@warningflammable wrote:
They (upper management) don't announce it and are not preparing their CSR's to properly respond to the issue because they want there to be confusion about it and let people think it's a temporary glitch to help control the outcry. Same reason they're so slowly phasing it in - they feel they can get away with it if they can control the backlash.
From my experience, this was first happening to overseas buyers and maybe some new user accounts. It seems to me that they're adding new user accounts slowly rather than adding this to new categories. The slower they phase it in with uncertainty about what's going on, the less vocal and organized will be the pushback. It's very underhanded and even sinister given how they are profiting from this and leaving people to think it's a glitch that will eventually get corrected.
Further evidence of what they're doing can be gleaned from how they blocked the use of requesting a total from sellers the established way through the contact the seller options from the listing's page. For many years now when you try and use this communication channel that was established just for that purpose, you get back an automatic message from eBay that the seller doesn't offer combined shipping so the message doesn't go through. That (the seller not offering combined shipping) of course in the vast majority of situations not being true. These sellers not only offer combined shipping but many state so within their descriptions on their listings but still we have these messages to the seller blocked. That was supposed to be a glitch too that eBay was working to correct. Years later not only is it still there, but they expanded that too.
This change is included in the Help page on the site for this process (http://pages.ebay.com/help/pay/require-immediate-payment.html). I understand that for some sellers with very specific products, this can cause some complications and am happy to pass along that feedback.
Ultimately, as you all are well aware, unpaid item cases are a poor experience for both buyers and sellers. Sellers have to wait for payment or to close the case for a fee credit and I see posts on these boards everyday discussing buyers who are upset with the unpaid item case that was opened against them. While this process is in place for a sellers protection, minimizing the times that this is needed is ideal. Our goal is to increase traffic on the site and boost your overall sales. By minimizing unpaid item cases, we are working towards streamlining transactions and improving the eBay experience overall.
These kinds of changes are often times not rolled out to all users at once specifically so we can gather feedback before changing the entire site experience. We use this feedback to make changes and improve our processes, so I thank everyone again for voicing their concerns so I can pass this along!
