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!!!!!!!!!!

micsett-99 · ‎04-22-2019

@zamo-zuan wrote:
@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.

Yes I believe after reading this we are on exactly the same page here..

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.

I couldn't agree more, its not even laughable anymore, it's actually becoming very sad..

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.

I never thought of it that way, but you are 100% correct. This is also another terrible ramification of the GTC change over that I do not think they considered..When they took away everyone's short term BIN listing abilities? They also by default removed any "organic boosting" for the most part (except newly listed, and then every 30 days some claim that the GTC's are still getting an ending soonest boost)..So now everyone has to pay for sponsored boosts, which drives up prices, which undermines the market place as a whole..What a mess...

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.

Yeah, not one iota of experience it seems lol

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!

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahaha...You know? I think you may be 1000% right lol...I think maybe I am giving them WAYYY to much credit here...I really cant even argue with that logic at all ..Its right on the money..

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.

They need to hire you, seriously.

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.

I think they are in A LOT of trouble behind the scenes..I haven't been on terapeak in a long time, but I get the jist of whats going on here with my own sales, and all the complaining on the boards about sales tanking, etc...I really, really used to like selling on here, but I'm very concerned for the future of ebay for the first time in many, many years...

Very, very enlightening post and information my friend. Thank you!

webwanna · ‎04-22-2019

I totally agree this is a scam and the vultures are hovering.

As soon as Ebay has started collecting these exorbitant fees from sellers, I have had a noticeable increase in return requests for false reasons. All the scammers are out in force. They know that some sellers would rather just refund than potentially end up with the huge fee increase.

I just had one open a return request for delivered damaged. The return was auto accepted because I offer Free returns. They never shipped the item back.

Today I had another one write to me that they want their money back because they don't think the item is authentic. This is someone who has purchased over 400 times on Ebay so they are familiar with opening a return but they just want a free item. I told them to open the return request. If my rate goes into the super high , I will be closing my account at Ebay. I have no control over buyers selecting the wrong return reason or scamming for a free item. It is just plain ridiculous. I offer Free Shipping, Free Returns, and I am a Top Rated Seller. Ebay would have been better off just increasing their fees than pulling this XXX on sellers.

Ebay needs to come up with a method to appeal the wrong return reason being selected by the buyer, add more buyer requirements (such as return request rate or # reports), or they should get rid of the Return Service Metric. It's that simple.

webwanna · ‎04-22-2019

The other way you KNOW it is a scam is they are comparing your% to your peers (& you don't have access to that data) and they don't tell you what % you need to stay under. It is completely ambiguous. How is that the least bit effective in providing somebody an objective?

So at any point they will be telling me my performance is sub-par and I will not be able to prove otherwise. They have never given me a concrete number that I must stay under.

It is ineffective as a performance objective. It is ONLY good if you want to suddenly charge a huge increase in fee and somehow try to blame the other person for it. Now that I am writing this, I realize I should not renew my store subscription. It is coming up soon and it does not make sense for me to be contractually obligated to Ebay.

escuintla · ‎04-22-2019

My English is not that good, so I challenge myself to post something understandable. My apologies.

Metrics to me is something called, in the English language, as an Oxymoron.

You have to do what a clown, an aerobic dancer, and a soccer and basketball players does, jumping, kneeling, laughing and crying in order to receive a discount on your fees. You contain your emotions when a buyer sends you a picture of a toy broken in 3 pieces (recent topic) and you know they are telling you that you have to refund. You just los more than 100% of your money in order to get what? 10% discount on your fees?

But, yo do it as a "good boy". Then, there it comes... another return..... another refund, you name the claim. Every claim is a loss for you, not for Ebay, not for Paypal, for you! You are doing what Ebay told you to get that famous 10% discount on your fees. You are behaving, you are a good boy. Right?

Then, you see the metrics and there you are, with a red "do not do that" that you did because you are a good boy. And the penalty for doing those returns or refunds, whatever applies, is not only for those items, but for the total number of your sales. If you add your losses plus the penalties given by the metrics, I think they may surpass what you are receiving as a discount from Ebay.

Now, you understand metrics, as the OP said, damned if you do, damned if you don't!

There are metrics for the buyers?

_________________________________________________________
If you haven't paid for your item, you're a winning bidder, not a buyer!
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weschurch · ‎04-22-2019

@webwanna wrote:
The other way you KNOW it is a scam is they are comparing your% to your peers (& you don't have access to that data) and they don't tell you what % you need to stay under. It is completely ambiguous. How is that the least bit effective in providing somebody an objective?

So at any point they will be telling me my performance is sub-par and I will not be able to prove otherwise. They have never given me a concrete number that I must stay under.

