I reside and travel regularly between the USA and Costa Rica due to my work (not eBay). This means I sometimes sell and mail eBay packages from the US and other times from CR but always with tracking. My account is registered in the United States where it was opened almost 10 years ago.
Until about 6 months ago, the tracking board was working fine and both my buyers and I were able to track the journey of their purchase from mailing to their home. Unfortunately, for the last several months, I've been having a major problem with the tracking board as neither mine nor the buyer's, updates. This occurs for every sale. The tracking board never reflects any progress or update. The only thing reflected is that my item was mailed on such and such a date, and, after a few days, the board reads : "your item should arrive between such and such a date". Nothing else ever. This has become quite frustrating. In fact, I've paused all my sales until eBay fixes the problem. I reported the issue to them during 3 separate phone conversations to no avail. I don't want, nor should I have to open a new account in the foreign country, with no stars, simply because eBay can't fix this.
Tracking is a benefit I pay for in my monthly store dues. It's something that is critical to the proper functioning of the community and I'm being denied that right. As a result, I've been forced to reimburse several sellers this year since I have NO WAY of contesting their "open request: Item not received". Despite my sending pictures I take at the Post Office showing the package, with postage and the Tracking Label affixed, eBay has ruled against me each time and reimbursed the buyers since I have NO valid defense as far as eBay is concerned despite the issue being their fault. For the 2 1/2 years that I also sold items from CR before the issue arose, I never had an "item not received open request" filed. In addition, I had been contemplating on becoming a Top Seller, but that goal has disappeared due to my tracking statistics being at 5.63%! I'm ready to quit selling even though I love the site but I'm losing money now and many, many buyers message me, and rightfully so, asking what is going on and I have to spend valuable time and effort responding to every inquiry. Now, each time I sell something I worry like crazy about whether I'm going to have the issue come up.
I even told eBay that I believe I know the EXACT problem and explained to them how to fix it, but it still hasn't been fixed.
I am sure there must be 100s of thousands of Expats or Digital Nomads that go back and forth between the United States and a foreign country that sell things in both places so this issue can't be unique or novel. I'm willing to listen to any advice or opinion please.
