eBay trusts bots over their own eyes - Seller Metrics and eBay Trust and Safety

[mybigsale]

I asked eBay to look at my seller metric that states an order has had no scans. eBay shows scan history and delivery before evaluation period on Dec 20th. I ASSumed eBay would look at the record and correct my metrics. Instead, I got a reply from eBay Trust and Safety about how the metrics work, and I can appeal eBays metrics (eBay displays all the USPS scans} that comes to the conclusion the scans do not exist. (even though eBay has marked the item delivered and displays all the USPS scans).

I have appealed. Hopefully someone at eBay has the power to trust their own eyes over the eBay bot that says all the USPS scans eBay displays do not exist (including the delivery scan eBay uses to mark the order delivered). Just frustrated. The power of eBay bots over common sense AMAZES me. So sad I will not be surprised if eBay decides the simple fact the USPS scans exist doesn't override their Metrics that has determined the scans aren't there.

"We evaluate your performance on the 20th of each month"

Postage purchased through eBay and displays correctly in Order. eBay shows scans in shipment history and delivery by 19th. eBay Metrics on 20th says package has no scans. Why does eBay metrics ignore USPS scans in this case? Why am I penalized for what appears to be an eBay glitch?

Order number: xxx

Item number:  xxxx

Buyer ID: xxxxx

Tracking number: xxxxxx

USPS Tracking:

Delivered

Delivered, Front Door/Porch

MARTINSVILLE, IN 46151 

December 19, 2023, 12:31 pm

Out for Delivery

MARTINSVILLE, IN 46151 

December 19, 2023, 6:42 am

Arrived at Post Office

MARTINSVILLE, IN 46151 

December 19, 2023, 6:31 am

Arrived at USPS Facility

MARTINSVILLE, IN 46151 

December 19, 2023, 6:06 am

Departed USPS Regional Facility

INDIANAPOLIS IN DISTRIBUTION CENTER ANNEX 

December 19, 2023, 5:15 am

Arrived at USPS Regional Facility

INDIANAPOLIS IN DISTRIBUTION CENTER ANNEX 

December 18, 2023, 8:40 pm

USPS in possession of item

CARMEL, IN 46032 

December 18, 2023, 12:46 pm

USPS expects item for mailing (SSK)

CARMEL, IN 46032 

December 18, 2023

Shipping Label Created, USPS Awaiting Item

INDIANAPOLIS, IN 46280 

[mam98031]

From time to time this happens, likely to all of us at some point, whether we notice it or not.  It has nothing to do with bots ruling the world of Ebay [my words, not yours].  Sometimes there can be a lapse in the data that downloads from USPS.  I've had this happen several times over the years.  

When there actually is tracking that shows the proper scans, the Defects catch up and disappear without any intervention of the seller.  

It is certainly concerning and annoying when this happens.  But they sort out before it is time for a monthly evaluation, so there is no damage done to a seller's account.

If it gets corrected after talking to Ebay, it is usually just a coincidence.  But I have to say I sometimes call too.  Makes me feel better I guess.

FYI Just for proper terminology on Ebay.  When it affects your Seller Dashboard, they are defects.  When it affects your Service Metrics it is a ding or some call it their metrics.

[mam98031]

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@mybigsale wrote:

@mam98031 

That is not how the eval of sellers work for the monthly evaluation.

The monthly Eval is on the 20th of each month for the period ending the PREVIOUS month.  So the eval on December 20th was for the period ending November 30th.

So the eBay metrics is even more messed up then I thought. The order having the negative affect on my metrics was an order sold on December 15th. 

---

No, I think you simply misunderstand.  A transaction on December 15th was NOT considered in the Evaluation of your account on December 20th.

You will see the defect on your Seller Dashboard, but it is NOT considered in that months eval.  There is a solid reason why Ebay chose to do the evals this way.  It is so all the tracking has time to catch up as at the end of any given month the tracking is usually not complete for that months transactions.

[mybigsale]

Regardless, order was shipped on Dec 18th. tracking was uploaded on Dec 18th. Order had acceptance scan on Dec 18th. Order had delivery scan on Dec 19th.  Item was shipped within 1 day handling timeline. Every day from shipping to delivery the order had a scan (2 days). On Dec 20th eBay seller metrics reported the order had 0 scans. 

I've been on eBay since 2000. This one order is the first time I've seen eBay count daily USPS scans to equal no scans. Must be a new feature eBay is testing. Anyway, eBay has corrected my Metrics. Guess they have moved on to a different set of sellers for beta testing this new "feature".

[mam98031]

I get it.  Your account was not harmed.  I get it that it is not only annoying it is very concerning when this happens.  The good thing is Ebay typically gets it taken care of long before that transaction is considered in our Monthly Eval.

It is possible that this has happened to you before, you just didn't notice it.  IDK.

