Do not trust emails from customer support - Promised refund and never issued

[utmahoo]

I have been dealing with a bogus return for over a month and was finally told there is nothing that can be done despite doing everything I was asked. The first time I appealed and it was rejected I was told I needed to verify the authenticity.  After doing that, I was told I needed a police report.  After attempting that and verifying my efforts I was told that I was good and got an email stating my case was closed in my favor and that my refund was being processed.  When I didn't get my money refunded I called back and was told that since I had the item back they couldn't issue a refund and my case was 100% closed.  Why did they make me go through all of the other steps if it was pointless? Why did I waste hours on the phone if it was for nothing?  How can eBay tell people in writing their case is closed and refund is processed?  Here is the email I got.  Do not trust that you are protected in any way shape or form as a seller.

Hi Michael,

Good day! I hope that you are having a great day.

Thanks for contacting us about the item # XXXXX .I read your email to us and I understand that you are concern about the refund for this case. Don’t worry! I’ll make sure to provide you the best service that you truly deserve.

Since the appeal was already closed in your favor, please allow 48-72 hours (excluding holidays) for the funds to be processed back to your account/original funding source.

Again, I'm glad everything worked out. We're here for you if you need help in the future.

Best regards,

John Doe (I don't want to put this person on blast)

eBay Customer Support

[zamo-zuan]

We have had a similar issue with CS lately as well.

Last week Guaranteed Delivery incorrectly turned a couple of our orders that were shipped/delivered on time as late. 

The strange part was, as I have evidence to show, after they were delivered, I have screenshots of our performance page (I take screenshots at least once a week to track progress of the past issues we had with visibility).

On the 12th, I have the screenshots where it says "if we evaluated you today:" and we had 99.2% uploaded and validated on time. 249/251 orders. 

Then suddenly, 2 days before evaluation, we received over 40 late items in the "uploaded and validated on time" section??? It now says 576/624??? 

The strange part: The ones that were marked as late were suddenly from the FIRST week?? This was PRIOR to the timeline I had on the 12th. It is saying these orders that were made on 7/5 were not uploaded on time, although they all received first scans on the 6th - within the handling time?? 

We use ShipStation for our shipping labels. The software automatically sends the tracking information to eBay. We also have the ShipStation logs as evidence that we did our part on time.

I thought this may have been an issue between ShipStation and eBay not receiving the labels, but then I thought about it more, and that does not make sense. My screenshots from the 12th and 13th clearly show these items on there and they were NOT listed as late. 

I called in and one of the CSR's recognized the issue, but I was told that they can not proactively fix this. They have to wait until if there's any penalty applied to our account, and then they can whitelist it.

Then the review date came - everything looked good. Looked as if we had already been whitelisted.

Next day we come in (the day AFTER the evaluation date), and it says current status: does not meet requirement??

I call in and the CSR asks if I could send any of the screenshots in for him as evidence. He thought we had a decent amount of evidence already, but any more would be helpful to the case.

He told me to leave an "Attn:" to his name in the subject, so that he could reference these emails and send it out correctly. He said he received them, and he sent it to the correct place. He had me send screenshots of ShipStation, as well as the ones of the sellers hub with those items not marked as late. I also noted some other errors - that the Guaranteed Delivery reports were missing data, it did not even have the order information for buyers to track which orders they were referring to, as well as the "On Time Handling" and "Tracking Uploaded and Validated" numbers did not even match! It said "of 583 transactions" on top, and "of 585 transactions" on bottom??

Well that was last week. Then yesterday, we finally get a response... from a different CSR

"I want to deeply apologize for the late response. Thank you for sending screenshots. How can we help or answer your questions about Guaranteed Delivery? I checked seller performance looks like we are having issues with manually uploading tracking to an order, if you have any questions feel free to call us"????

I don't know if it is me, but that response doesn't make sense. As I mentioned to the CSR, and he said he had documented, that we use ShipStation - hence why I sent the screenshots from ShipStation in addition to our dashboard?? I'm assuming the CSR who asked for the emails never did his job? And now another CSR, who obviously knows absolutely nothing about the case, is responding instead of him? I already DID call in and explain this issue, and they told me to email this information in there and he would handle it???

Now I have to call again??? And wait for someone to send the same information back to the GD team, and wait another week for a response??

At this point, I guess we'll just wait it out another week until next evaluation. Just so frustrating that we have evidence to show we did our job, we can show we made the labels on time, we can show they were shipped on time, and we can show that eBay's GD page listed those orders from the first week specificaly on time, and yet another glitch has caused harm to our account...

[darla3073]

You have the item back and you want the money back too? You're kidding right?

[pvcliff]

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@darla3073 wrote:
You have the item back and you want the money back too? You're kidding right?

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Agreed. Be glad you have your item back, many aren't so lucky.

[pburn]

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@darla3073 wrote:
You have the item back and you want the money back too? You're kidding right?

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After reading your comment, I went back to read the original post a little more closely. I think the issue is that @darla3073 did not receive the original item back. S/he received something, but not the original item. 

That means the buyer still has the item @darla3073 sold, so darla wants payment for it. S/he doesn't want whatever junk the buyer sent back to her.

Am I misreading the original post?

[ed8108]

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@darla3073 wrote:
You have the item back and you want the money back too? You're kidding right?

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EBay stated within their communication that a refund to this seller, has been undertaken.

