eBay

micsett-99 · ‎04-21-2019

I've got to hand it to ebay, I really do. They are so "ever creative" with their schemes and scams to put their hands in sellers pockets..It really is disgraceful and sickening.

The newest SCAM (and make no mistake, this is a SCAM folks) is "Seller Metrics"...

If you aren't fully versed in this scheme yet, get acquainted with it quickly; because it has the capacity and potential to add THOUSANDS of dollars to your ebay invoice each month (depending on how much you sell, and your prices, etc)..

Basically the way this works now is this: eBay looks at your "Selling Category", and evaluates the "average" number of "returns" your "peers" are receiving for:

1) Item not as described

2) Item arrived damaged

3) Item is defective not working

4) Missing part or pieces

5) Wrong item sent

All of these "reasons" a buyer can completely arbitrarily select for their return? Fall under the "Item not as described" category of return.

There is of COURSE no validation on eBay's part to make sure these claims are even true at all (and I'll get to that in a moment). All the buyer needs to do is simply "open" the return selecting any of these reasons? And your seller metrics are impacted.

So, ebay then takes a tally of these returns among your "peers" of other sellers, and they set a very handy "percentage rate" of overall returns of this nature.

So in a specific category your "peers" maybe be performing at a 7.04% return rate lets say (or at least this is what ebay tells you).

You are then measured against your peers, and your return rate is Very High against their numbers? Well, of course ebay then has decided that they need to penalize you to the tune of an additional 4% on all your final value fees.

Also of course, you have ZERO way of validating their "returns data" in any way shape or form, and obviously it would behoove ebay to report the lowest percentage possible to you? Because they stand to profit tremendously, the lower that number is and the higher your "percentages are in comparison..

So there's part one of the scam, how its all laid out. But of course, it gets better!! It always does, doesn't it??

So ebay has also decided, to make sure they can bilk as many unsuspecting sellers out of as much cash as they can? That if you are NOT selling 400 items per 90 days? Well then, each of these returns stays on your "record" for a full 12 MONTHS..

Only if you are selling over 400 items or more very 90 days? Then they let them only count for 90 days (how nice of them)...

And heres ONLY one of the real kickers about this wonderful new scam..Did I say scam? I meant "Policy", sorry..

Once a buyer merely OPENS one of these returns? It automatically counts against you. It DOES NOT MATTER..I repeat IT DOES NOT MATTER:

1) If ebay closes the return in your favor (for whatever reason that may happen)

2) It is found that the buyer is a "scammer" who opened the return in any attempt to extort you as a seller, or for any other nefarious reason. EVEN IF you can prove this, in black and white? And ebay can CONFIRM that this was the case? They DO NOT care, the return stays on your metrics for 12 months

3) The buyer opens a return, making up a fake story about the item being defective, etc, in order to try to get you to give them a partial refund (EXTREMELY COMMON SCAM ON EBAY). Upon refusing to give the buyer a partial refund and asking for the item back to validate the buyers "claims"? The buyer disappears and never sends back the item. Making that a bogus return. Guess what? Because they OPENED THE RETURN? You get hit...End of story. Even with all EVIDENCE in black and white that the buyer was trying to pull a scam.

4) eBay closes the return because the buyer never sends the item back. You would think that would invalidate a "return", as NOTHING was EVER "returned"...But not under eBay's service metrics!! No sir..You're stuck with the return on your record

5) You can PROVE that you listed a defect the item had IN THE LISTING. TOOK PHOTOS OF THE DEFECT, AND MADE EVERYTHING CLEAR. The buyer refuses to read the listing to know what they are buying? Then makes a RETURN stating that the item was "Not as described" because it has the defect you listed clearly...Guess what?? Doesn't matter, YOU are hit with a defect Regardless of whether you can PROVE once again, that you did the right thing..

Now, if that wasn't bad enough in and of itself? They've also made it: IMPOSSIBLE TO APPEAL THESE DEFECTS..

Here's a perfect example of this SCAM in operation, and what I just went through personally a few days ago:

We listed an item with a screen in the "For Parts, Not working" category. We clearly stated and PHOTOGRAPHED the defect the item had which was a hairline crack in the screen, and could not have made it more clear what the issue was with the item.

Buyer comes on, buys the item as is. To our knowledge THEY READ THE LISTING (or at least this is what you would think). Buyer gets the item, and immediately opens a return stating that "The item is defective, not working". They list the reason in their own words as : "The screen is cracked".