[goldxxxsilver]

Thanks Mam for your Concern  

No I did not Lose my  Top Rated Status  

Just Lost out on my Tracking on Time and Validated Metrics 

It just seemed like it was not corrected until a Human Response with Ebay!!  

I certainly relate to Big Sales Concerns 

Otherwise Thanks for all you do here!!! 

Thinking you must Work for Ebay??

[goldxxxsilver]

Same Here 

Shipped Dec 18 

Delivered Dec 21 

Lost out on Tracking Uploaded and Validated for a few Days 

98.5%  

All is back to 100% now 

Calling Ebay/Human Support seemed to Help!! 

I certainly Shared your Concerns...Big Sales!!

[mam98031]

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@goldxxxsilver wrote:

Thanks Mam for your Concern  

No I did not Lose my  Top Rated Status  

Just Lost out on my Tracking on Time and Validated Metrics 

It just seemed like it was not corrected until a Human Response with Ebay!!  

I certainly relate to Big Sales Concerns 

Otherwise Thanks for all you do here!!! 

Thinking you must Work for Ebay??

---

But you didn't.  It would have resolved before it was time for it to be part of your monthly eval.  Again, most will resolve without any intervention by you or Customer Service.  

I'm not dismissing anyone's concerns over this.  As I have said repeatedly I know from personal experience how unnerving it can be to see these defects on your dashboard.  But they will typically resolve themselves before it is time for them to be part of your monthly eval.

[mam98031]

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@goldxxxsilver wrote:

Same Here 

Shipped Dec 18 

Delivered Dec 21 

Lost out on Tracking Uploaded and Validated for a few Days 

98.5%  

All is back to 100% now 

Calling Ebay/Human Support seemed to Help!! 

I certainly Shared your Concerns...Big Sales!!

---

The point is you did NOT "lose" anything.  It has NO affect on your account or your Selling status.  It was a temporary annoyance, nothing more.

The monthly Eval is on the 20th of each month for the period ending the PREVIOUS month.  So the eval on December 20th was for the period ending November 30th.

Whatever the eval shows the seller status to be will become effective the first of the following month.  So the December 20th eval becomes your Seller status on January 1st, 2024.

[mybigsale]

@goldxxxsilver 

eBay sellers and TRS sellers must follow all of eBay's rules exactly or face the possibility of financial penalties or perhaps being permanently suspended from eBay.

I guess the lesson to be learned is eBay has a lower bar for themselves and sellers should be thankful when eBay "glitches" occur that aren't serious enough to cause sellers direct and immediate financial harm.

For the more serious glitches that cause sellers financial harm, we should be thankful eBay usually ends up recognizing and resolving those issues within a 6-month period.

For those eBay "improvements" that negatively affect sellers' income we should pay up or get out.

Thank you eBay for existing!

My New Years wish is that eBay changes their paradigm to listen to sellers (maybe just harvest the user forums for all the great ideas on improving and fixing eBay)!

Wishing all eBay Sellers, a great and profitable year 2024!

[the-hook-and-the-loop]

You can save yourself a lot of aggravation and fight fire with fire or use eBay's bot system to correct it's bot mistake here:

https://www.ebay.com/sellerhelp/defect

I have had to do this over 30 times this month. I choose "for reasons outside my control" and add the tracking number and the dates the order was placed and taken to the post office. All 30+ were overturned by the bot system.

[mybigsale]

@the-hook-and-the-loop 

"fight fire with fire" - not allowed.  If eBay is burning, all I can do is watch it burn until eBay notices and decides it would be financially beneficial for eBay to put out the fire (eBay will take a report but not react until they feel the burn).

Aggravation, because eBay support said they saw the Metric was incorrect but said they won't do anything to correct the mistake. After several exchanges and different levels of support personnel eBay finally corrected the issue.

Thanks for the link. I will use it in the future.

[mam98031]

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@mybigsale wrote:

@goldxxxsilver 

eBay sellers and TRS sellers must follow all of eBay's rules exactly or face the possibility of financial penalties or perhaps being permanently suspended from eBay.

I guess the lesson to be learned is eBay has a lower bar for themselves and sellers should be thankful when eBay "glitches" occur that aren't serious enough to cause sellers direct and immediate financial harm.

For the more serious glitches that cause sellers financial harm, we should be thankful eBay usually ends up recognizing and resolving those issues within a 6-month period.

For those eBay "improvements" that negatively affect sellers' income we should pay up or get out.

Thank you eBay for existing!

My New Years wish is that eBay changes their paradigm to listen to sellers (maybe just harvest the user forums for all the great ideas on improving and fixing eBay)!

Wishing all eBay Sellers, a great and profitable year 2024!

