Do not choose the wrong reason for cancel, eBay is monitoring

[sin-n-dex]

Just wanted to share this since people ask about cancelling orders here quite frequently (and I'm doubting most regular posters have seen the verbiage in this email unless maybe they cancelled and eBay decided it wasn't for the right reason).

Shared with me... It was my sale that got cancelled (just passing this along).

***

Activity on your account isn’t following policy: Listing cancellation policy

Activity on your account didn’t follow our Listing cancellation policy. 

What happened

Canceling a transaction and selecting a false reason to avoid a defect isn’t allowed.

More specific details are provided below.

What this means for you

Because you may not have been aware of this policy, we're letting you know about it and ask that you follow this policy in the future.

No other actions have been taken on your account
 
Not following this policy in the future will result in a temporary 3-day restriction placed on your account, and your listings will be hidden from search during this period.  All fees paid or payable for listings that are ended and/or hidden from search will not be refunded or otherwise credited to your account.

This determination was made using automation or artificial intelligence.  

Cancel transactions only for valid and accurate reasons.

More about this policy

- Canceling a transaction and selecting a false reason to avoid a defect isn’t allowed
- To cancel a transaction, sellers must:
-- Notify the buyer of the cancellation reason
-- Cancel the transaction within 30 days of the sale
-- Use the correct process in My eBay or Seller Hub:
--- Go to My eBay > Sold and locate the item. From the More actions dropdown menu, select Cancel this order. Or;
--- Go to Seller Hub and locate the item. From the Actions dropdown menu, select End.
-- Choose a reason for the cancellation and follow the on-screen instructions

This policy helps sellers avoid problems with buyers, and prevents sellers from avoiding defects by falsely selecting a reason to end a transaction.

Learn more: Listing cancellation policy

If you have any questions or concerns, or think we’ve made a mistake, please get in touch. We're here to help.

We appreciate your understanding.

Thanks,
eBay

Please don't reply to this message. It was sent from an address that doesn't accept incoming email.

[relicpeddler]

I had to cancel 4 or 5 in the past year but always chose the correct reason. "Lost or Damaged"  But it's normally because I messed up quantities when listing. I tend to use the list similar option a lot and sometimes forget to change the quantity from the previous listing.      

[inhawaii]

SELLER:  Dear customer, Sorry. the pink widget you purchased is out of stock. I can send you a black one instead or do you want to cancel the order?

BUYER: Cancel the order.

SELLER CANCELS ORDER.

REASON:  BUYER REQUESTED TO CANCEL.

Violation or not?

[slippinjimmy]

@inhawaii 

In my opinion that is abuse of the cancellation process. In legal circles it would be considered entrapment.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@inhawaii No one here knows just how ebay handles any of this.

But my guess: IF ebay looked at this , the decision would be that this is NOT a buyer requested cancellation situation, as the buyer did not INITIATE the conversation. This is an out of stock situation, as the seller clearly states.

[jonathanbrightlight]

---

@inhawaii wrote:

SELLER:  Dear customer, Sorry. the pink widget you purchased is out of stock. I can send you a black one instead or do you want to cancel the order?

BUYER: Cancel the order.

SELLER CANCELS ORDER.

REASON:  BUYER REQUESTED TO CANCEL.

Violation or not?

---

I very much doubt I could track it down, but I seem to remember one of the Blues answering that question a long time ago, and the answer I remember was that it is not a valid buyer-initiated cancellation if the seller asked first. That would be considered abuse of the cancellation process, like @slippinjimmy said.

[fern*wood]

---

@relicpeddler wrote:

I had to cancel 4 or 5 in the past year but always chose the correct reason. "Lost or Damaged"  But it's normally because I messed up quantities when listing. I tend to use the list similar option a lot and sometimes forget to change the quantity from the previous listing.      

---

It's a good thing you sell enough to handle that many cancellations.  My account sure wouldn't.  I had one last year and held my breath that no other problem came up before it dropped off. 

[luckythewinner]

---

@12345jamesstamps wrote:

I had one like that a while back.

Gave a refund because one stamp had a small tear...and I got a 'out of stock' 'ding' from AI.

The 'ding' was after item was marked shipped when I gave a refund.

I did not mark it as a cancellation or out of stock item.

I notice the photo(s) after it got shipped and didn't want buyer to get mad or give me a bad feedback.

Lesson learned...no more Mr. Nice Guy.

---

You were trying to avoid negative feedback by your own admission. That is not being Mr. Nice Guy.  

There really isn't a thing called an "out of stock" defect; that is just the shorthand people use to describe it. According to their policy, eBay counts two types of defects: 

• The seller cancels the order unexpectedly 
• The buyer reports an issue, but the seller doesn't resolve it 

https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/selling-policies/seller-standards-policy?id=4347#defects

There are several ways to get a "unexpected cancellation" defect, and one of them is indeed an "I am out of stock" cancellation.  But other ways include things like "the item is no longer available" and "the item was damaged"  (I'm not sure of the exact wording, been a long time). 

