eBay

zamo-zuan · ‎02-14-2019

This morning our stock management software was getting a strange error that some of our items could not be updated because "They do not contain a return policy".

To be clear, this is NOT saying that there's a policy of "no returns". It's saying that there's "NO policy found" so the item can not be revised!

This isn't possible as you have to select one of the policies when creating the listing.

Then doing some searching I found this issue affecting many of our listings, especially old ones:

I recommend all sellers to check their listings to see if this issue is affecting them! If you are having this please report it! It's a pretty big one as our items for example are Free Returns, yet if it's coming up as "does not accept returns" we will be losing our protections offered by Free Returns!

castlemagicmemories · ‎02-14-2019

Good catch as always, @zamo-zuan

You might want to post this on the Tech Issues Board, too. Not saying it doesn't belong here, it does so there is awareness and this can be checked. It's just that they say Ebay employees monitor the Tech Board, so you would be reporting it that way.

Not trying to make extra work for you, a simple copy and paste would do it in a few seconds., and people can also report by calling Ebay on this. And thank you for posting this here!

hillbillymedia · ‎02-14-2019

@zamo-zuan were your screenshots taken from a different user account other than your listing/selling account? This info. would be helpful when I check.

"There`s always barber college" - Dalton - Road House

yankeebob1951 · ‎02-14-2019

Thanks for the heads-up... & here's something to check out.

Have you seen this from Seller news >Announcements:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Announcements/Reminder-Streamline-Your-Return-Policies/ba-p/29450784

Dated 2/1/19 it basically says:

"The five new return policies are as follows:

No returns accepted
30-day buyer-paid returns
30-day free returns
60-day buyer-paid returns
60-day free returns

Check and update your listings now to ensure they are up to date with the current policy. "

If the policies on the changed listings you're finding don't fit one of those five... if for example, your listing offers 14 day returns...maybe you're now being kicked into "No Policy Found" by default even tho it accepted the non-compliant option when you listed .

goodluckselling · ‎02-14-2019

@zamo-zuan Are the listing you are noticing GTC listings?

Good Luck Selling!

zamo-zuan · ‎02-14-2019

@castlemagicmemories wrote:
Good catch as always, @zamo-zuan

You might want to post this on the Tech Issues Board, too. Not saying it doesn't belong here, it does so there is awareness and this can be checked. It's just that they say Ebay employees monitor the Tech Board, so you would be reporting it that way.

Not trying to make extra work for you, a simple copy and paste would do it in a few seconds., and people can also report by calling Ebay on this. And thank you for posting this here!

I will do this shortly. I posted here as I was calling eBay to report the issue.

@hillbillymedia wrote:
@zamo-zuan were your screenshots taken from a different user account other than your listing/selling account? This info. would be helpful when I check.

Was logged in to our own account at the time.

@yankeebob1951 wrote:
Thanks for the heads-up... & here's something to check out.
Have you seen this from Seller news >Announcements:
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Announcements/Reminder-Streamline-Your-Return-Policies/ba-p/29450784
Dated 2/1/19 it basically says:
"The five new return policies are as follows:
     No returns accepted
     30-day buyer-paid returns
     30-day free returns
     60-day buyer-paid returns
     60-day free returns
Check and update your listings now to ensure they are up to date with the current policy. "
If the policies on the changed listings you're finding don't fit one of those five... if for example, your listing offers 14 day returns...maybe you're now being kicked into "No Policy Found" by default even tho it accepted the non-compliant option when you listed .

We were 30 day free returns prior to this. It's still showing up as free returns in search, just not on the actual listing. We've never used 14 day.

It seems to be affecting about ~20% of our listings, and all had the same return policy originally.

Your suspicion may be correct that there's issues with them removing policies that weren't current, but it seems like there may be an issue related to it targeting listings of valid return policies.

@goodluckselling wrote:
@zamo-zuan Are the listing you are noticing GTC listings?

