Frustrated With Shipping Policy - eBay Keeps Adding A New Policy and is Overcharging At Checkout!

[turtles-trading-post]

I sell very light items,  post cards and covers (stamped envelopes) to collectors. I have established my shipping policy as "Default Shipping Policy" ---  $1 postage per order, no additional charge for extra items and $1.50 International, no additional charge for extra items.   I also have a "Free Shipping Policy" for some items.

My frustration is that eBay keeps creating a new shipping policy "Flat USPS First Cla ($1.00)/Flat:eBay Internat" that charges the $1 and $1.50 FOR EACH ITEM.  It seems that they give this spoof policy to every listing as it does the automatic relist (Free 8 relists on 250 Free listings each month).  When I open up each item, it shows the policy as my "Default Shipping Policy", and if I resave it, it will correct it on the list.

 Here's the list of policies as I go to edit a listing.  Note that eBay has created the Flat: USPS First... policy and applied it to 22 listings!

Here's a view of eBay Policies after I've gone in and changed all 22 listings to my "Default Shipping Policy". See the policy eBay created now has ZERO listings.

Here's where I've DELETED the eBay created Shipping Policy... just my two policies listed!

An hour later, BOOM!   eBay again recreates that policy and assigns 4 listings to it!    I'm deleting these every friggin day!

And the big issue is that when my customers who have purchased multiple items use eBay Checkout, it charges them $1 for each item,  no matter what my shipping policy says on the listing!  I had a guy buy 10 items today and it charged him $10 postage. I had to refund $9.

I even have text in my auctions asking buyers to message me for an invoice so eBay checkout won't over charge them for postage... and many people don't read that!   So every day I'm refunding postage.

I notice that big sellers I regularly buy from all have the same line to ask for an invoice, so it seems eBay screws this up every time!  

As you can tell I'm frustrated..    thoughts?

[turtles-trading-post]

Ya know.... I first posted this in "Selling"   and got no responses.  Then I thought I'd be better in "Sellers Tools" and reposted it again... no responses!     You would think someone... especially the eBay moderators would have looked into this for me, or offered a solution.

My frustrations are not only with this, but the wonky non-user friendly format of eBay's sellers pages and tools.   What exactly is eBay selling?  They are selling use of software... and with their resources it should be user friendly and work properly 100% of the time. 

I work in the pharmaceutical industry, with IT ties.. our software must run right 100% of the time. It's FDA monitored!  Anything less and we'd be dumping batches!  So it is possible to run flawlessly IF an organization respects it's clientele enough to do so!

[velvet@ebay · Accepted solution]

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@turtles-trading-post wrote:

I sell very light items,  post cards and covers (stamped envelopes) to collectors. I have established my shipping policy as "Default Shipping Policy" ---  $1 postage per order, no additional charge for extra items and $1.50 International, no additional charge for extra items.   I also have a "Free Shipping Policy" for some items.

My frustration is that eBay keeps creating a new shipping policy "Flat USPS First Cla ($1.00)/Flat:eBay Internat" that charges the $1 and $1.50 FOR EACH ITEM.  It seems that they give this spoof policy to every listing as it does the automatic relist (Free 8 relists on 250 Free listings each month).  When I open up each item, it shows the policy as my "Default Shipping Policy", and if I resave it, it will correct it on the list.

 Here's the list of policies as I go to edit a listing.  Note that eBay has created the Flat: USPS First... policy and applied it to 22 listings!

Here's a view of eBay Policies after I've gone in and changed all 22 listings to my "Default Shipping Policy". See the policy eBay created now has ZERO listings.

Here's where I've DELETED the eBay created Shipping Policy... just my two policies listed!

An hour later, BOOM!   eBay again recreates that policy and assigns 4 listings to it!    I'm deleting these every friggin day!

And the big issue is that when my customers who have purchased multiple items use eBay Checkout, it charges them $1 for each item,  no matter what my shipping policy says on the listing!  I had a guy buy 10 items today and it charged him $10 postage. I had to refund $9.

I even have text in my auctions asking buyers to message me for an invoice so eBay checkout won't over charge them for postage... and many people don't read that!   So every day I'm refunding postage.

I notice that big sellers I regularly buy from all have the same line to ask for an invoice, so it seems eBay screws this up every time!  

As you can tell I'm frustrated..    thoughts?

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Hey @turtles-trading-post! Sorry if we didn't see your earlier reports of this. I see that you just had it happen recently again though. I've submitted a ticket to our tech team to have them take a closer look and I'll follow-up with anything they happen to provide me. 

[turtles-trading-post]

Thank you for your response. Even though I've set my policy to be $1 postage per order (domestic) with no extra cost per item, the eBay checkout consistently charges my customers $1 per item.

I know this isn't unique to me, because it's common policy with sellers in my category to ask customers to message for an invoice to avoid the overcharging.  In my selling experience, I too have a line in all my listings to request an invoice when purchasing multiple items.  Most buyers don't read this and blindly pay the $1 per item. 

I'm just waiting for a negative feedback for charging excessive postage!

And the way things go, I'm waiting for some sort of eBay action against me for excessive refunding.

I have been refunding buyer's postage, both in your system and out of frustration just putting a dollar cash in with the order to maintain good relations with my customers.  To add salt to the wound, eBay charges 12.55% commission on these overcharges.  Even when I click on "shipping discount",  eBay keeps the money.   On those transactions where I'm refunding a dollar or two, I haven't complained,  but look at transaction  14-08029-58197.