It is ineffective as a performance objective. It is ONLY good if you want to suddenly charge a huge increase in fee and somehow try to blame the other person for it. Now that I am writing this, I realize I should not renew my store subscription. It is coming up soon and it does not make sense for me to be contractually obligated to Ebay.

Correct! Its a scam that you can't really defend yourself from. Its more sickening Ebay behavior

bestontec-fl · ‎04-24-2019

You just made a terrific summary of how we all sellers feel about eBay, this company has become so shady that the correct way to describe their attitude is straight "bad faith", when fraudulent buyers want to abuse their money back guarantee policy and you call to report it, CS will look at the facts, they will agree with you and tell you sorry a hundred times with a straight face but they will not do a thing to help you, it's like if you are dealing with soulless people!.

One thing I would like to add to your excellent post is that if you get out of the 400 sales in 90 days benchmark you will get all the defects from the previous 12 months counted into your metrics automatically together with the 4% increase in closing fees, it doesn't matter if a year earlier you were making 600 sales per month, if you fall off the benchmark one month you are going to pay the scammer's tax. This kind of decrease in sales has happened to many sellers because eBay traffic has decreased tremendously the last few years, their obsession to be like Amazon has really made eBay the once a welcoming marketplace, home of the "whatever it is you can find it on eBay" motto, to now home of the "screw the little guys, only the big fish are important" attitude, one thing they don't understand is that Amazon's greatest value is their care for third-party sellers (big or small) and their less selling fees in many popular categories (starting at 6%), if eBay really wanted to be an Amazon's copycat they should start by copying their respect for sellers and their vision of becoming not our pimp but an important partner of our business.

twnpopcards · ‎04-24-2019

This is from Ebays 1st quarter results discussion with the Wall Street Analysts:

Incredibly, eBay's top executives admitted they had expected the sales drop that the eBay Marketplace experienced in the first three months of 2019, saying it was caused by a significant reduction in marketing, primarily in North America.

And despite the decline in dollar sales for its sellers - even as many paid more for visibility - eBay itself experienced a 4% increase in revenue (on a foreign-currency neutral basis) thanks to seller fees.

Ebay is doing exactly what they want to do, increase their take of the revenue even though sales are down overall. So Ebay admits they are not spending as much on marketing as they were, especially in North America, so sales are dropping. Combine this with the lack of a decent search engine and Sellers are now so desperate that they are joining the Promoted Listings program which supposedly increases the visibility that they should have had when they paid for the original listing, but Ebay has found another way to dig deeper into the Sellers pockets and are actually bragging about this fact. They think its a great marketing tool and I will admit it is increasing their take on the sales, but somewhere down the line that money grab is going to be all used up and they are going to have to come up with another way to get more money from the Sellers even though the Sales are declining.

This plan is going to do exactly what has put them in this position in the first place. Sellers are going to continue to sell on Ebay, but they are also going to have their listings on other sites at cheaper prices and Ebay is going to start losing more and more sales. The bump in revenue from Promoted Listings is only going to be sustainable by having increasing the fees constantly until they get to the point that Ebay is making more than the Sellers and the Sellers take their sales and their buying elsewhere.

spreadlovelikefire · ‎04-24-2019

Over the course of the last 7 days I have had 8 returns. 8! This is the craziest it has ever been for returns for my store. 4 of them were remorse reason and the other 4 were a range of item not as described to item not received. The 4 that hurt my seller metrics were all closed by ebay and I was told that it wouldn't hurt my seller performance. Accept it will hurt my seller metrics. How can these people sleep at night? Seriously. I can't go 24 hours without a return being open recently. Today's featured an item not received. The guy actually emailed me before opening it up and said "the tracking shows it was delivered but I didn't get it". I emailed him back immediately and was sympathetic to him not receiving it. I explained that he would have to contact his local post office and ask them to track down the person who marked it as delivered. I have also seen where they mark it as delivered but don't actually deliver it until the next day. He replied with "ok, thank you". 30 minutes later he opened item not received case and wrote in the note "I want my item or I want my money back".

The one yesterday was someone who opened as wrong item sent. In the note he said "I ordered a medium and you sent me a small". Checked the listing and it literally says "small" in 7 different spots. No option for a medium and no other items like it.

And the two other ones were items of clothing that just didn't fit but were open as "item not as described".