A full refund without a dispute by the buyer counts as "unexpected cancellation" defect because it is an unexpected cancellation. Otherwise everyone would use that to avoid "unexpected cancellation" defect and defeat the purpose of the defect.

In your title you state: 
"Do not choose the wrong reason for cancel, eBay is monitoring"

So what is the reason you would have chosen instead that would have prevented a defect but not violated eBay policy?

[keraz-0]

I just had to cancel an order last week. My first. I could not find all the pieces to the lot in the order. One was missing. I looked everywhere!

I contacted the buyer, told them what was going on, and gave them the option of me cancelling the order, or sending the order and refunding a percentage due to the missing piece.

I waited all weekend for their response, but never got it. I had to have the item shipped on Monday, so I cancelled and refunded.

My thinking was, that cancelling was the least potentially damaging to my seller rating. Had I shipped, the buyer could have started a inad, and left a negative on top of it. Then I get 2 dings instead of 1.

Funnily enough, the buyer sent a response a couple of hours later, saying that sending the order minus the missing piece was ok. Too late however, since he was refunded and the order was cancelled.

[spreadlovelikefire]

I would have contacted eBay about that because you weren't out of stock if you shipped the item.  

[onlinecentral]

The Manage Orders Awaiting Shipment screen displays the available quantity. When just a few are available, I count the merchandise on the shelf to avoid Out of Stock strikes from occurring in the future.

[gurlcat]

---

@luckythewinner wrote:

---

@gurlcat wrote:

 Last I knew of, the legitimacy of cancellations could only be flagged by the buyer.  So is that still the case or are all cancellations being scrutinized for legitimacy?

---

You only offered two options: 

• only flagged by a buyer
• all cancellations are scrutinized

Those are not the only two possibilities.

I can imagine a scenario where eBay was only scrutinizing one type of cancellation, for instance cancellations for "buyer requested". 

For example, automation could detect a "buyer requested" cancellation where there were no messages from the buyer to the seller. 

And a natural language model could determine if a buyer's last message to the seller said "no, I do not want to cancel". 

---

I didn't see this reply til now.  That's a pretty good hypothesis.  

[gurlcat]

---

@luckythewinner wrote:

---

@12345jamesstamps wrote:

I had one like that a while back.

Gave a refund because one stamp had a small tear...and I got a 'out of stock' 'ding' from AI.

The 'ding' was after item was marked shipped when I gave a refund.

I did not mark it as a cancellation or out of stock item.

I notice the photo(s) after it got shipped and didn't want buyer to get mad or give me a bad feedback.

Lesson learned...no more Mr. Nice Guy.

---

You were trying to avoid negative feedback by your own admission. That is not being Mr. Nice Guy.  

---

But did you miss the part where he said he SHIPPED the item?  And the small tear was on "one stamp" (out of multiple apparently).  The reason the automation even considered it a "cancellation" at all was because he ships stamps with stamps, no tracking number.  But what he actually did is give a preemptive 100% refund.  X number of perfect stamps plus one damaged, for free.  

[gurlcat]

---

@spreadlovelikefire wrote:

I would have contacted eBay about that because you weren't out of stock if you shipped the item.  

---

The problem is he couldn't prove he shipped it, only marked it "shipped" (he just uses stamps to ship his stamps, no label with tracking).  

[sin-n-dex]

---

@gurlcat wrote:

Here's what I am wondering.  This part where it says, "This determination was made using automation or artificial intelligence."  -Did it make only the determination or did that happen because it was it looking for determinations to make?  Last I knew of, the legitimacy of cancellations could only be flagged by the buyer.  So is that still the case or are all cancellations being scrutinized for legitimacy?  

Also there's a big difference between automation and artificial intelligence, so it's unsettling to see eBay saying one "or" the other is doing stuff here that can have real "teeth" results on sellers' accounts.  

---

I have no idea... but when I learn something interesting (especially if it's on a subject that's talked about a lot here), I try to share. It's not like most people here would have ever received a message like that since it's pretty understood if you want to stay, you don't cancel, and buyers get upset when you say they asked to cancel and they didn't actually do that.

C.

[sin-n-dex]

---

@babyers88 wrote:

I don't even want 1, lol I was just using examples of things that "can" happen. If something crops up I usually offer a solution to the buyer such as maybe they would be interested in something else or something else and some refund, etc or even a no cost upgrade to something better. Then at least I made some effort to rectify the situation. Because things do happen.... hard as we try to avoid it.

---

TBH, I can get enough dings from random things that are my fault that I would fight any non-deserved ding (even if it's just one).

Thankfully I almost never have to cancel, I've been able to fill the order with another like item that's the same, or something better. Even if I had needed to refund, I try to make sure the buyer doesn't go away empty handed (which is probably how I've avoided bad feedback when I haven't been able to properly fill an order). With 9K in items, the odd cancellation comes with the territory.

C.