Guaranteed 3-Day Delivery - Fail Question

[calntom]

The scenario below has not happened to me yet.....

What is the appropriate response to a buyer that sends me a message stating they did not receive their item within eBay's guaranteed delivery time? Say, I shipped the item within my handling time and received the correct scan date, but USPS or UPS did not delivery the package within the  time frame that eBay promised?

I realize that eBay is picking up the tab for those cases through the end of the year. Suppose the buyer does not know how to proceed in order to get their monies back from eBay for the failed delivery time promise.

What is the appropriate path or link or phone number to refer to the buyer? 

[penguins_dont_fly · Accepted solution]

https://pages.ebay.com/shipping/guaranteed-delivery.html

If your item doesn’t arrive by the guaranteed delivery date

If the item you bought with Guaranteed Delivery doesn’t arrive on time, we’ll make it right.

To let us know, you can either:

• Find the Guaranteed Delivery information in your order emails and click let us know. Then clickReport delivery issue on the order details page.
• Find your item in My eBay under Purchase History and select Report late delivery from the More actions drop-down menu.

Next, select an option to let us know how we can make it right for you. You may be able to:

• Receive a voucher that you can use on a future eBay purchase (if shipping was free).
• Get a refund for the shipping cost (if you paid for shipping).
• Return the item for free and get a full refund if the listing offers returns.
• Let the seller know that you didn’t receive your item.

That’s all you have to do! We’ll process your request right away. Just make sure that you let us know within 30 days from the guaranteed delivery date.

[calntom]

Thank you,  @penguins_dont_fly  Appreciate your response. 

[markdown-media]

The one and only complaint I had about a missed "Guaranteed Delivery" sale, I just apologized, and send the same link that penguin mentioned, and never heard back from the buyer again. 

[ittybitnot]

• Return the item for free and get a full refund if the listing offers returns.
• Let the seller know that you didn’t receive your item.

Now those two are interesting. 

[futuretomorrow]

I politely educate the buyer and don't send them any links, nor do I apologize. I wasn't the one that went into my settings recently and changed my shipping to Guaranteed Delivery. eBay did that. 

When this happened recently, I politely explained to the buyer that they've been misled by ebay. eBay made zero arrangements with the USPS to provide special status or priorty for eBay items and first class mail remains first class mail and has a specific window for delivery. I told them they should be alright but this was on eBay, not me. I was shocked, checked my listings and couldn't believe what I was seeing. 

The scary part? Their feedback suggests that if that item had not gotten there the day eBay guaranteed they may have left me a neutral or negative. eBay says they'll remove them but I'm really supposed to trust a company sneaking into my account in the middle of the night and changing ALL, not 1 or 2 but ALL my listings to guaranteed delivery when they have a supposed recorded call with me politely refusing to be a part of their program? I think not.

[twnpopcards]

@futuretomorrow

If you do not wish to participate in this program Ebay has made it your responsibility to opt out in the preferences for your account.  That is the only way that you will not be in the program is you made the decision not to.  I also opted out as my items rarely if ever arrive in 3 days due to the amount of mail going through the sorting hub that i am assigned to. 

My mail goes to LAX but recently I have noticed that without even scanning it as having arrived at the LAX sorting facility my items have begun showing San Bernadino, Bakersfield, Santa Clarita, City of Industry and Moreno Valley as the sorting center and it always is a full day AFTER the original scan at my local PO.  When i asked my local PO about that they stated that all mail automatically does go to LAX and is never routed to these other facilities so it must be happening at LAX to help facilitate the mail moving due to the volume.  When I had him look it up he was shocked and saw that this was adding an extra day to every item that I was shipping.  He also was not happy as they are required to take all late arriving mail from the carriers to LAX to ensure it is scanned into the system that day and was going to report it to his postmaster.  Not sure what happened but I notice none of my packages were sent to other locations like that since, but they still are taking 4-5 days to get delivered.  

Even though Ebay is currently paying for this when items are late, I don't trust that at some point those payouts by Ebay will cost me in their Search Algorithm and place me lower or suddenly eliminate my items fromt he program while still showing that i am participating, so I just opted out so there are no additional expectations from my customers.  I still get the items out the next day to try and speed them up and many of the comments I get are about my quick shipping.  

The other part i do not like about the program, although i know the buyer can do it anyway, is they can say that the item arrived late so they want to return it and now you lose the sale.  Again I know they can already do that, but this just adds it to their though process and many will do it plus get the refund for shipping they were entitled to.  Just not a program that works for me and it sounds like you do not wish to participate either.  Just go into your Account Preferences and change it to opt out.  

[futuretomorrow]

@twnpopcards

Thanks for your thoughtful response.

1. Sounds like we are in the same boat regarding our buyers being very very happy with the speed of our shipping. Some variation of quick shipping is almost always in my feedback now if/when buyers leave it.

2. My preferences were changed back the way I had them before weeks ago or the day after the customer got in touch with me and I had made the righful decision to check my listings. I specifically told eBay not to change it back, show me where it was and I'd change it myself. 

3. Lot's of routes - I had this EXACT problem about 2 years ago. Packages were arriving 1-2 days late because of the USPS needing to hire more contractors and how they decided to sort it here, before it left the state. I can only hope what you're seeing is a permanent fix, seems like it is.

4. I don't think it's either here nor there at this point and maybe my initial comment wasn't clear but eBay had me on recorded audio before they did this asking for them to not add my account to the Guaranteed Delivery Program. I also never signed up for it.

When I pressed the tier 2 CSR for an answer, what he told me is consistent with what I've seen some companies I've contracted for in the past do. eBay did not reach the targeted number of sellers they needed for the program. So they then looked at all seller accounts, filtered by 1 day or same day shipping and then looked at our feedback.

When they found a consistent pattern of on time, within delivery date feedback, they simply moved every seller like me into the program without notification, even if you had verbally asked to not be a part of it. I'm not sure how they thought an impatient customer or late package scenario wouldn't have arisen, bringing the change to sellers attention. 

Again, this is consistent with what I've seen companies I cannot name do and if you call eBay and get someone as helpful as the person that helped me they'll easily confirm what I've just shared.