So all 4 were opened incorrectly and I have free returns. And all 4 were closed out by ebay in my favor. Come the 20th, if i have 4% higher fees I'm closing my store and moving along. I'm not paying ebay $5,000 more a year just because people can't open returns correctly. I always go the extra mile for my customers but this is getting ridiculous.
The customer service agent this evening actually said that she goes to fight for the sellers in their meetings and always brings up the seller metrics as hurting the sellers. Why would they not have appeals process for this? Makes no sense at all. One thing is for sure, I will not pay them any more money. I will close my store before that happens.

cellit · ‎04-24-2019

I Looked at my seller dashboard briefly. I realized my metrics were weak and I might end up having to pay extra fees. I look at the transactions that lead me to these weak scores, sure enough about 70% of the transactions that people opened claims against me were from fraudledent buyers , now I’m paying extra because I’m a bad seller according to their metrics of fraudledent buyers opening cases against me to try to get the item for free

mam98031 · ‎04-24-2019

@cellit

I Looked at my seller dashboard briefly. I realized my metrics were weak and I might end up having to pay extra fees.

Make sure you understand the numbers you are referring to. The Seller Dashboard is NOT the same thing as the Service Metrics. The numbers on your Dashboard reflect any defects you may get and it allows you to see how many returns you have dealt with. That's a rather simplistic description, but if you need more, just ask.

I look at the transactions that lead me to these weak scores, sure enough about 70% of the transactions that people opened claims against me were from fraudledent buyers ,

How did you get so many "fraudulent" buyers purchasing from you?

now I’m paying extra because I’m a bad seller according to their metrics of fraudledent buyers opening cases against me to try to get the item for free

Oh wait, you don't mean the buyer's were fraudulent, you mean they filed claims against you. That doesn't mean the buyer's are "fraudulent". They may have open a claim using the wrong reason. But even if they are opening claims for the wrong reason, how are they getting the "item for free"? Do you not require a buyer to return items to you before refunding?

As long as you resolve the SNAD before it is escalated to Ebay, you do NOT get a defect for them on your Dashboard.

All SNADs, no matter why they were opened or what their outcome is do count against you in the Service Metrics.

Ebay has TWO ways to eval the seller. The Dashboard numbers and the Seller Metrics.

You say you are about to be kicked into penalty fees. Is that because you have too many defects[infractions on the Dashboard] or because you have 10+ SNADs in the past 12 months in any one category which would cause the Service Metrics to kick in?

mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999

cashvaluerecovery2011 · ‎04-25-2019

How does charging a seller 4% more fvf help ebay hold onto their buyers?

webwanna · ‎04-25-2019

@spreadlovelikefire wrote:
And the two other ones were items of clothing that just didn't fit but were open as "item not as described".

So all 4 were opened incorrectly and I have free returns. And all 4 were closed out by ebay in my favor. Come the 20th, if i have 4% higher fees I'm closing my store and moving along. I'm not paying ebay $5,000 more a year just because people can't open returns correctly. I always go the extra mile for my customers but this is getting ridiculous.
The customer service agent this evening actually said that she goes to fight for the sellers in their meetings and always brings up the seller metrics as hurting the sellers. Why would they not have appeals process for this? Makes no sense at all. One thing is for sure, I will not pay them any more money. I will close my store before that happens.

Its not just that customers are selecting the wrong return reason and there's no way to address that..... how lazy and inconsiderate is Ebay that they can't write a script to only include completed returns? If someone opens a return, selects the wrong reason, NEVER returns the item, Ebay still counts that against you as a "Item Not As Described" Return. That's the definition of not being as described. The return never occurred but Ebay counts it as a return. Just Crazy. If Ebay was an Ebay seller they'd be kicked off the site for HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE!

spreadlovelikefire · ‎04-25-2019

I actually said that to the rep, almost word for word! We are Ebay’s customers and being treated horribly. I cried myself to sleep last night because of how frustrating this is. It’s not just that it doesn’t make sense, it’s that it is wrong.

This doesn’t help anyone. It doesn’t help eBay either. Because instead of collecting 4% more fees from me they will collect nothing because I will quit before that happens. And I will take my buying skills with me also.

As it stands, I pay eBay around $1500 a month in fees/store/promoting. That’s $15,000 a year + an additional $5,000 if they end up charging me 4% more fees. This is selling only, doesn’t include what they get from other sellers for what I guy. $15,000 a year from one smallish seller is what they would lose at this moment if this isn’t corrected. I will sell my stuff and adapt to other platforms. In fact, I think I will spend the day getting that set up to make the transition smoother.

spreadlovelikefire · ‎04-25-2019

Correction: $18,000 a year. To early for math.

nanrobot_scooters · ‎04-25-2019

Time to quit Ebay fellows.
So much effort. For what?
Driving traffic to your listings, getting feedback, etc.
You can lose it all in no time.

My worst month was 20% fees, sick.
I thought, would I hit 5k/month spending 1k on PPC, FB etc? (+retargeting)
Easily.

I stopped making discounts and promotions. 0 sales.
There's no way out. Your fees will be high AF.

Verdict. You can't compete in most of the categories here. Chinese Rubbish sellers are everywhere, selling 1 dollar junk.
You can't rank high with a decent product like you can do it on Amazon.