Huh?????????????? This was all over the listing..What gives here. We contact the buyer and they admit they did not fully read the listing and they are sorry. We pay for the return, no harm, no foul and it was over. They even left us a positive feedback. We provided them EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SERVICE given the circumstance.

But of course, this doesn't end here, because NOW? This goes against our "Service Metrics" count, and raises our percentage.

So, being rational people, thinking we are dealing with an HONEST company with ebay? We call the seller performance department, and clearly show them what happened here. We show them the listing, the buyer return reason, and even the message where the buyer stated clearly that they did not read the listing and this was their fault.

The CS rep acknowledges all of this and agrees that we did nothing wrong, and this should not count against us. HOWEVER?? There is no WAY for them to APPEAL service metrics defects, nor remove them..

And this is because, eBay's "rational" here, is that EVERYONE in this category is dealing with buyers like this, and these things "happen" to everyone...It doesn't matter in anyway if this was a VALID RETURN, FOR A VALID REASON STATED BY THE BUYER...That makes NO DIFFERENCE at all..They can and WILL NOT appeal these types of "defects"...

Case closed..

When you have a "policy" in place? Which TOTALLY discounts the TRUTH of any situation..And a company who REFUSES to look at EVIDENCE PUT IN THEIR FACES which show the TRUTH and REALITY of a return, or any other claims by a "buyer" ? And this company is DIRECTLY BENEFITTING FROM TURNING THIS BLIND EYE???

There's ONE word for that, and one word only:

S C A M!!!!!!

And it just gets worse, and worse and worse as you go down the line..Because the example I just gave is ONLY an example of buyer INATTENTION now possibly costing us more money..

If you want to really get irate? I'll tell you how ebay ALSO refuses to remove this type of return from your record?? When buyers ACTIVELY TRY TO SCAM YOU, AND THIS IS PROVEN AND EBAY CLOSES THE RETURN AS A RESULT...And yet? They still refuse to remove the return from the seller metric count...

In my mind? This is nothing short of CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR

Keep in mind also? This "policy" is also being instituted by a company who actually ENCOURAGES RETURNS from every buyer, and FORCES sellers to make those returns FREE, or they don't get their discounts, etc....

I think it is very, very clear here we are no longer dealing with an Honest, Upright company here..And instead we are dealing with people INTENT on robbing every dime they can from us, in the most disgusting, despicable ways they can think up...

SELLER METRICS = CASH GRAB SCAM!!!!!!!!!!

goodluckselling · ‎04-22-2019

@castlemagicmemories wrote:
@fern*wood wrote:
I thought tracking them with the possibility for higher FVFs started less than a year ago. They have tracked returns in general for a long time.
You're both right. goodluck states that it was announced in the Summer Seller Update of last year, 2018 and implemented in October of last year, so you are right~less than a year.

goodluck is right in that it isn't NEW as the title says~which is where I was coming from. It is not new. But a couple of years was stated, I guess going by 2018 and 2019, when it has not been two years~I did not address that as I was just going by the basic, sound premise that this was not new.

I made an error and said 2 years when I should have said 1 year. I self reported my post to have them edit out the mis info in hopes it would not confuse anyone.

Sorry for the error.

Good Luck Selling!

mam98031 · ‎04-22-2019

@threshold.sales.group wrote:
In defense of the OP, when the return % on the dashboard was originally launched sellers were assured over and over that it was just for informational purposes only.

No it wasn't. Did you read the policy. the Fall Seller Update was pretty specific and the Service Metrics is NOT just data collection. It is data collection AND penalties if you hit a certain threshold.

https://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/seller-updates/2018-fall/service-metrics-and-shipping.html

@threshold.sales.group

mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999

mam98031 · ‎04-22-2019

@threshold.sales.group wrote:
In defense of the OP, when the return % on the dashboard was originally launched sellers were assured over and over that it was just for informational purposes only.

I think you have this statement confused with the Seller Dashboard numbers. Back when the dashboard got stated and they had the section on the Dashboard for your Return Rate. Your statement is correct for that area for the Dashboard. At that time Ebay also said they would NEVER hold the mere fact that a SNAD was opened against us or if we resolved the claim before it was escalated.

