Defect removal requests

[electro_55]

Hi everyone! A batch of twelve items we sold and shipped a few weeks ago, were subsequently lost by our carrier. When we were notified of this situation a few days later, I contacted each buyer via Ebay messaging, text message, and phone to notify them of the situation and offer them a new order at a reduced price, and, in parallel, I canceled the twelve concerned orders (by now, I know that this last action was a huge mistake in the eyes of Ebay. I wish I had known at the time!) 

So, unaware that the reason for the cancellation was a very important matter in the eyes of eBay, I absentmindedly checked "out of stock" as the reason for these cancellations, even though these items were not out of stock, but lost. As a result, we were granted with twelve defects at once. Therefore, our seller performance level will be reduced to Above Average for a full year+, given the number of defects at issue in this case. This is an absolutely disproportionate punishment. We will now lose the advantages of the Top Rated badge. Which means less sales, more fees, etc, for more than a year.

I tried to have the defects removed via https://www.ebay.com/sellerhelp/defect/action, only to receive twelve refusals, with the usual automated copy-paste out of toutch explanations many of us sellers are so used to.

Then I tried to appeal the decisions via customer service and via askEbay on X (Twitter), but no matter what I say or do, I always receive the same scripted irrelevant answers, promises that some "offline team" will write back but they never do, etc etc. In short, an exasperating and infuriating experience, into which I lost hours of my time.

This is extremely frustrating, as I I work very hard on a daily basis to earn and preserve our Top Rated Seller badge, always going extra lengths to give maximum satisfaction to our customers. And now I get more than a year of harsh punishment for something totally out of my control.

Has anyone here been able to have a situation like this fixed by Ebay? Is it only possible to go beyond Ebay's robotic, vague and irrelevant "customer service" that feels more like a firewall than anything else, and actually get an unfair situation really addressed?

[mam98031]

@electro_55 

I am really sorry to hear you are in this pickle.  What carrier did you use?  What did the carrier actually say to you?  How did they communicate this problem to you?  Was it in writing?

I know this is late advice, but what I typically tell sellers is that if you don't know for sure how you should handle a situation on Ebay, research FIRST.  Make sure you know the impact of what you think you should do.  Do NOT ASSUME anything as that is the quickest way to trouble.  Unfortunately I see that has happened to you.

The automated version to have this problem fixed would never come back as they would remove them.  This is going to take some talking to Ebay and via a method that is likely to give you the best outcome.  But FIRST, tell me the answers to the questions I asked above as they are very important.

You still are currently TRS, it is likely when they eval all sellers on the 20th of the month for the period ending the previous month, you still should retain it for one more month.  It is next month's eval [April 20] that will likely drop your status.  Unless Ebay deems this too egregious behavior.

Don't get too depressed.  IDK if I'll be able to help you, but I'm sure willing to try.

[mamacassidy]

I see threads on this board frequently where someone used the "out of stock" option when cancelling, not knowing the damage this causes to an account. I feel like this happens to many long-time users who think their account is in good standing, and that 1 or 2 mistakes wouldn't be that big of a deal.

Even though it's stated in the ebay terms of service, I wish there was some kind of warning or disclaimer that ebay would show before you hit that cancel button, saying something along the lines of "warning: multiple out of stock cancellations could result in account termination".

[mam98031]

While true, it takes more than one or two of these to downgrade your account.  The effects can be seen on the Seller Dashboard, which I always encourage sellers to review at a minimum of once a week.

As to the warning message.  I actually disagree with having that as it may cause the seller to abuse the system.  Which is also a policy violation.  But the warning may encourage a seller to select a reason that won't give them a Defect.

"account termination" is NOT the first line of defense for Ebay.  That would take much more than what the OP has experienced to cause such a lethal response by Ebay.  It is NOT the first action by Ebay when something like what the OP has experienced happens.  @mamacassidy please know that.