This buyer was charged $10 shipping on 10 items.  Per my terms he should have paid $1.  I refunded the extra $9  (Refund ID:5046418056)  but nowhere is there a refund for the $1.13 commission eBay charged me.     

This is a big deal when you are selling low end items.  Basically, eBay is charging me double commission on my items.

End analysis -  eBay is making a fortune on refunded overcharges generated by their  funky system!  

[velvet@ebay]

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@turtles-trading-post wrote:

Thank you for your response. Even though I've set my policy to be $1 postage per order (domestic) with no extra cost per item, the eBay checkout consistently charges my customers $1 per item.

I know this isn't unique to me, because it's common policy with sellers in my category to ask customers to message for an invoice to avoid the overcharging.  In my selling experience, I too have a line in all my listings to request an invoice when purchasing multiple items.  Most buyers don't read this and blindly pay the $1 per item. 

I'm just waiting for a negative feedback for charging excessive postage!

And the way things go, I'm waiting for some sort of eBay action against me for excessive refunding.

I have been refunding buyer's postage, both in your system and out of frustration just putting a dollar cash in with the order to maintain good relations with my customers.  To add salt to the wound, eBay charges 12.55% commission on these overcharges.  Even when I click on "shipping discount",  eBay keeps the money.   On those transactions where I'm refunding a dollar or two, I haven't complained,  but look at transaction  14-08029-58197.

This buyer was charged $10 shipping on 10 items.  Per my terms he should have paid $1.  I refunded the extra $9  (Refund ID:5046418056)  but nowhere is there a refund for the $1.13 commission eBay charged me.     

This is a big deal when you are selling low end items.  Basically, eBay is charging me double commission on my items.

End analysis -  eBay is making a fortune on refunded overcharges generated by their  funky system!  

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Hello @turtles-trading-post! It's been a while but I've heard back from the tech team and I'm including what they provided me below. It sounds like they're working on something that  should help you from running into this going forward, but I hope in the meantime what they've provided me helps you.

Items in order number 14-08029-58197 do not have a Business Policy item level flag set. This could happen if the seller used an API call to revise the parent/existing listing and the Business Policy item flag was unset. The shipping attributes (shipping additional cost in this case) are carried over from the parent item. And a system generated policy is created and associated to match the listing data.

While this is an expected behavior, there is an existing issue, where even if it is not a Business Policy item the User Interface page shows "default" policy to the seller on the revise/relist page.  However, the policy associated with the item maybe a system generated policy because it is not a Business Policy item anymore.  We're hoping to have that issue resolved in an upcoming feature  update, where regardless of the API revision by the seller, the item level flag will always be set as long as it is a Business Policy seller.

In the meantime, you can leave things as is and continue to go in and update the shipping policy. Or, you could try ending a listing and creating another one from scratch. If that helps and you no longer run into this issue, then you could decide whether it's worth doing the same thing with your remaining listings until the new Business Policy features are implemented.  

[tdlistings]

I am leaving this on every thread I can find that is related to this issue because I have not gotten a response and this needs to be fixed. I have no idea what the technical jargon means in this last reply, but here we are a year later and I am having the same issue. I can't change my shipping policy because ebay keeps changing it back to the one it just made.  All I need is for the issue to be fixed. I really don't care why it's doing it if there isn't anything I can do to fix it.  What I need to know is, What can I do to fix it? Not a workaround, fix it. Or can eBay please get this issue fixed soon, please?  All I need is for my business policies to work the way they have for as long as I've been using them up until yesterday. I can't list any new items until this is Fixed. 

[tdlistings]

If anyone comes across this I wanted to be sure I left the solution I found. I had to remove "International Shipping" from all shipping policies. I hadn't received any international orders anyway since turning it on a month ago. I wish eBay would finally get the kinks worked out of the NEW international shipping program. If you don't get a lot of international orders, just turn it off for now. 

[massiveswordandcards]

I'm also having this problem.  eBay doesn't care.  I've spoken with them on the phone numerous times.  They pretend it's not even an issue.  I have to go in and delete all these "fake" policies that eBay auto-generates every time I revise or relist a listing, and then go back to the listings and fix them AGAIN.  Every time, without fail.  And even then, the shipping services and calculated prices are wrong.  eBay is just begging to get dumped.

[raising3men]

I have spent WAY too much time on this issue too.  Somehow I have new "default" shipping methods that I didn't create, and I am unable to edit them.  Also there is now no option for Ebay International Shipping.  This is really ridiculous.  I am so frustrated.

[antiqage]

It has happened to me as well, however the "trigger" appears to have been changing the SKU number while in active listing view. I did not pull the listings for editing, just manually edited the SKU numbers. 

[onestopjewelrysupply]

I'm having the same issue. The system created a lot of unknow shipping profiles. Everytime I tried to revise it , it jumped back to their shipping setting profile which I have never seen. My shipping profile is a mass right now!

[thedenimwearhouse]

I am having the same issue an have opened a ticket. In the meantime this is very frustrating. I just sold a very heavy item to the UK and since the shipping policy was changed I under charged shipping by $50.  I had to cancel the transaction and fix the policy.

[rnigalso]

I'm having similar problems that I just noticed.  A few months ago, I went through and cleaned up ALL of my shipping policies so they were all consistent.  I just discovered that eBay is creating a slew of new ones, renaming them all to some weird jargon and symbols after I went through and cleaned them all up.  

[kh-phdan]

Hello Everyone,

Due to the age of the thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.

Thanks for understanding!