They have ignored those promises and we now have the Service Metrics which can be very difficult to deal with as there is NO TRANSPARENCY on the comparison numbers [peers]. And it is a Conflict of Interest IMHO as Ebay stands to gain financially for kicking a seller into penalty fees because we don't compare well to their secret peer metrics.

mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999

castlemagicmemories · ‎04-22-2019

@goodluckselling wrote:
@castlemagicmemories wrote:
@fern*wood wrote:
I thought tracking them with the possibility for higher FVFs started less than a year ago. They have tracked returns in general for a long time.
You're both right. goodluck states that it was announced in the Summer Seller Update of last year, 2018 and implemented in October of last year, so you are right~less than a year.

goodluck is right in that it isn't NEW as the title says~which is where I was coming from. It is not new. But a couple of years was stated, I guess going by 2018 and 2019, when it has not been two years~I did not address that as I was just going by the basic, sound premise that this was not new.

I made an error and said 2 years when I should have said 1 year. I self reported my post to have them edit out the mis info in hopes it would not confuse anyone.

Sorry for the error.

Good Luck Selling!

@goodluckselling No worries, although it is good of you to acknowledge that and correct it~I knew what you meant and could see how it was easy to come up with two years, 2018 and 2019. Not a biggie, IMO, and thank you for all your help on the Boards! We were all basically right~you, fern*wood, and me~it was just a little technicality.

micsett-99 · ‎04-22-2019

@mam98031 wrote:
@micsett-99 wrote:
@mam98031 wrote:
It's NEW in the way that they only actually started IMPLEMENTING this policy, and charging the extra 4% last month in March..
This is not true. It may have just started to affect you or just came to your attention that it could be an issue, but it did not just start. It has been going on much longer than that.

It started in the Fall Seller Update for 2018.

https://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/seller-updates/2018-fall/service-metrics-and-shipping.html

@micsett-99

You are COMPLETELY 1000% incorrect...I know what I just went through, and I know what is going on here, and I went through this eBay AD NASEUM....

They JUST began charging the additional 4% for service Metrics in March 2019...That is a fact.

And this is totally OFF topic to what I am talking about here anyway...

As usual you have this very funny way of coming on here and selectively going through someone's post, and explaining to them that some part of it is "wrong", while totally dismissing the rest of the post and what its actually about..

That's very ridiculous to be honest with you, and you might want to get to the bottom of why you feel the need to constantly do this..

The point I am making here is that THIS IS A SCAM...I wouldnt even care if you were right that they started "charging" people earlier than March; because this has NOTHING TO DO with the price of tea in China...

This is a SCAM whether it started TODAY? Or in 2015...It really does not make any difference..

Thank you
I'm not wrong, I respect your point of view, but when the program started is back in November of last year. It may now start of affect you for one reason or another, but that doesn't mean the program just stated. I provided you a link to the policy and when it started. So unless you are saying that Ebay announced it back in 2018 but didn't start it until last month, that is not what various threads since the start date in November attests to.

Your thread on this is not the first thread. We were yelling pretty hard about it after it was announced and subsequently launched. I was no fan of the policy then nor am I now. I've been pretty vocal on other threads regarding this subject.

I'm not trying to dismiss what may be happening to you. I'm just trying to make sure that the accurate information is out there.

They may have just started charging YOU the 4% additional fee in March, but that doesn't mean the program just stated in March. It means that your selling account exceeded the thresholds set for in the metrics and you are now eligible for penalty fees. So the program didn't just start it only started financially affecting you as of March.

Nothing I've stated is Off Topic. The Topic is the Seller Metrics, which is just a typo. There are two ways in which Ebay evals us. There is the seller stats in the Dashboard [defects]and there is the Service Metrics. They are two completely separate things.

I've dismissed nothing. My above posting was just on a specific portion of one of your previous posts. We are not required to address everything in someone's post to be allowed to respond.

So to be clear, is your thread about the Service Metrics or the Dashboard defects.? That does make a difference as they are different things and contain different information that is collected to eval the seller.

Again, you are attempting to suck me into a "semantics" argument here again, and I'm not interested...So you know, ebay started "tallying" the returns for these metrics starting in June 2018...That is when my "service metric" dashboard recorded my first return according to the report.

So it is even FURTHER deception, that they did not announce that they were even doing this until November 2018 (as you claim and may be right), after 5 months had PASSED, after they started counting these returns against you.