---

You are assuming a "glitch" which is not necessarily true.  But if it is a bug in the system, we have no way of knowing if that bug was or is in the Ebay programming or that of the Carrier's software.

One such issue with your tracking will never cause any seller to get their selling status lowered anyway.  It takes a minimum of 4 of them for 4 different buyers to create an issue for the seller.  That is not likely to happen because of the situation we have been discussing here.

It is always important for all sellers to review their Seller Dashboard numbers at a minimum of once a week to be proactive when something starts showing up in defects.  That way the seller has a fighting chance of getting them corrected before they become part of the monthly evaluation.  But like I've repeatedly said, when the tracking actually shows up correctly on the carrier records and it is the Ebay side that seems to be incorrect.  It will catch up 99% of the time and get corrected BEFORE it negatively affects a seller on an evaluation.

While this is still a very important issue and one that sellers should always be aware of, it is fortunately a workable issue and can be resolve with no negative impact to the seller.

[mam98031]

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@the-hook-and-the-loop wrote:

You can save yourself a lot of aggravation and fight fire with fire or use eBay's bot system to correct it's bot mistake here:

https://www.ebay.com/sellerhelp/defect

I have had to do this over 30 times this month. I choose "for reasons outside my control" and add the tracking number and the dates the order was placed and taken to the post office. All 30+ were overturned by the bot system.

---

That would be something different than what the OP is talking about, however the link is a very good suggestion.

For your issues, what was outside your control?  Were they all late deliveries or something else?  How do you know they were overturned by the "bot system"?  And does that mean they removed the defects from your account?  Just for clarity.

[retro_entertainment_collectibles]

---

@mybigsale wrote:

Regardless, order was shipped on Dec 18th. tracking was uploaded on Dec 18th. Order had acceptance scan on Dec 18th. Order had delivery scan on Dec 19th.  Item was shipped within 1 day handling timeline. Every day from shipping to delivery the order had a scan (2 days). On Dec 20th eBay seller metrics reported the order had 0 scans. 

I've been on eBay since 2000. This one order is the first time I've seen eBay count daily USPS scans to equal no scans. Must be a new feature eBay is testing. Anyway, eBay has corrected my Metrics. Guess they have moved on to a different set of sellers for beta testing this new "feature".

---

@mam98031 is correct on what was said.  I wrote software that used the USPS API's to notify customers of scans some years ago and they do have glitches.  Now, its likely when clicking a track number inside eBay what are you are looking at is NOT from eBay.  It's from the USPS API (Application Programming Interface), so eBay's server(s) are contacting the USPS server(s) and displaying the result, its not actually stored on eBay servers.

That said certainly eBay is aware that when calling any external API those systems being contacted may be down or have glitches be that UPS, USPS, FedEx, Adyen Card Processing API and others.  Presumably at points in time or when eBay does its evaluation scan it should pick up on the delivery, that's called "Clean up."

The fact a customer rep cant alter it is of no surprise, they dont have that level of authority nor likely that level of administrative access to any account nor should they.

Why not?

Well many a reason from someone who sold a Cartier watch that wasnt that to someone who received it.  There are bad actors all over the place.  Just because someone in an employee or subcontract employee of someplace else does not mean they are always a good employee.  Even in retail brick and mortar companies like Macy's, Walmart and Target are hit by friendly fire if you will by numerous scams perpetuated by consumers IN CONJUNCTION with employees!  I'm not just talking about things that might slide out the backdoor, its done right at the registers!

Folks here don't tend read what's going on in the world of commerce more or less even credible news reporting about marketplaces such as eBay.  Blind in a bubble.  They might read some of the eBay related blogs who claim be "news" but they are not, they are amateur hour that essentially plagiarize  other news platforms in re-write of news often including bias and spin.  All the news you see daily on TV, social media etc that is BIAS AND SPIN had its literal birthing in online amateur media blogs going back well in excess of 20 years.  That's where the poison began and continues to fester like jock itch out of control! LOL.

You wouldn't want some Amazon employee who's somewhere down the ranks of the thousands having access into you're account data.  They can look at an order but they can't alter things or who knows what?

Get a support person who says I'll send you an email and for $100 clean you all up clickity split and on the other side some counterfeiter.  Or even "Yeah I work for 'Clickity Split' w/ account access so these counterfeiters I protect and get paid $50,000 under the table for that atop what 'Clickity' pays... Woo hoo Capitalism.

Odds are when you're next account eval happens it'll clean itself up.  If not drop a letter in the mail certified mail to the CEO about the matter and it'll get cleared up.

[mybigsale]

"You are assuming a "glitch" which is not necessarily true."

As USPS and eBay order track package shows a scan everyday and both show the final delivery scan, I feel pretty confident in saying Metrics telling me the order has had no scans is incorrect.

I am assuming eBay intended to provide truthful information and not skew the results (provide false data).