Buyer Request Delivery Delay, now I get defect

[riverat]

I sold an item, the buyer paid right away, and then asked that I not ship for a couple of weeks. She was going to be out of town and didn't want the package to get lost. When she returned she let me know and I shipped the item out. She received the item in about 3 days. Everyone was happy! Now eBay is hitting me with a slow shipping defect. What can I do? I submitted a review and received an automated response that clearly showed nobody even looked at the facts. What can I do?

[ms.rodriguez*]

You can write to the ebay team on facebook and see if they will remove it. In the future, never do this again. You tell the buyer that the only way to do it is to cancel with buyer requested and when they come back, you relist as a buy it now, they re-buy and re-pay and you ship.  It will only cost you the 30 cents from the cancelled sale.

[klhmdg]

You should have canceled the order and had her re-buy when she was back.

eBay has sellers ship within the time stated or the seller gets a defect.

There is no "eBay" way around shipping on time.

Canceling for Buyer Requested will get ALL your fees refunded.

The buyer could have also had the shipment held at the PO until she returned.

You can see if the eBay team on FB can have this defect removed but it is a long shot. 

[ms.rodriguez*]

Everything is refunded but 30 cents.   

[stainlessenginecovers]

You can't do that and NOT get dinged. 

In the future, you can tell the buyer that you can 'cancel/refund and relist with a 15 or 20 day handling time- then they can 'rebuy' as you cannot 'go beyond' your stating handling time to ship. 

[pjcdn2005]

If you only have 1 or 2 delivery dings, that is not going to affect you although I agree that it is annoying to look at it when you were simply trying to help a customer.

[lindsey_reed]

CALL THEM.

Don't try to humanize the bots. The bots are STUPID.

That's why I don't sell on Amazon. Everything there is bots. With Ebay you can call someone on the phone and speak in English (or maybe Spanish now too?) and get  problems resolved. 

[a_c_green]

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@riverat wrote:

I sold an item, the buyer paid right away, and then asked that I not ship for a couple of weeks. She was going to be out of town and didn't want the package to get lost.

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Next time, I would simply point out to her that she can get her mail held at her post office at no charge, where it will be safe until she returns to collect it two weeks later.

[klhmdg]

@ms.rodriguez*     Fee credits | eBay

[duffy4444]

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@lindsey_reed wrote:

CALL THEM.

Don't try to humanize the bots. The bots are STUPID.

That's why I don't sell on Amazon. Everything there is bots. With Ebay you can call someone on the phone and speak in English (or maybe Spanish now too?) and get  problems resolved. 

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@lindsey_reed:

    Talking to an "eBay" human on the phone is NOT a good idea. They are not real eBay employees, but rather badly-trained contractors who will often tell you anything you want to hear just to get you off the phone. They are notoriously unreliable.

   Contact eBay thru Ebay For Business on FaceBook, and message them (don't just post there). A real eBay employee with the ability to solve issues or give correct information will contact you. I have used them a couple times and have had a relatively quick resolution of my issues.

Cheers, Duffy

[greatmidwestcoin]

Never ever delay shipping for any reason. I learned that years ago. And what is the big deal for these buyers that are away or going on vaca? The USPS holds your mail, duh. I simply explain it to the buyer that I cannot delay shipping and why. They all understood.

[johnrj1226]

There is another way that worked just fine for me.  I simply state two things 1.) wish I could help you but  eBay expects me to  meet or exceed my stated shipping time - sellers are measure ed by several factors one is on time shipping . 2.) A simple solution is to put a  hold  on delivery your  all your mail until  from start date to the date of your expected return.  This is easily done on line.  Here is the USPS link - https://www.usps.com/manage/hold-mail.htm.  BTW I only shipped via USPS with tracking services..  Got a thank you and a comment - I wasn't aware of this service..

Oh the stuff "Old Dogs" know

 

[lindsey_reed]

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    Talking to an "eBay" human on the phone is NOT a good idea. They are not real eBay employees, but rather badly-trained contractors who will often tell you anything you want to hear just to get you off the phone. They are notoriously unreliable.

   Contact eBay thru Ebay For Business on FaceBook,...

 Lot of false data there. Anyway, I don't do Zuckerberg's Fascistbook

[gurlcat]

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@ms.rodriguez* wrote:

You can write to the ebay team on facebook and see if they will remove it. In the future, never do this again. You tell the buyer that the only way to do it is to cancel with buyer requested and when they come back, you relist as a buy it now, they re-buy and re-pay and you ship.  It will only cost you the 30 cents from the cancelled sale.

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I would only be willing to do it that way if it was a pretty cheap and small item, then it wouldn't be a big deal if they go radio silent when they're supposedly back from their trip.  But an item worth decent money and/or taking up significant space, with no way of doing any kind of deposit or collateral, heck no I can't take someone's promise that they'll buy it later.  Especially if they waited until AFTER paying for it to ask for such a favor.    

[simply-the-best-for-you]

Post a screen shot.  As @pjcdn2005  said, unless you had a bunch of others, it's no big deal.  There's a generous threshold before it causes you a problem.  The threshold is a percentage.  If you call, be advised, they will change 1 of them, but not the other.  There are actually 2 metrics that are involved in this.  One of them is changeable in this circumstances & I've had it done, but frankly it's not worth it having to deal with ESL people who won't understand.  The other metric ties DIRECTLY in with the USPS & is NOT changeable.  

I don't agree with everyone's advice not to allow it.  As long as you don't have late shipment regularly, the occasional one b/c a buyer requests it, will not hurt you.  

If you only have the 1, you're fine & they drop if in 3 months IIRC.  If you have 4-5, then you need to be more concerned & the phone call may be worth it.