What I was also told by eBay repeatedly, was that March was the first month they were now "enforcing" this policy, and charging sellers the additional 4% on their invoices if their metrics were very high in a category..

This is not my "assumption", it's not "guess", this is what I was TOLD flat out by eBay..I also verified this by looking back at my older invoices to make sure I had NOT been charged? And I had not on any others, even though in those months my "service metrics" would have also been "very high" as well..

Again however, and for the last time - This post is not about how or when this "started"..That makes absolutely no difference to me, and it is a pointless exercise to argue this.

The POINT is? That this "policy" amounts to nothing but "deceptive" and I would venture to say borderline CRIMINAL tactics being used in an effort to extort more fees out of sellers, for problems which are many times completely OUT of a sellers control.

I think I have listed enough examples already here to make that point, and just the fact that NOTHING is APPEALABLE no matter what the situation is here? Says very clearly in my mind that this was "designed" as a way for ebay to rip people off..

If you agree that this policy is not fair, or are you are stating you are not a fan of it either? Then we are arguing a non point here and its a worthless conversation.

Because then we are in agreement, so theres really not much left to be said outside of this..

micsett-99 · ‎04-22-2019

@buyselljack2016 wrote:
Do you know what is even better than the "return metrics". It is the INR metrics.

Your account gets a ding in the metrics even when the INR is closed in your favor because the item was delivered.

Yes, but the most action they take against you for those is "possibly" adding lead time to your listings delivery times..There's no financial penalty involved like with INAD returns..

vintagequeennyc · ‎04-22-2019

OP - you have nailed it on the head! I almost posted something similar a few days ago.

I got 2 false returns this week alone. Buyers even proved in their messages they were lying about the reason they chose for the return. One of them claimed my item was ‘not aithentic’ SOLELY based on the fact that it didn’t fit her! So apparently the size of her butt is the gold standard in deciding authenticity! eBay told me that even if I have receipts and documentation that the item is authentic, it doesn’t matter. The buyer is 200% right and they would force the refund.

The change in the return policy wasn’t done to ‘make things simpler.’ It was done ONLY so sellers could no longer win INAD cases and in turn this would lead to higher fees paid to eBay. eBay WANTS buyers to open INAD cases so they will make more money to prop up their falling revenue.

The timeline of this is quite crafty.

April 2018: change return policy. All INADS are valid.

Fall 2018: roll out the service metrics after sellers have had 6 months to rack of bogus INADS and eBay can rake in the extra fees.

The whole returns system now is rigged to FAVOR INAD claims and encourage them so eBay can nefariously profit off of buyer fraud.

Not to mention returns are SKYROCKETING here. I had 8 total returns in all of 2018. Since January 2019, I’ve already had 6! eBay doesn’t care about its sellers or how these policy are hurting honest hard-working seller who are getting screw-ed over.

micsett-99 · ‎04-22-2019

@zamo-zuan wrote:
@tunicaslot wrote:
I've been here as long as you and it isn't a scam but eBay's idea to hold on to what buyers they have as there is such a variety on online venues people can shop these days. The seller is most times penalized for the actions of a few - FVF on shipping, DSRs - remember those, Seller Metrics ect..

As of April of last year - CS was told that every SNAD claim opened will be treated as such and they will not be involved in deciding who's right and who's wrong. This is the way they decided to handle things to keep buyers happy. If it's counterproductive to your business then you have some thinking to do on whether to try and survive here by making changes to your business or starting fresh elsewhere. I'm still selling here with 2 accts but have spread out to other venues not only to combat the slow sales here but have a back up already established if I decide Ebay is no longer a good fit for my business.
I agree with this for the most part.

Not necessarily a "scam", but definitely "unfair". All they have to do is make it based on "decided cases" , OR allow sellers to appeal return reasons. Then it would be fair. But to rely on customers claims regardless of reality? That's not right.

EBay CSR's tells us to "Just guide sellers to the correct return reasons". When customers have ordered the wrong items themselves (such as a recent Ignition Coil buyer purchased a "3 prong" instead of "4 prong" , and we sent 3 prong which is what he ordered), I've personally tried to walk the buyer through the process and he STILL chose the wrong one (of course choosing a Not As Described when we sent the right one!). Our CS Manager was also helping a customer through the same process and the customer straight up refused and said "It gave him a message and he doesn't have to have to pay for shipping" - when we offer free returns and cover shipping anyway!!! It's not right we have metrics against us for customers mistakes or misunderstandings, especially if they are getting "messages from eBay" that are not clear.

