My 'Time Away" Was Not Honored nor Calculated Correctly into My Shipments.

[stephannhill]

Hello:

I have an eBay Store, H&H Treasures. I recently was out of town and thus, programmed a “Time Away” notification from February 18th – March 3rd.  During my "Time Away",  I had a total of five items that were sold. I mailed them out on March 3rd, the same day I flew back home. However, THREE of those five items were incorrectly labeled as “Shipment Overdue”. It resulted in being demoted from Top Seller to Above Standard. Thus, due to the "Time Away" not being honored, I lost my Top Seller Rating.  Those THREE items were indeed sold during the time I was away from home and thus, my merchandise.  Has this happened to other sellers? I have sent two emails to eBay and they have yet to answer my emails nor fix the inaccurate "shipment overdue" label of those three items.  I have been very diligent in keeping my Top Rated Seller status as I have worked very hard on my eBay Business to maintain that status and I should not lose it due to a bug in the system.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read my issue! If you have any suggestions for me, please feel free to reach out to me via by messaging me through my eBay account as this is very frustrating for me. 

Sincerely,

Frustrated eBay Seller

[stephannhill]

Please do not be rude or insult me. I was genuinely asking for help. I am very intelligent. As mentioned, two of my listings did work correctly and thus, that is evidence that I correctly programmed a "Time Away" notification. So, in the future, please show professionalism by not being rude or insulting your fellow eBay sellers. 

[stephannhill]

Hi. Thank you for your advice. I think I will follow your first suggestion in the future and adjust / extend my handling time. The second suggestion of cancelling my listings would not be effective because I have over 300 items in my store. Thank you again for taking the time to respond to my inquiry. 

[stephannhill]

Hi Velvet:

Your reply was very helpful. Thank you for taking the time to help me with this issue. I did contact customer support but never heard back. But you mentioned if I had initiated an offer accepted during Time Away that may have caused the issue. That is indeed possible, and I will have to take a look closer at the listings to see if that is what happened. Because I did keep an eye on my eBay Store while I was out of town, but since I was away from my merchandise, I couldn't send anything out to the buyers, but I could and would still communicate with potential buyers when they sent me questions or sent me an offer. That does help explain the issue better. Thank you again for your kind help. 

[stephannhill]

Thank you for taking the time to reply to my inquiry. This I believe is EXACTLY what happened. I would have to go back and take a closer look at those listings but with what you just told me and what Velvet at eBay told me, I think that is precisely what happened. Thank you again for helping me understand what might have happened. 

[stephannhill]

Thank you. You are probably correct. I will keep that in mind in the future. Phoning them might have better results that an email that is easily ignored. Thank you for the help.

[stephannhill]

Yes. You are correct about the 20th of every month. However, on my seller hub, it specifically states "If you were evaluated today, you would be Above Average..." Thus, why I say I was demoted and had my Top Seller rating taken away. It is possible that when the 20th of March comes around in about six days, that a closer look from eBay will result in my Top Rated Seller being re-instated. 

[stephannhill]

Thank you. I have been reading other messages from folks and yes, I think that is precisely what happened. In the future, I believe I will select the "no purchases....." option, because I did still allow purchases to be made while I was out of town thinking that my shipping / handling time would be re-calculated automatically and that I would have either the same day or one business day to ship out my merchandise upon my return without any dinged to my shipping rate. 

[stephannhill]

Thank you for your help. I will be taking your advice, which is the same as others who replied to me, and adjust my shipping / handling time. in the future when I have to go out of town.  Because yes, I assumed that when I placed my store on "Time Away" that eBay would automatically allow me to ship my items sold while I was away within one business day of my return without a ding to my late shipping rate. And, of course, that is not what happened on at least three of the items. Thank you!

[simply-the-best-for-you]

So despite Ebay saying in several other threads (perhaps the one you posted earlier) that we no longer need to adjust handling time, it sounds to me like if we send out offers, we absolutely still need to adjust handling time!  

I always leave my items up for sale & haven't had a vaca since Time Away was created, so in the past, I've always adjusted my handling time too.  Was looking fwd to that not being necessary, but since I send tons of offers, it sounds like it's still necessary 😪  

Sorry you found out the hard way OP, but at least several of us have learned from your experience. 

ETA:  So frustrated they can't just make it work to elongate your handling time, the way it always should have worked. 

[stephannhill]

Thank you for your help. I believe in the future I will adjust my handling time on all of my listings while I am away. I did not do that before being away. 

[stephannhill]

Okay. I will remember to select the "Hide" options in the future and cancel anything that is an auction-style item. Thank you for the help. 

[simply-the-best-for-you]

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@stephannhill wrote:

Okay. I will remember to select the "Hide" options in the future and cancel anything that is an auction-style item. Thank you for the help. 

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I don't understand.  Why hide?   If you just adjust your handling time too, you s/b fine.  Right?   

[stephannhill]

Thank you for taking the time to reply to my message. You have said the same thing as others have on this thread and I will be taking extra precautions next time when I have to go out of town and place my listings on "No Purchase" / "Hide my listings" and make some adjustments to my shipping. 

[hugron]

That very thing happened to me last October. I had several items listed BIN. I did exactly what is required to do "time away". I allowed items to be sold and had a message that shipping would be delayed because I was away. I returned and shipped the items the very next day. My rating went from Top Seller down because I had several items shipped late. The ones that were sold while I was away. I contacted Ebay several times and explained it all to them. They would "look into it" and "fix" it. "Not to worry". This went on for a couple of months, never getting fixed. In the mean time my rating was lower costing me money. Note the Top Rated seller gets $100 insurance provide. If you are not a Top Rated seller you get $50. Everything I sold that needed more then $50 and less the $100 cost me extra money. I never did get it the situation taken care of. After a few months of being a good seller, getting things shipped on time ( which I do every day) my rating went back to Top Rated. My advise. Don't ever go on vacation again, stay glued to your computer, Sell and Ship. Sell and Ship. You get the idea. 🤔

[stephannhill]

Thank you for the link. I read over it for a few minutes, and you are right about it being a funny parody if it was not a serious issue that eBay programmers really need to be taking a look at.  Velvet from eBay (one of the messages on this thread) explained that if I initiated an accepted offer while I was out of town, that the "Time Away" status is eliminated for that listing.  I did not know that. I just assumed that I would still have one business day to ship out my sold listings upon my return. So now I know what to do when I need to go out of town. Thank you again.