sellers are permitted to withhold when an item is altered.

To your second point, there has been some evolution of the program, but, to your third point, it was definitely not a result of a simple conversation we had last year.

wastingtime101

·1 year ago

0 View listings

@kyle@ebay wrote:
To your second point, there has been some evolution of the program, but, to your third point, it was definitely not a result of a simple conversation we had last year.

Hi @kyle@ebay - thanks for the response. Can you confirm then, that sellers are no longer able to withhold original shipping on SNAD returns, even when the item is returned altered/damaged as a result of buyer abuse?

Has there been any other "evolution" of the process?

kyle@ebay

Admin1 year ago

Community Advisor0 View listings

@wastingtime101 wrote:

@kyle@ebay wrote:

To your second point, there has been some evolution of the program, but, to your third point, it was definitely not a result of a simple conversation we had last year.

Hi @kyle@ebay - thanks for the response. Can you confirm then, that sellers are no longer able to withhold original shipping on SNAD returns, even when the item is returned altered/damaged as a result of buyer abuse?

Has there been any other "evolution" of the process?

Hey @wastingtime101, that is correct. Currently, a seller can deduct the original shipping cost only on a remorse return where the buyer paid original shipping.

I do not believe anything else has changed recently with regards to this process. But rest assured we will continue pushing to get more updates and share them with the Community as much as possible!

iamalwaysright

·1 year ago

6 View listings

Here's my perspective on this. Most I agree with the previous posters, but some small details I beg to differ on or want to clarify.

-(This point is now obsolete btw) For a SNAD return, the withholding shipping price option should've only been done when the return was received in a different condition than the seller sent it out. Buyer abuse for filing a false SNAD did not qualify as a valid reason. I've asked the blues about this in the past. Whether we agreed with that policy or not was irrelevant. Sellers who didn't follow it could've been seen by ebay as being abusive and a violation. This meant that for example, if a seller chose to just issue a refund to the buyer and let them keep the item because they found out the damaged item wasn't worth receiving back, they also should've refunded the shipping since no item was returned in a different condition.

-That option to withhold the shipping in a SNAD is now gone. We don't know why ebay chose to do this, and without any notice or announcement. @wastingtime101 I didn't read that link to that other post but I can guess what it was about. When I first saw the option disappear from my return details, I initially thought that ebay was trying yet another effort to force sellers into going back to having free shipping. Not being able to withhold shipping doesn't matter to a seller who originally offers it as free.

- @gurlcat The whole FVF issue here is important too. Because it is yet another "illusion of control" that ebay is giving to sellers. I can't confidently say that ebay keeps all FVF of the original sale price for all "less than full refunds". But if you are certain that they do (probably by checking your fees history), then there will be many times that keeping the original shipping will cost you more money than issuing a full refund. If original shipping<FVF fees, then you just screwed yourself by keeping the shipping. Not only would low-dollar sellers want this option back, but so would sellers who have high shipping prices.

- @mam98031 Correct, the OP's buyer filed a SNAD and not a remorse. As I recall though, having free returns still gives the option to withhold shipping for a remorse return. Surprisingly I haven't processed many refunds lately (despite having many buyers filing returns and timing out), but I have free returns in some accounts and the last refund I remember processing allowed me to keep the shipping. This was around December 2024 so I don't know if it's changed.

wastingtime101

·1 year ago

0 View listings

@iamalwaysright wrote:
- @mam98031 Correct, the OP's buyer filed a SNAD and not a remorse. As I recall though, having free returns still gives the option to withhold shipping for a remorse return. Surprisingly I haven't processed many refunds lately (despite having many buyers filing returns and timing out), but I have free returns in some accounts and the last refund I remember processing allowed me to keep the shipping. This was around December 2024 so I don't know if it's changed.

What you're saying is correct. Free returns just means free return shipping; it has no bearing on original shipping. Sellers can offer free returns and still withhold original (separate ship cost) shipping on remorse returns.

gurlcat

·1 year ago

2004 View listings

Sorry but I suspect your guess about what that link was about is incorrect. That was my post from July, in which I demonstrated that eBay made the orginal shipping refund optional simply because I had previously filed an abusive buyer report (of any kind, as a matter of fact the one I filed was not about a false SNAD or altered item, but because the buyer tried to get a partial refund without returning the item, before they actually did file a return).