[mamacassidy]

I agree with you that 1 or 2 of these won't cause account termination. But I also believe that a large number of people don't realize that it's a problem until their account has been negatively affected. I've seen multiple posts on here where someone had to cancel a few sales and then their account was 'below standard' and they couldn't list more items until those cancellations fell off. 

I personally had an experience a few years ago where I was selling shoes, and in a 2-month period, I had to cancel 3 orders because the shoes had dry-rotted and fallen apart. At that time, I was only a casual seller averaging about 30 sales a month, so that was a big percentage that was cancelled. I learned the hard way that cancelling for 'out of stock' was a big no-no. And I mostly stopped selling shoes after that.

If I had known the negative consequences of choosing 'out of stock' as the reason, would I have lied?

NO.

But I definitely would have appreciated a warning of some sort. Then, I would have taken a good, hard look at all my listings and inventory so that another one didn't happen.

But, like a lot of newbies and casual sellers who come to these boards, I didn't know it was a big deal... until after the fact.

[bashort]

some time ago when a buyer requested a to cancel I apparently clicked "out of stock" as the reason and that with others cost me trs for a while, this was before ebay eliminated seller support and I called and despite the fact that they could see that the buyer requested the cancel they would or could not change it.

[luckythewinner]

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@mamacassidy wrote:

Even though it's stated in the ebay terms of service, I wish there was some kind of warning or disclaimer that ebay would show before you hit that cancel button, saying something along the lines of "warning: multiple out of stock cancellations could result in account termination".

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IMHO that would just be an encouragement to lie about the reason and avoid defects. 

[carlmarxx]

Ebay doesn't  have    lost  during transit  for seller to check off  ,sorry  to say  .   did  you request a call  back from ebay ? if not  do so.  

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@electro_55  I can't tell from your post---did you ever get to TALK to someone at ebay on the phone?  I had an undeserved defect removed recently after a couple conversations. However, my defect circumstances were very different, and didn't involve "out of stock". But until I actually SPOKE to someone and explained the situation, I was getting nowhere with the AI chatbot. 

[onlinecentral]

My advice won't get the 12 defects removed from your seller account. Maybe it will help another seller who has lost packages in the future.

You could have skipped the Cancel Step entirely because the shipments were farther along in the journey. Tracking numbers were created, I assume, and maybe scanned, at least once. You could have went directly to your Orders Paid & Shipped screen, chose Refund from the menu selections and issued the refunds.

An alternative way to handle this would be to wait for your customers to file Item Not Received cases and then issue the refunds within each case, which also closes the cases. Even encourage your customers to open the cases.

Sorry about you being in the eBay penalty box for a while.

[mam98031]

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@bashort wrote:

some time ago when a buyer requested a to cancel I apparently clicked "out of stock" as the reason and that with others cost me trs for a while, this was before ebay eliminated seller support and I called and despite the fact that they could see that the buyer requested the cancel they would or could not change it.

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Likely that happened because that is the first choice from the short list of options when filing a Cancellation.

Ebay has NEVER "eliminated seller support.  That has never happened, it has changed over time, but NEVER completely eliminated.  In fact we have more options for how to contact Ebay than we did years back.  

Now certainly I understand that far too often bad information comes from contacting customer service.  But still there are other options if you don't get the help you desire from one option, try another.

****************************************************

On each Ebay page there is a link to contact Customer Service at the top of the page and again at the bottom of the page.

I would suggest that you contact Ebay for Business on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter for the better trained CSRs.

Here are your options for contacting Ebay Customer Service. Please be aware that for social media CS, you send them a Private Message and briefly explain what your problem or issue is. Feel free to leave your Name, address, phone number and/or your email address in this message. It is private and secure and it may help to speed up the response for you.

https://twitter.com/askebay

https://www.facebook.com/ebay

https://www.instagram.com/ebayforsellers/

Your options will be on the left. If you use the link below you can only get to the Automated Assistant or Chat box type AGENT in the box and hit enter. You will then get more options. Not all options are available 24/7. It will depend on staffing available. So sometimes you can request a call back and sometimes you can't. Sometimes you have the Chat option available and other times it won't me. If it is important to you to use one of those options, just try back later.