The only part of the Seller Metrics that I'm honestly a bit cautious about and worried it might be a scam, is the "peer calculation". It's not transparent at all who these "peers" are, and I've seen the mention on their policy page and can guarantee it is NOT following those rules in our category. There's huge fluctuation of the "peer values" month to month. And I've discussed with our partners in our category, haven't found a single person in the category that was under "High" besides ourselves sometimes reaching "average" but still above the peer calculation. We have in-house software that double verifies every item that goes out, it's basically impossible for us to send out the wrong item. So if it's saying we're above average, it's guaranteed we're not being compared to only people in our category, as other sellers don't typically have this kind of software.

This is besides the fact that Ignition Coils are manufactured with a defect rate of ~2%. On eBay they are sold in packs of 4-8+. EBay is claiming the peer rate is only 0.82%. Impossible!

Aside from my suspicions with the "Peer rates" (similar to the "trending rates" they claim on the Sponsored Listing page), I don't think it's a scam. Just "unfair".

I would agree with your assertions 100% here, except I am taking it a step further in saying that the way this is "currently" structured? Is solely structured that way to be sure to rip off sellers.

eBay HAS to know that sellers make frivolous, false returns all the time, list the wrong reasons, open returns to try to attempt to extort sellers, etc, etc. The entire return system on here is pretty flawed, and no one knows that better than ebay itself. BUT instead of actually fixing things?? They decide instead to CASH IN on these flaws...I'm sorry, but that is a SCAM...

ebay could very, very easily correct this by allowing "appeals" on a case by case basis - and simply NOT counting the returns that THEY THEMSELVES close in a sellers favor. Add to this that if you can prove that the buyer simply did not read the listing? And then opened a bogus return? That would be removed as well.

In my mind then you would have a fair policy, rather than a scam. Because I am not advocating that sellers should not be held responsible in some way for continually creating poor buyer experiences on the site. That's bad for everyone, and people do need to be kept in check

If they designed this in a fair way, with the above stipulations? I would not have a problem with this at all.

But how this is currently set up? With no way to differentiate a "valid" return, from a bogus one, or a scam attempt, etc? Like you said, completely going off what "box" a buyer checks arbitrarily?? That's insane (or very clever on eBay's part) and I am calling this a "scam" because that is what it amounts to right now.

You are giving them the benefit of the doubt here..I am merely not affording them that, because I refuse to believe they don't know better than to do this, and that a lot of sellers are going to be very unfairly ripped off by this..They've been running this company for A LONG time, and I refuse to believe that this scheme was hatched out "ignorance" or "stupidity"..Quite to the contrary I think it's brilliant little ploy to rake in more money, under the guise of "What's best for everyone"...Then they very conveniently set this up in such a way, that you are damned if you do, and damned if you don't..And either way, guess who benefits, and who's standing there with their hands out?...eBay, of course..

If they actually decide to change the way this is set up? And stop counting bogus returns, returns THEY close, etc, etc?

Then I will happily eat crow here and say this wasn't a scam, merely just an "oversight" perhaps...

I'm not holding my breath though by any means...

zamo-zuan · ‎04-22-2019

@threshold.sales.group wrote:
In defense of the OP, when the return % on the dashboard was originally launched sellers were assured over and over that it was just for informational purposes only.

I don't remember that. But I was specifically told by a supervisor that "only the bottom 5% of metrics will be receiving a penalty".

The metrics page makes it obvious that it is not "only" the bottom 5% from the graph alone.

@mam98031 wrote:
At that time Ebay also said they would NEVER hold the mere fact that a SNAD was opened against us or if we resolved the claim before it was escalated.

They have ignored those promises and we now have the Service Metrics which can be very difficult to deal with as there is NO TRANSPARENCY on the comparison numbers [peers]. And it is a Conflict of Interest IMHO as Ebay stands to gain financially for kicking a seller into penalty fees because we don't compare well to their secret peer metrics.

Exactly!!!!

mam98031 · ‎04-22-2019

Again, you are attempting to suck me into a "semantics" argument here again, and I'm not interested...

NOPE, you must have me confused with someone else. I've never done this to you nor has it ever come up. You and I have only had a handful of posts directed to each other and nothing like this has been claimed by you before.

