eBay Service Metrics are FRAUDULENT - with proof!

[lqdtechoutlet]

Last month my 'not as described' returns were at 9.65% or 77 out of 798 transactions which left me in the very high zone, causing the additional fees. This was compared to my peers who were at 4.13% in the average zone.

I sold an additional 250 items which brought my transaction count up to 1235 which also should have brought my service metrics percentage down to around 6.8%.

Yesterday was the day they review the accounts. Low and behold! My projected percentage is down to 4.55% which puts a stop to those addition fees.

....right?

But what's this? My peers have somehow magically dropped their percentage down to 1.22% which 'coincidentally' keeps me in the high zone, causing me to pay higher fees.

For some reason my transaction count went down to 483 but what matters is the percentage. 

This is fraud. eBay is manipulating the data and creating unobtainable thresholds which we can never achieve. If you get your 'not as described' percentage down by selling more items, the percentage of your 'peers' (tens of thousands of them) will, all at once, lower their percentage which keeps you in the high zone.

eBay also refuses to allow us access to the data which adds suspicion and possibly a small amount of weight to my claim.

Furthermore, the category I sell in, Cellphones and Accessories, is a very hard category to sell in. I have a very hard time believing that most people, if anyone, would be able to keep their 'not as described' returns down to 1.22%. Absolute bullsh-it

eBay is becoming very shady and I'm starting to wonder if the higher fees and non-instant payment on Amazon are worth it.

[brian@ebay]

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@lqdtechoutlet wrote:

Last month my 'not as described' returns were at 9.65% or 77 out of 798 transactions which left me in the very high zone, causing the additional fees. This was compared to my peers who were at 4.13% in the average zone.

I sold an additional 250 items which brought my transaction count up to 1235 which also should have brought my service metrics percentage down to around 6.8%.

Yesterday was the day they review the accounts. Low and behold! My projected percentage is down to 4.55% which puts a stop to those addition fees.

....right?

But what's this? My peers have somehow magically dropped their percentage down to 1.22% which 'coincidentally' keeps me in the high zone, causing me to pay higher fees.

For some reason my transaction count went down to 483 but what matters is the percentage. 

This is fraud. eBay is manipulating the data and creating unobtainable thresholds which we can never achieve. If you get your 'not as described' percentage down by selling more items, the percentage of your 'peers' (tens of thousands of them) will, all at once, lower their percentage which keeps you in the high zone.

eBay also refuses to allow us access to the data which adds suspicion and possibly a small amount of weight to my claim.

Furthermore, the category I sell in, Cellphones and Accessories, is a very hard category to sell in. I have a very hard time believing that most people, if anyone, would be able to keep their 'not as described' returns down to 1.22%. Absolute bullsh-it

eBay is becoming very shady and I'm starting to wonder if the higher fees and non-instant payment on Amazon are worth it.

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Hi @lqdtechoutlet, from what you've described it sounds like you were on a 12 month review for Service Metrics. However, now that you've now reached over 400 transactions in the last 3 months, you are on a 3 month evaluation instead. Since the 3 month period is a shorter period of time than 12 month evaluation period you will see a new percentage. This is expected. You'll find information about this here.

[lqdtechoutlet]

This does not explain why my 'peers' percentage went down to 1.22% at the same time mine went down. I find that very suspicious.

If my percentage goes down to 1.22%, will the peers percentage suddenly drop down to 0%, still leaving me in the very high zone?

Something tells me yes.

[coffeebean832]

When your evaluation period changes from 12 months to 3 months, your peer group also changes.

[mik2150]

Ebay has been and always will be a scam to milk money from sellers and buyers. 

Incompetent managment has caused this whole thing to in nose dive position.

There is a reason that amazon is going high. Gladly, I took my business to amazon.

[uniwarehousewares]

No offense but seller metrics have a lot of issues, this make no sense if some buyer open False SNAD and even knowing this , buyer still get his money back and also return taken against seller metrics, does it make any kind of sense? seller loose money, and get penalized for nothing.

1: some buyers are new and they do not know how to perform return request they can hit false reason which will not effect buyer but it will kill seller by taking against seller metrics, does it make sense?

2 : potential buyers always select the reason to return the item where seller has to pay return shipping cost, and who will be in loss, a seller who pay return shipping fee for false return + false return taken against seller metrics, does it make sense?

3 : some buyers open returns but do not return item because they have no time to return the product and as result return close after time frame but same time some buyers only open return to trick the seller to see if seller offer partial refund or not, if not then they do not return the item and case close, but it effect also seller metrics, specially when they open return by saying " item is defective and do not return it" does it make any sense?