If you use a cell phone or other mobile device, you may need to turn off your Spam filter so that Ebay can call you.

If you are a seller outside of the US or Canada, you will need to use the Chat Option.

https://www.ebay.com/help/eua?id=5275&mkevt=1&mkpid

https://www.ebay.com/help/home

[mam98031]

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@carlmarxx wrote:

Ebay doesn't  have    lost  during transit  for seller to check off  ,sorry  to say  .   did  you request a call  back from ebay ? if not  do so.  

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Even if it did, that would not let the seller off the hook.

Think like a buyer.  Say you ordered something from Macy's and the package never arrived.  Would you say, Oh Well, let me try it again or purchase elsewhere or would you contact Macy's to find out where your purchase is.  My bet is the later.  It's the same for Ebay.  Sellers are responsible.  And that is how it should be.

[electro_55]

Hello, thank you for taking the time and for your willingness to help me!

I'll answer your questions and comments as briefly as possible:

1- Since the incident occurred in early February, my seller performance level will be lowered on March 20th.

2- The only tangible evidence I have to prove the packages were lost is the tracking information, which shows that the packages were received by the carrier, began to move, and then disappeared. (We use a third-party carrier to make the initial trip to USPS. Because USPS has a contract with this carrier, each of our packages appears in USPS tracking information as soon as the carrier has the package in their possession. It was this carrier, which I will not name here, that lost the packages.)

To add a few details about my dealings with eBay so far, in addition to the requests made on the page I mentioned in my post: I spoke to a few customer service agents who, as usual, didn't understand or know much about anything. Then, after a tough fight, I managed to be transferred to a sort of supervisor. This one had a better understanding of the situation. Unlike his colleagues, he didn't read scripts like a robot. He took notes, then told me what I've often been told in similar situations: that a supposedly offline team would respond to me in writing within about two weeks. As in most cases where I've been promised this, no one ever got back to me.

I also tried @askebay, on X, but that only led to disconnected and robotic responses explaining that what I was asking was impossible.

I will end with a question: In your experience, am I wrong in saying that lowering my seller performance level will cause a drop, minimal or more significant, in my sales?

[mam98031]

1.  The March 20th eval for the period ending the previous month [February] will be effective April 1st.

2.  Did you file a Trace on each of them.  https://usps.my.site.com/emailus/s/package-inquiry

I've been on Ebay for 25 years.  In that time I've had many times I needed to contact a CSR.  Only a handful of times did they ever tell me they would contact me at a later time after some research or someone else would contact me with more help, whatever it was, I don't really remember now.  In all those times and years, only ONCE did it ever happen.

If you drop to Below Standard, yes it lowers you in the Searches and you can't use any of the Promoted Listing tools either.  

But I'm not done yet.  IDK if I can help, but I'm going to try.  If you haven't filed those Trace reports [link above], then PLEASE do that.  I know you said that USPS didn't get the packages from the other carrier, but do it anyway as they are responsible for the tracking, so their job to check with this other carrier.  If you have options to use another carrier, you should seriously consider doing that.

If I may ask, why do you have to use a different carrier to get your stuff to USPS?  Just curious.

[electro_55]

Well, under the heading "your seller level", it says this:

If we evaluated you today

Your seller level would beAbove Standard

Next evaluation on Mar 20, 2025

Does this still lead you to say that my seller level will be lowered only on April the 20th?

No, I didn't file a trace on the packages. In fact, nine of them were found two weeks later, and returned to us at my request, while three eventually made their way (late) to the buyers, even though the orders had been cancelled. 

As for the reason why we use a third party carrier, please allow me not to disclose it, as I fear revealing our tricks and strategy to our closest competitors! I hope I am not sounding weird or shady by saying this!

Regarding my question about sales and seller level, it only concerned the transition from Top Rated to Above Standard. Would such a change affect sales?

Again, thank you so much for your time!