So you know, ebay started "tallying" the returns for these metrics starting in June 2018...That is when my "service metric" dashboard recorded my first return according to the report.

Yes, you are correct. They did go further back for those of us that do not have 400+ transactions in a 90 day period, but they did not go back a full year. They cut it of a June of 2018 because that was when they initially announced that the Service Metrics was coming in the fall of 2018 [not March of 2019 as you previously stated].

So it is even FURTHER deception, that they did not announce that they were even doing this until November 2018 (as you claim and may be right), after 5 months had PASSED, after they started counting these returns against you.

It can't be "deception" if they announce to you what they are going to be doing. Like I said, they announced a few months BEFORE the Service Metrics was launched that it was coming. You may have missed those announcements, but they did exist.

What I was also told by eBay repeatedly, was that March was the first month they were now "enforcing" this policy, and charging sellers the additional 4% on their invoices if their metrics were very high in a category..

Then they didn't tell you the truth.

This is not my "assumption", it's not "guess", this is what I was TOLD flat out by eBay..I also verified this by looking back at my older invoices to make sure I had NOT been charged? And I had not on any others, even though in those months my "service metrics" would have also been "very high" as well..

It is more likely that you misunderstood. In the other months you probably didn't qualify to be eval'd under the Service Metrics. So you had more than 10 SNADs in a single category? When did you hit that many? It is more likely that in March you hit the ceiling so to speak by getting too many SNADs in a single category.

Again however, and for the last time - This post is not about how or when this "started"..That makes absolutely no difference to me, and it is a pointless exercise to argue this.

True as I have given you the Ebay announcements and policy on this subject. BTW I'm not try to "argue" with you or anyone. I'm only trying to give you accurate information.

The POINT is? That this "policy" amounts to nothing but "deceptive" and I would venture to say borderline CRIMINAL tactics being used in an effort to extort more fees out of sellers, for problems which are many times completely OUT of a sellers control.

I don't like the policy either. I never have. I have always contended that it is one of the worst policies ever released by Ebay.

...If you agree that this policy is not fair, or are you are stating you are not a fan of it either? Then we are arguing a non point here and its a worthless conversation.

Again, I'm not at all trying to "argue" with you. You had posted some information that wasn't accurate and I was just trying to get the correct information posted. Nothing more.

mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999

micsett-99 · ‎04-22-2019

@vintagequeennyc wrote:
OP - you have nailed it on the head! I almost posted something similar a few days ago.
I got 2 false returns this week alone. Buyers even proved in their messages they were lying about the reason they chose for the return. One of them claimed my item was ‘not aithentic’ SOLELY based on the fact that it didn’t fit her! So apparently the size of her butt is the gold standard in deciding authenticity! eBay told me that even if I have receipts and documentation that the item is authentic, it doesn’t matter. The buyer is 200% right and they would force the refund.

The change in the return policy wasn’t done to ‘make things simpler.’ It was done ONLY so sellers could no longer win INAD cases and in turn this would lead to higher fees paid to eBay. eBay WANTS buyers to open INAD cases so they will make more money to prop up their falling revenue.

The timeline of this is quite crafty.
April 2018: change return policy. All INADS are valid.
Fall 2018: roll out the service metrics after sellers have had 6 months to rack of bogus INADS and eBay can rake in the extra fees.
The whole returns system now is rigged to FAVOR INAD claims and encourage them so eBay can nefariously profit off of buyer fraud.

Not to mention returns are SKYROCKETING here. I had 8 total returns in all of 2018. Since January 2019, I’ve already had 6! eBay doesn’t care about its sellers or how these policy are hurting honest hard-working seller who are getting screw-ed over.

This is EXACTLY, exactly, exactly what I was saying...Thank goodness someone here understands what I was saying to a tee..

After talking about this this much, and reading your summary of events here as well??

I'm really thinking it might be time to contact:

1) A lawyer

2) The media

3) Government officials who regulate companies like ebay

Because this to me is basically criminal what they are doing, and its on such a grand scale here its almost mind boggling...

I think they have really gone too far this time, and I don't think they thought anyone was going to catch them...

Well, be on notice ebay? I have caught on to what you are doing here, many of us have.

And I for one am going to use every resource available to me to see to it that this is either exposed for what it is publicly? Or that you are stopped by the authorities..

This is one of the most disgraceful schemes I have ever seen a company pull on its customers, and I really feel like throwing up right now..