4 : seller metrics based on peer group that how many returns in other peers, some sellers sell items only in one category so if they are selling more definitely there would be more returns in one category.how seller metrics perform here? seller metrics need some changes its killing sellers.

5 : remorse reasons are define by ebay few months back, due to remorse reasons and due to new buyers, returns ratio increasing for sellers who sell more, there should be proper education for new buyers or some stuff for them before they open returns.

Bottom line ( buyer open false return + get his money = punishment for seller for no reason, does it make any sense?)

Finally For TRS , from 1st oct, eBay finally will be taking some good step to take care of open cases in service metrics when its come to false SNAD. i am looking forward to see it soon.but seller metrics policy need to be amended, seller should not be held responsible for buyers actions specially when they don't know how things work out.

[hioctane62 · Accepted solution]

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brian@ebay wrote:

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@lqdtechoutlet wrote:

Last month my 'not as described' returns were at 9.65% or 77 out of 798 transactions which left me in the very high zone, causing the additional fees. This was compared to my peers who were at 4.13% in the average zone.

I sold an additional 250 items which brought my transaction count up to 1235 which also should have brought my service metrics percentage down to around 6.8%.

Yesterday was the day they review the accounts. Low and behold! My projected percentage is down to 4.55% which puts a stop to those addition fees.

....right?

But what's this? My peers have somehow magically dropped their percentage down to 1.22% which 'coincidentally' keeps me in the high zone, causing me to pay higher fees.

For some reason my transaction count went down to 483 but what matters is the percentage. 

This is fraud. eBay is manipulating the data and creating unobtainable thresholds which we can never achieve. If you get your 'not as described' percentage down by selling more items, the percentage of your 'peers' (tens of thousands of them) will, all at once, lower their percentage which keeps you in the high zone.

eBay also refuses to allow us access to the data which adds suspicion and possibly a small amount of weight to my claim.

Furthermore, the category I sell in, Cellphones and Accessories, is a very hard category to sell in. I have a very hard time believing that most people, if anyone, would be able to keep their 'not as described' returns down to 1.22%. Absolute bullsh-it

eBay is becoming very shady and I'm starting to wonder if the higher fees and non-instant payment on Amazon are worth it.

---

Hi @lqdtechoutlet, from what you've described it sounds like you were on a 12 month review for Service Metrics. However, now that you've now reached over 400 transactions in the last 3 months, you are on a 3 month evaluation instead. Since the 3 month period is a shorter period of time than 12 month evaluation period you will see a new percentage. This is expected. You'll find information about this here.

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Not only is it expected (by ebay) it's well planned (by ebay) to cause situations exactly like the OP's, to keep sellers' dwindling money from sales flowing in eBay's direction. Your explanation does nothing but SUPPORT what the OP is saying. The metrics are designed to move the OP from 12 months to 3 months evaluation just to make sure they keep paying ebay more. FRAUD! 

Ebay has gone too far this time, sellers are on to it in a big way, and ebay will ultimately get caught in this scheme. Of course, not before they milk millions from sellers who can't afford it, and blame the sellers themselves.

brian@ebay 

[hioctane62]

brian@ebay 

My apologies for the tag. I didn't notice that I was replying to a revived thread.

Still, I meant everything I said. 

[gamersbaystore]

Others are right Brian, this is a total fraud being instituted by your company. At some point your platform is going to end up with a class action lawsuit over the higher fees ebay charges because buyers changed their minds, lied about the reason for return, and open cases galore in hopes of getting a refund and keeping the items for free.

That 5% fee will end badly for ebay, and we all know it. In the event ebay ever decides to hit me with this 5% rip off fee, I will be contacting my state attorney generals office to file a complaint against ebay.

Whether you want to admit it or not, there's nothing legitimate about charging higher fees for sellers based on the actions of your buyers. Keep in mind, buyers can chose any reason for their return, and most often chose not as described to skirt having to pay shipping costs.

Also consider the fact your company openly promotes "Free Returns", and even seems to encourage buyers to return whatever they buy.

Whether you like it or not, ebay's arguments as to why they charge these fees to sellers will never hold up in a court of law.

There is no law that says one is liable for the actions of someone else.

And there's more; of the 2 not as described claims I received this year, one of those buyers came back a week later and admitted the issue was with his game console, and not the game I sold him. He then left positive feedback. Meanwhile, ebay still shows the transaction as not as described on my service metrics.

Yeah, try arguing that one in court, you can't. Your company is committing a multi-million dollar fraud. There is no justification for those additional fees.

