I almost hate to post this here, for fear of alerting buyers to the scam. But since - I would think - it's primarily sellers using the boards, I thought I should go ahead and do so. Best case - maybe ebay will see this, actually investigate, and fix the problem!
There exists a major flaw in the invoicing-checkout system on the ebay website. Unscrupulous buyers can take advantage of this flaw, at the expense of sellers. Here's how it works:
1. After a buyer has committed to a purchase, either via winning an auction or acceptance of a best offer, the seller sends an invoice to the buyer.
- At the time of invoicing, the buyer has listed a shipping address that is relatively close, geographically, to the seller. (They can see the seller's location in the listing). This matters, as the rates for standard USPS Priority Mail are based on zones (distance).
2. At checkout, the buyer changes the shipping address to their actual desired shipping destination - a distance farther away than the initially invoiced address.
- While the address of record has been changed, the shipping charge is NOT adjusted to reflect the greater shipping distance. Subsequently, the buyer is able to pay for shipping at the rate intended for a short-distance transaction, but the seller is now obligated to ship to the address farther away. As payment has already been made, the seller is left with just two choices:
1. cancel the transaction and refund the buyer.
2. ship to the address farther away and get stuck for the additional shipping cost - which can be substantial!
When this first happened to me, I called ebay to discuss the situation. I was advised by an ebay rep to cancel the transaction. When I inquired about the possibility that the buyer might leave me negative feedback, I was told not to worry. For address issues such as this (which the rep admitted they had never heard of before), the buyer should not be able to leave a negative. I was then told that if, by some chance, the buyer was in fact able to do so, I could simply call customer service and the feedback would be removed.
Well, guess what? I canceled the order, and two weeks later the buyer left nasty, insulting feedback - using a religious slur!
And guess what? When I called customer service, the story I got about feedback was different from what I was initially told. The feedback would not be removed (despite a recording of my initial conversation - which the ebay reps admitted does exist). I was also told that despite the religious slur made by the buyer, the comment "did not violate ebay policy." Seriously?
Now another buyer is trying to pull the same scam.
I've come up with two ways to avoid this problem, but it's unfortunate that things have to resort to this. Instead ebay should just fix it!
1. Never invoice a standard Priority Mail transaction.
2. Or, probably better, never use standard Priority Mail as a shipping option. Always choose one of the flat-rate box options. Unfortunately, this does not always offer the most affordable shipping option to relatively local buyers - especially when the item to be shipped is of lighter weight but larger or more bulky in size/shape.
Thoughts?