If nothing ELSE? This amounts to totally "unfair and deceptive business practices"...

Best case? Maybe there are some people who need to go to jail inside ebay...Worst case? I think this definitely has the makings a serious class action lawsuit, and maybe a very good media expose story as well..

One way or another this should not be left to pass....This is despicable and these people need to be held accountable, one way or another..

zamo-zuan · ‎04-22-2019

@micsett-99 wrote:

ebay could very, very easily correct this by allowing "appeals" on a case by case basis - and simply NOT counting the returns that THEY THEMSELVES close in a sellers favor. Add to this that if you can prove that the buyer simply did not read the listing? And then opened a bogus return? That would be removed as well.

In my mind then you would have a fair policy, rather than a scam. Because I am not advocating that sellers should not be held responsible in some way for continually creating poor buyer experiences on the site. That's bad for everyone, and people do need to be kept in check

If they designed this in a fair way, with the above stipulations? I would not have a problem with this at all.

But how this is currently set up? With no way to differentiate a "valid" return, from a bogus one, or a scam attempt, etc? Like you said, completely going off what "box" a buyer checks arbitrarily?? That's insane (or very clever on eBay's part) and I am calling this a "scam" because that is what it amounts to right now.

You are giving them the benefit of the doubt here..I am merely not affording them that, because I refuse to believe they don't know better than to do this, and that a lot of sellers are going to be very unfairly ripped off by this..They've been running this company for A LONG time, and I refuse to believe that this scheme was hatched out "ignorance" or "stupidity"..Quite to the contrary I think it's brilliant little ploy to rake in more money, under the guise of "What's best for everyone"...Then they very conveniently set this up in such a way, that you are damned if you do, and damned if you don't..And either way, guess who benefits, and who's standing there with their hands out?...eBay, of course..

If they actually decide to change the way this is set up? And stop counting bogus returns, returns THEY close, etc, etc?

Then I will happily eat crow here and say this wasn't a scam, merely just an "oversight" perhaps...

I'm not holding my breath though by any means...

The areas I've highlighted: You will find I've said those EXACT words many times here.

It's just a semantics issue I think. I don't necessarily think it's a "scam", just blatantly unfair.

Honestly, if you take a look at nearly all the changes since the beginning of 2018, it's as if they were designed as separate issues with no consideration for how they will work together. Obvious design flaws. Decisions obviously made by business people with no technical, marketing, or eCommerce experience. Nothing of these changes have been elegant, or even further to say, not even intelligent.

It doesn't take a genius to know that punishing people for returns at the same time as forcing people to do Free Returns will cause issues.

Same as it doesn't take a genius to realize that requiring people to pay a % of fees to "Sponsored Listings" rather than giving customers cheaper prices, not only hurts sales on eBay, but makes eBay a less competitive marketplace as a whole.

EBays justification is that "Well you're still being compared to your peers"... There's a slight bit of logic in there. Flawed logic? For sure. Those comments are assuming the "Peers" are fairly calculated. Poorly designed? For sure. But obviously these changes were not made by anyone who had an inch of experience.

I'm also assuming it's a form of "quality control" but this thinking is flawed as well. A lot of return claims does not make you a "bad seller". There's currently NO WAY to differentiate a good seller from a bad one. Especially when feedback isn't even considered in search! Yet some of eBay's biggest sellers are floating around 80-90% feedback and "it would hurt them too much to penalize those sellers"....

The returns system was obviously designed with the intent of reducing Customer Service as much as possible and it's as simple as that. The punishment? "Quality control" as silly as it sounds.

I understand that you think this may be "Giving them too much credit"... but honestly, it's the opposite lol. I think the policies and site design has went down the gutter since the beginning of 2018. I wouldn't even trust their designers to be able to design a successful scam at this point. Its messy, scatter-brained, obviously flawed, obviously harms marketing. And the two most important teams (tech team and catalog team) are outsourced and have no form of communication with US staff: US staff can only email them!

I've tried explaining the issues to eBay in person, gave them a presentation with graphics and screenshots of the serious issues, and they couldn't even dispute what I showed them. I just hope my concerns will be taken seriously and hopefully eBay will be headed in a better direction.