[dhbookds]

And there's more; of the 2 not as described claims I received this year, one of those buyers came back a week later and admitted the issue was with his game console, and not the game I sold him. He then left positive feedback. Meanwhile, ebay still shows the transaction as not as described on my service metrics.

Yeah, try arguing that one in court, you can't. Your company is committing a multi-million dollar fraud. There is no justification for those additional fees.

That's not what they would be arguing. They would say that every other seller is experiencing the same thing.......getting the same false Snads.........so as long as you don't exceed the average in your category......you are ok........if you do exceed it, there is a penalty. 

[dhbookds]

And there's more; of the 2 not as described claims I received this year, one of those buyers came back a week later and admitted the issue was with his game console, and not the game I sold him. He then left positive feedback. Meanwhile, ebay still shows the transaction as not as described on my service metrics.

Yeah, try arguing that one in court, you can't. Your company is committing a multi-million dollar fraud. There is no justification for those additional fees.

That's not what they would be arguing. They would say that every other seller is experiencing the same thing.......getting the same false Snads.........so as long as you don't exceed the average in your category......you are ok........if you do exceed it, there is a penalty. 

[zamo-zuan]

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@dhbookds wrote:

That's not what they would be arguing. They would say that every other seller is experiencing the same thing.......getting the same false Snads.........so as long as you don't exceed the average in your category......you are ok........if you do exceed it, there is a penalty. 

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(Apologies. For some reason the reply is acting strange in formatting).

If that's the topic, then we can bring in how different categories are merged under a larger category.

For example, Motors > Parts & Acessories is the category. Every sub category is SHARED. Meaning if you sell something like Ignition Coils, you're being compared to people who sell every other car part.

Ignition coils are known to be advertised as having a 2% failure rate, and that is a STRONG rate for ignition coils. Vehicles commonly have 8-12 coils per box.

If we're looking at this, a pack of 12 coils could have up to a 24% average chance of failure rate.

It's absolutely unfair that sellers of ignition coils are compared to everyone else.  Those coils are being compared to car parts, ATV parts, motorcycle parts, electronics, vintage parts, tools, manuals, etc.

It's absolutely unfair that you could get the penalty simply for selling a part from a high failure rate category, even though (in your class of parts) you may be in the top 99 percentile of failure rate for those products. 

[zamo-zuan]

That's not what they would be arguing. They would say that every other seller is experiencing the same thing.......getting the same false Snads.........so as long as you don't exceed the average in your category......you are ok........if you do exceed it, there is a penalty. 

[gamersbaystore]

It doesn't matter if every other sellers is experiencing it, the point I made here is that ebay is charging sellers higher fees based on someone elses actions and not their own! "Not As Described" is a matter of perspective, not a matter of fact.

Argue it however you want, ebay is charging more fees for circumstances that are clearly outside of any sellers control.

I just gave a good example with a return I had earlier this year. Item was returned for the reason of being not as described, then buyer admitted there was nothing wrong with my product, left positive feedback, and ebay dinged my service metrics anyway.

My service metrics still show the return as not as described, enough of those and ebay will start charging me more fees. This is not legitimate.

[jasoheat_0]

i have a question about my metrics , item not received  ( which i might add was because the buyer did not give a deliverable address ,  and he opened a  case, obviously i won  , yet there goes my metrics WOW ) back to the question . if i only have one item case item not received , why are my metrics percentage almost DOUBLE my peers ??? average .1 mine .17 

[dhbookds]

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@jasoheat_0 wrote:

i have a question about my metrics , item not received  ( which i might add was because the buyer did not give a deliverable address ,  and he opened a  case, obviously i won  , yet there goes my metrics WOW ) back to the question . if i only have one item case item not received , why are my metrics percentage almost DOUBLE my peers ??? average .1 mine .17 

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Because your peers have fewer returns than one, on an average.........

[cashvaluerecovery2011]

This is absolutely false. First not every seller will have the same experience. Some may go months without false snads while another great seller has 3 or 4 in a short time that forces 5% higher fees for months while trying to get the metrics back to good.

If its false and provable it should not count against anyone. We are ebays business partner bending over to serve buyers so both ourselves and ebay make money. When only one of those partners has access to the data and that same partner is the only one who profits from this extra punishment fee then a conflict of interest presents itself.

The fact that free return shipping is available through snads and every snad false or not counts against and gets ebay closer to higher fees presents a conflict of interest. When you add on the forced 30 day returns and advertising promoting free easy returns.......well its pretty obvious whats going on.

Because my peers might get false snads makes no difference as to each sellers experience. Its gross in every way.