mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999
Hi Community!
Please join The Community Team here on Wed April 4th at 1 pm Pacific for a one hour Q&A chat. We do not have a set topic, so please share your buying & selling questions.
Chat with you then 
*Keep in mind the Community’s Rules of Engagement when you post. Non-constructive/disrespectful posts will be removed by our moderation team so that the thread can focus on a productive discussion.
@mam98031 wrote:
I have a question regarding the Free Return program.
If I were to offer Free Returns, will I still be able to withhold the original shipping or otherwise give a partial refund on a claim that is filed as a Buyer’s Remorse? What if I do free shipping? Will I still be able to give a partial refund on a Buyer’s Remorse Request?
Will I still be able to have the buyer pay for return shipping if I do Free Returns?
Hi @mam98031, sellers will still have the option to retain original shipping on remorse returns, even when offering free returns. We expect partial refunds of the item cost to only be done if an item is returned damaged and not on remorse returns. Sellers that offer Free Returns will not have the ability to charge buyers for return shipping.
@castlemagicmemories wrote:
Hello, Blues! : )
Just a few things:During the recent discount promotions, Brian posted the news and asked sellers to inform their buyers. Poor guy, he got some pushback and was surprised. Sorry, Brian!Anyway, most sellers were skeptical about this because of the Ebay policy against spamming, as stated in the thread. Sellers are not to contact anyone who has not asked them to contact them. Although most buyers would probably like to know about discounts, one can't assume there wouldn't be an errant one who does not appreciate this.So is/has Ebay changed their stance/policy on spamming? Or was this ok in these instances because Brian advised doing so?Second, I would call this thread to your attention.Thank God for Trinton, who had to come back to that thread after CS could not find his notes. This is not an adverse reflection on him. This seller just went through a lot with his contacts with CS. That's all.You guys are the last, best defense that sellers have. Thank you, Blues, for that!Just want to also thank Alan for his leadership of the Community.You guys rock! : )
Hi @castlemagicmemories - thanks for the love, always makes my day a better one 😄
When it comes to contacting buyers, the largest thing anyone would look at would be an intent to facilitate an eBay transaction, and invitation. Sending a store newsletter to subscribed members advertising items or the fact that there's currently a discount is just fine. So would sending a quick message to buyers who haven't yet paid for items, sharing it on other social media sites, and letting buyers who had sent questions know that today was a great day to buy.
Cold-contacting members who have never expressed interest in your items would probably be a bit over the line.
Long story short: nothing official has changed with regards to unwanted messages. If anyone received a warning for contacting a buyer about the discounts run last month should definitely contact CS for a review (or feel free to page us to the thread so we can review it).
@Anonymouswrote:
@mam98031wrote:Question regarding how a buyer selects the reason for a Return Request.
Let’s say I have a buyer that I’ve been communicating with in M2M regarding an issue the buyer is having with an item they purchased from me. In the course of these communications the buyer clearly states that they want to return the item because it is just not what they really wanted or some other buyer remorse reason.
Then the buyer goes and opens up a request for a return but they do not use one of the BR reasons, they file it as a SNAD. This happens to sellers all the time. But in this case let’s keep in mind that the seller has clear evidence via M2M that this is a BR claim and the buyer has tried to game the system/seller by filing it as a SNAD.
When there is clear evidence and I do mean clear, not subjective, that the buyer filed for the wrong type of return, why can’t sellers call and get this SNAD closed or changed to a BR return?
What is it that Ebay expects sellers to do in a case like this? What are a seller’s options to get this changed as the two types of claims carry a different process for most sellers?
Hi @mam98031! We have contacted the appropriate teams about the process these kinds of returns are subject to. Once we have more information to share we will update the boards, no problem! In the meantime, I recommend that any seller who runs into this situation contact Customer Service to have the details reviewed for appropriate next steps.
While in it sounds logical to give a call to Ebay. Some of us are finding that idea is not necessarily in the best interest of the seller in cases like this.
Twice in the last month my friend has had a case similar to what is described here. Unfortunately I advised her to call Ebay to see what could be done with it. The CSR said there was nothing they could do to help. And even though the seller was clear with the CSR they did Not want the Request escalated, that is exactly what the CSR did. And within moments the case got closed in the favor of the buyer before the seller could even call Ebay back to see what went wrong.
More and more it appears that CSRs are escalating Requests when sellers don't want them escalated, they are merely calling for some assistance. Instead they are getting more issues to deal with.
My friend did appeal the case and it was reversed, but the buyer did get their money back in full and it was Ebay that refunding the seller. My guess is that this should be getting pretty expensive for Ebay.
alan@ebaywrote:
@*coinswrote:Hi, it is nice to be at the weekly chat again.
Somebody noticed that there were some new rules added to the community guidelines recently...
10. Sharing patently false information. Posting patently false or unsubstantiated content is harmful to other members and goes against the spirit of the Community.
7. Do not abuse Helpfuls. This includes soliciting others for helpfuls, giving an excessive number of helpfuls to a specific user or users, using multiple accounts to give yourself or others multiple helpfuls, and marking another member’s posts as helpful to help them get to the top of leaderboards.
My first question is about rule #10. What is considered "false"? Nobody is perfect, and everyone makes mistakes, so if you ban anyone who posts something that is incorrect, you would have a very quiet community with a lot of unanswered posts. Also, are you going to just remove things that are incorrect or will you edit it and change the answer so it is correct?
My second question is about rule #7. You said that "giving an excessive number of helpfuls to a specific user or users" is not allowed. There is a user who posts on the M2M board who has given 12,000+ 'helpfuls' to ONE user. If that is not an 'excessive amount of helpfuls,' I don't know what is. What is considered an 'excessive amount of helpfuls'?
Thanks.Hi @*coins,
Good questions!
Re patently false information, see my earlier post here.
Re Helpful Abuse, that rule was probably added about 6 months or more ago. We had an instance where a member created multiple IDs to Helpful their own posts so that they would appear on leaderboards across the Community. This behavior is disruptive and it goes against the good spirited collaborative nature of the Community.
Hope this helps to add context.
First, how do you know if the user is giving false info on purpose?
Second, giving somebody a lot of helpfuls is not against the rules then?