EBay's stock numbers may not be showing it yet (or they hide it well with their spin on stock reports), but if you check Terapeak enough, you can see extremely alarming numbers in how sellers are doing. If they don't wake up, eBay is in trouble. They are becoming less competitive with the competition, not more competitive.

micsett-99 · ‎04-22-2019

@mam98031 wrote:
Again, you are attempting to suck me into a "semantics" argument here again, and I'm not interested...
NOPE, you must have me confused with someone else. I've never done this to you nor has it ever come up. You and I have only had a handful of posts directed to each other and nothing like this has been claimed by you before.

Point taken.

So you know, ebay started "tallying" the returns for these metrics starting in June 2018...That is when my "service metric" dashboard recorded my first return according to the report.
Yes, you are correct. They did go further back for those of us that do not have 400+ transactions in a 90 day period, but they did not go back a full year. They cut it of a June of 2018 because that was when they initially announced that the Service Metrics was coming in the fall of 2018 [not March of 2019 as you previously stated].
I agree this is most likely what happened exactly. I was not actively selling on ebay for several months leading up to this, so I did definitely miss these announcements.

So it is even FURTHER deception, that they did not announce that they were even doing this until November 2018 (as you claim and may be right), after 5 months had PASSED, after they started counting these returns against you.
It can't be "deception" if they announce to you what they are going to be doing. Like I said, they announced a few months BEFORE the Service Metrics was launched that it was coming. You may have missed those announcements, but they did exist.

You are correct.

What I was also told by eBay repeatedly, was that March was the first month they were now "enforcing" this policy, and charging sellers the additional 4% on their invoices if their metrics were very high in a category..
Then they didn't tell you the truth.

I'm starting to understand that they misinformed me. That has been happening throughout this whole fiasco, ever since I started calling them on this policy. So it shouldn't be a shock to me again now that I was given incorrect information, for the umpteenth time.

This is not my "assumption", it's not "guess", this is what I was TOLD flat out by eBay..I also verified this by looking back at my older invoices to make sure I had NOT been charged? And I had not on any others, even though in those months my "service metrics" would have also been "very high" as well..
It is more likely that you misunderstood. In the other months you probably didn't qualify to be eval'd under the Service Metrics. So you had more than 10 SNADs in a single category? When did you hit that many? It is more likely that in March you hit the ceiling so to speak by getting too many SNADs in a single category.

Yes this is most likely the case. Agreed

Again however, and for the last time - This post is not about how or when this "started"..That makes absolutely no difference to me, and it is a pointless exercise to argue this.
True as I have given you the Ebay announcements and policy on this subject. BTW I'm not try to "argue" with you or anyone. I'm only trying to give you accurate information.

You did, thank you. I concede I was incorrect about the time line from where this started, I missed certain announcements, and was given totally false information by ebay CS several times over the course of all of this.

The POINT is? That this "policy" amounts to nothing but "deceptive" and I would venture to say borderline CRIMINAL tactics being used in an effort to extort more fees out of sellers, for problems which are many times completely OUT of a sellers control.
I don't like the policy either. I never have. I have always contended that it is one of the worst policies ever released by Ebay.

Then we are total agreement.

...If you agree that this policy is not fair, or are you are stating you are not a fan of it either? Then we are arguing a non point here and its a worthless conversation.
Again, I'm not at all trying to "argue" with you. You had posted some information that wasn't accurate and I was just trying to get the correct information posted. Nothing more.

I see that now clearly, thank you. Maybe together we can inform others of all of this, and try to get some change enacted. Hopefully so.

vintagequeennyc · ‎04-22-2019

I couldn’t agree more with you! I hate that we are united in our misery but am glad to see that there are others who are as enraged as I am about this!!

The other return I had: brand new dress. Buyer wore it then claimed it ‘wasn’t new’ and detailed all the issues in her claim. And I got it back in that condition. eBay would not let me appeal because MY description of the wear was the same as hers! So the buyer was right. Despite the fact that it was returned to me covered in pet hair and I can legally prove I don’t own any pets!

I also was beginning to think abokt lawsuits regarding this. I don’t care WHAT the user agreement says, there’s NO WAY these unfair practices are legal and would hold up in court. There are laws that invalidate contracts BECAUSE those contracts violate the law. You cannot legal bind someone to an agreement that breaks the law. I don’t know all the ins and outs but I do know that this is truly one of the worst things eBay has done yet.

I predict that if I keep getting false INADS at this rate, I’ll be forced to pay 4% by years end. I also predict man other sellers will too as the year rolls on and we’re going to be seeing a LOT more furious sellers.