EBay can if they so choose, certainly issue a courtesy refund to a seller as they do for buyers, who have the item and are allowed to keep the item, and are provided a courtesy refund for having had an unpleasant transaction.

I would suggest that ebay now reconsider, recognize and be in compliance with their original determination,

so as to not further undermine seller trust and confidence in the veracity of statements that eminate from ebay.

[missjen831]

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@pburn wrote:

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@darla3073 wrote:
You have the item back and you want the money back too? You're kidding right?

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After reading your comment, I went back to read the original post a little more closely. I think the issue is that @darla3073 did not receive the original item back. S/he received something, but not the original item. 

That means the buyer still has the item @darla3073 sold, so darla wants payment for it. S/he doesn't want whatever junk the buyer sent back to her.

Am I misreading the original post?

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I don’t see a previous thread from the OP? From reading his OP here, it sounds like he did get his item back, but the buyers reason for returning was bogus? Maybe I need more coffee though lol 

[hafoster]

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@utmahoo wrote:

Since the appeal was already closed in your favor, please allow 48-72 hours (excluding holidays) for the funds to be processed back to your account/original funding source.

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If your original funding source --

for the re-imburse/enrich-ment of eBay --

was a credit card, you can chargeback that charge --

presenting this letter from eBay as supporting documentation --

with the chargeback reason Credit not processed.

Yes, you might be burning a bridge --

despite the letter from eBay --

but perhaps you already [unfinished sentence]

[zamo-zuan]

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@darla3073 wrote:
You have the item back and you want the money back too? You're kidding right?

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The OP said it was a bogus return. This implies the item was not returned in the correct condition. Hence why CSR's said they would be doing a refund, and why it's seemingly wrong that they are now saying they can't do anything bc the item was received - after jumping through some hoops and getting a police report as confirmation.

[missjen831]

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@zamo-zuan wrote:

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@darla3073 wrote:
You have the item back and you want the money back too? You're kidding right?

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The OP said it was a bogus return. This implies the item was not returned in the correct condition. Hence why CSR's said they would be doing a refund, and why it's seemingly wrong that they are now saying they can't do anything bc the item was received - after jumping through some hoops and getting a police report as confirmation.

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It doesn't just imply it was not returned in the correct condition. It also implies the buyer's return reason was false--such as claiming the item is defective, returning it and the seller finds it works just fine--many times sellers call that a bogus return and want to refuse to refund. So we can't really assume what really happened here.

[utmahoo]

I will add more as the OP.  The item was returned with the claim "it might be fraudulent".  I provided photos, mailed item in original box with receipt prior to eBay forcing the return. Buyer provided no additional information in the claims process.

The item was returned, but it is now used, has marks on it, and is not worth nearly as much. Spoke to a manager today who said that is a risk I take selling.  As soon as an item leaves my hand I can't count on it being returned in the same condition as when I shipped it.  They could have told me this on Day 1 of my appeal instead of making me jump through hoops and give me a different reason each time I complied. 

They still haven't even refunded my seller's fee!

[missjen831]

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@utmahoo wrote:

I will add more as the OP.  The item was returned with the claim "it might be fraudulent".  I provided photos, mailed item in original box with receipt prior to eBay forcing the return. Buyer provided no additional information in the claims process.

The item was returned, but it is now used, has marks on it, and is not worth nearly as much. Spoke to a manager today who said that is a risk I take selling.  As soon as an item leaves my hand I can't count on it being returned in the same condition as when I shipped it.  They could have told me this on Day 1 of my appeal instead of making me jump through hoops and give me a different reason each time I complied. 

They still haven't even refunded my seller's fee!

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Ok thank you for the additional information. I wholeheartedly agree with you that customer service should have told you upfront that you wouldn’t be refunded. They handled this situion incorrectly and you have every right to angry. However.....you have an email from customer service promising you a refund right @utmahoo ? In my honest opinion, eBay needs to stand by that email and issue you a refund. They can’t just make that kind of promise and then take it back. It’s unprofessional. You should tag the eBay reps who are on the boards if you want to purse this further. 

Editing to add-I forgot to ask, did you at any point ask eBay to step in? If you did, they won’t refund the FVF 😞

[zamo-zuan]

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@utmahoo wrote:

I will add more as the OP.  The item was returned with the claim "it might be fraudulent".  I provided photos, mailed item in original box with receipt prior to eBay forcing the return. Buyer provided no additional information in the claims process.

The item was returned, but it is now used, has marks on it, and is not worth nearly as much. Spoke to a manager today who said that is a risk I take selling.  As soon as an item leaves my hand I can't count on it being returned in the same condition as when I shipped it.  They could have told me this on Day 1 of my appeal instead of making me jump through hoops and give me a different reason each time I complied. 

They still haven't even refunded my seller's fee!

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Agree with the above poster. If they said you will be refunded, they wholeheartedly should.

With that said, it is true that they should not have advised you that you will be refunded - that's not typical of them. Sad but true - the thing they told you about "risk" is typically how it goes.

This is one of the only benefits to offering free returns, is if someone takes advantage, you can do a less than full refund, and at least get 50% of the sale price back. It's up to you to do the math to see if you will be spending more than this on shipping fees... either way you lose money.

Oh, and for the FVF, they won't refund that unless you get a full refund these days anyway. I forgot the exact amount, but I believe it needs to be above 80 or 85% refund in order to get the FVF back?