eBay

bangordiscount · ‎06-02-2022

Hello,

I was wondering if eBay had an official policy regarding INR disputes opened by buyers in Russia who haven't received their packages (I'm a U.S. seller)?

I ask because I have had two INR's for packages mailed to Russia and they both are being handled differently by eBay. In the first instance, I sold a tool on 2/24/2022 to a buyer in Russia. On 04/18/2022 they opened an INR with eBay and it was immediately closed (without any input from me) and I was not found at fault. Here is the details regarding that:

Hi [Me],

We reviewed the case and have decided to issue the buyer a refund of US $105.48 without any impact to you.

This case is now closed. You are not required to reimburse the buyer or eBay, and this case will not be counted in your seller performance evaluation.

^ According to the tracking below, the package was never delivered. I used pirate ships "Simple Export Rate" and it appears to still be in their warehouse, even as of today:

https://a1.asendiausa.com/tracking/?trackingkey=A6320AE0-4D36-45E7-BF95-893D6DE3F2D1&trackingnumber=...

In the second instance I sold a video game to a buyer on 02/26/2022 and he opened an INR dispute on 05/28/2022. This INR dispute however was NOT immediately closed by eBay and rather it is sitting waiting for my response (I need to respond by today 06/03/2022).

This package was also sent by PirateShip's "Simple Export Rate" and according to the tracking I don't think it's left the U.S. either:

https://a1.asendiausa.com/tracking/?trackingkey=A6320AE0-4D36-45E7-BF95-893D6DE3F2D1&trackingnumber=...

How should I respond to this dispute? Is eBay "courtesy" covering these? Do I need to contact the carrier?

This is the only reference to Russia and INR's (seller ratings) that I could find:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Announcements/Important-updates-to-shipping-to-Ukraine-and-Russia/ba-p...

Thanks for the help!

lepke1979 · ‎06-03-2022

I believe normally they would just refund the customer out of your money, but the thing with Russia and Ukraine kind of messed things up in regards to mail going over there. You might get lucky on the second one and get another courtesy refund.

For the INR, there isn't much you can really do outside of give them the tracking number and say it's still showing as being in the US.

Did you happen to get insurance for either? If so, I believe you can make a claim for deliveries taking over 30 days. I don't know if there is a time limit on that though.

Regardless, you may need to talk with Pirate Ship via chat. Most likely after x number of months, it'll get sent back to you. You'll have to find out from Pirate Ship on when that might be. It'll probably either be 6 or 12 months. Unlikely, but it might also be possible to request they return it.

This was before Pirate Ship started using Asendia. But had a package I guess sit in Brazilian customs for a year and come back to me. Lucky it wasn't food I guess, heh. Just put it back into inventory.

dbfolks166mt · ‎06-03-2022

This is one of those unusual situations. Even though you used pirate ship the items went through USPS shipping. I would start with contacting USPS and see how they are handling items that were being shipped to Russia and got trapped when the capability to get items into that country was halted by the war and the sanctions. You cannot be the only person that has packages destined for Russia that are sitting in a USPS or shipping company warehouse somewhere. There is probably a high probability that you can have the items returned to you.

Since you have to respond to the INR within the time limit I would suggest contacting eBay through the Facebook connection, call in help desk is useless, and ask them how to address the INR. Even if eBay closes out the INR in the buyers favor, which they shouldn't, I am not sure they have a way to refund the buyer given most financial institutions have discontinued Russian transactions.

It's an odd set of circumstances and while I don't sell a lot internationally and Russia has always been one of the countries I have never sold to or purchased from they are able to circumvent that through the use of a freight forwarder. I have had a couple of international sales that were going through freight forwarders and I always checked the buyers registered address to make sure it was not going to Russia or the Ukraine before shipping. Had it been I would have canceled the transaction for a problem with the buyers address.

bangordiscount · ‎06-03-2022

Historically I've only shipped USPS Priority and Priority Express Mail International to Russia. On those services I can purchase insurance through USPS and the tracking has always been reliable (sometimes you have to follow it to delivery using the Russian Post website).

But once I started using PirateShip's simple export rate (Asendia) I felt comfortable enough shipping low value, low weight items as I've always gotten delivery confirmation using their tracking system. For awhile, even before the conflict, my third party insurance company (U-Pic) hasn't covered Russia.

However, as you've both pointed out, there are sanctions at the moment and packages aren't entering Russia. I'd be fine refunding the buyer, if that's even possible with the financial institutions, but I wanted to see what the official policy was and how to get my package back.

During Covid (early part of the pandemic) USPS rerouted packages back to the shipper as (Return to Sender-Mail Service Suspended) if a particular country had closed their borders. Yes, Pirate ship uses USPS to get the package to their forwarding center, but rarely do they use USPS to send it overseas, so they're not going through the International Sort Center (ISC) for USPS and therefore aren't being sent back to the sender. For both of my Russian INR cases, the packages are sitting with Asendia USA and have been since at least March.

I want to know if they plan on forwarding the packages to the Russian buyers at some point, or returning them to sender. Asendia is very hard to contact directly so I guess I'll have to use PirateShip as an intermediate. I don't think it's worth the time to contact USPS as they already did their job and delivered the package to the forwarding center months ago.

Here's a snippet of the eBay policy that has me curious (Regarding Russian/Ukraine INR's):

If you currently have items in transit to Ukraine or Russia, please note that those packages may not reach your buyer and may be returned to you. Please regularly check your tracking on those orders for the most up to date information. If your business is impacted, eBay will automatically protect your seller performance, including:

Your late shipment rate
Your valid tracking upload rate
“Item not received” cases due to late delivery
Defects resulting from transactions you canceled
Negative or neutral feedback from these transactions

These seller protections will apply retroactively to all shipments to Ukraine and Russia beginning February 21, 2022.

^ So does this mean they'll just scrub the defect? I responded to the case and uploaded the tracking for Asendia as this morning 06/03 was my last day to respond.