Good Luck Selling!

Yup.

goodluckselling · ‎02-14-2019

@goodluckselling wrote:
@zamo-zuan Are the listing you are noticing GTC listings?

Good Luck Selling!

Yup.

_______________

Thanks. I might have a simply solution for you? We use the business policies tool here at eBay and if you use this tool you can probably edit your returns policy by adding or changing a few words and it will up date all your listings for you within a few minutes.

I will look at some of my listings based on your report of this issue.

Thanks

Good Luck Selling!

buyselljack2016 · ‎02-14-2019

2 days ago when I attempted to relist 2 items there was a warning.

said 1 listing had no policy.

said other listing had an invalid policy.

They were both relists that had a "no returns" policy when they had ended.

I canceled out of the screen. Retried, and both were fine.

zamo-zuan · ‎02-14-2019

@goodluckselling wrote:
@goodluckselling wrote:
@zamo-zuan Are the listing you are noticing GTC listings?

Good Luck Selling!
Yup.

_______________

Thanks. I might have a simply solution for you? We use the business policies tool here at eBay and if you use this tool you can probably edit your returns policy by adding or changing a few words and it will up date all your listings for you within a few minutes.

I will look at some of my listings based on your report of this issue.

Thanks
Good Luck Selling!

Thanks for the suggestion.

We used Business Policies in the past, and I don't remember exactly why but there was some issue with the RMA feature I believe.

Right now I'm planning on doing some further testing, I'll report back if I find anything!

zamo-zuan · ‎02-14-2019

@buyselljack2016 wrote:
2 days ago when I attempted to relist 2 items there was a warning.

said 1 listing had no policy.
said other listing had an invalid policy.

They were both relists that had a "no returns" policy when they had ended.

I canceled out of the screen. Retried, and both were fine.

Our listing department reported to me that they received similar errors, but did not know a reason for it, and on another attempt it seemed to go through.

It's very likely what you mention is related. I don't know what triggered it, but it seems return data either got lost or corrupted.

The strangest part is this can't really be user error in this case, because both through eBay site as well as the eBay API, it doesn't let you submit at all without a return policy. It had to be data loss on their end (most likely related to removal of old policies as mentioned above). No idea why it would be targeting items with 30 days Free Returns though... nor do I know why it would still show up in search as FR if there's no policy at all (as the error states).

mam98031 · ‎02-14-2019

Somewhere on the selling boards, there was a similar complaint by at least one other seller in the past week or so. I remember seeing it, but I don't know what thread it was on. Sorry!

mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999

"I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you." Quote from Edward I Koch

wickedwolfauto · ‎02-14-2019

I've been making some bulk changes and items show up with errors for the same thing. Not the whole line, and all items were marked with 30 day returns. Just another glitch I guess LOL

zamo-zuan · ‎02-14-2019

@wickedwolfauto wrote:
I've been making some bulk changes and items show up with errors for the same thing. Not the whole line, and all items were marked with 30 day returns. Just another glitch I guess LOL

Exactly.

So I started bulk updating our items and you can see exactly what is explained here:

After updating to return policies, it seems the listings go back to functioning as normal.

Seems confirmed at this point that return data simply got corrupted somehow.

vikingsandpintos · ‎02-14-2019

I was getting the same messages yesterday while updating some pricing on some listings. (About 1 out of every 5)

Each time, I was able to either back out and try again, or just try again while the red message was there, and the listing updates went thru. Not sure what kind of glitch it was, but after a couple of tries it would work.

tunicaslot · ‎02-14-2019

Well add another problem - I have free returns. Received a return req today which was automatically accepted but no where did it give me the option to have Ebay send the return label or for me to send the buyer a return label. I contacted the buyer to see if indeed Ebay already provided him with one and he responded no - I just spent the money to return it on my own and provided me with a tracking number. I've already told him that I will reimburse him for the cost of the return.