Shipping change of address

[word68]

Hi all,

About 30 minutes ago, eBay notified me that I had made a sale.  I promptly printed the label.  Now the buyer has messaged me asking that I change the shipping name and address.  Not sure what I should do.  Please advise.  Thanking you in advance.

[1786davycrockett]

@word68 

If you change the address from what is listed as the eBay shipping address, you are no longer protected by  eBay Seller Protection.

Advise your buyer that you will be canceling the order, due to a problem with the buyer's address, and that the buyer will be refunded.  Then explain to your buyer that they will need to correct their shipping address on the buyer's end, to reorder the item from you.

[word68]

Thank you for your response.  Can you tell me how I cancel the order and issue a refund?  Will I get a defect if I cancel and refund?  

[wastingtime101]

Before you do anything @word68 , check to see if the message came from your buyer or if it came from a different account pretending to be your buyer. If it's from a different account, report the message then add the ID to your blocked list.

Based on your recent sales history I'm not seeing any scam-magnet items so the message probably is from your real buyer. If it's from your buyer, reply to them and let you know you're required to ship to the address on the order details, but you can cancel the order and they can place a new order, entering their correct address before they pay.

How to cancel an order (click here) and yes, your fees will be credited and no, you will not get a defect for canceling "problem with buyer's address" when the buyer messaged you saying they provided the wrong address.

Finally, to void a shipping label purchased through eBay, go to this page, find the order and select Cancel from the Actions drop-down. The cancel option is available for 28 days.

It takes between 2-4 weeks to receive a refund on an unused, voided label as the carrier wants to make sure the label isn't used. You'll see the refund on your original source of payment (eBay funds, bank, credit card, etc) and the funds will appear in your account without an email notification.

[a_c_green]

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@word68 wrote:

Thank you for your response.  Can you tell me how I cancel the order and issue a refund?  Will I get a defect if I cancel and refund?  

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Before doing all that: Did that message you received actually come from the same ID as your buyer, or from someone else? That is the first thing to verify, as a popular scam is to send out messages in bulk from a throwaway account, in the hopes of fooling at least some sellers into shipping their item(s) someplace else. If the ID of the message does not match that of your buyer, ignore it and ship as usual.

[word68]

Thank you so much for your very helpful response.  Not sure what you mean when you say that the ID of the message should be the same as the ID of the buyer.  Can you elaborate?  How and where do I find that info/IDs?

[wastingtime101]

Your ID is word68.

Your buyer's ID is found on the orders page.

The ID of the person that sent you the message is found at the top above the message.

[word68]

Okay, there's a one-digit discrepancy between the ID of the person who sent the message and the buyer's ID.  I'm getting a little concerned because I replied to the buyer's request for an address change about six hours ago but haven't  received a response.  Should I give it a little more time or should I just go ahead and ship the item with the original eBay label/address?

[wastingtime101]

You can send a message to your actual buyer through the orders page and ask if they used a different account asking you to change the address.

Tomorrow is Saturday and you don't have to ship over the weekend so that will give you a couple days to see if they get back to you.

Do not communicate any further with the ID that asked you to change the address, even if your real buyer says it was them on a different account. You want all communications to be with your actual buyer's account.

[word68]

You are an angel.  Thank you so much for your helpful advice.

[wastingtime101]

You're welcome. Let us know how it works out or if you have any more questions along the way.

[word68]

Hi,

As advised, I messaged the buyer (who wanted to change the address on the shipping label), politely informing him that I couldn't do so without forfeiting seller protection.  I told him that I would cancel the order and re-list, then he could re-order using the corrected address.  No response.  The next morning I messaged the buyer again.  It wasn't until late that night that he finally got back to me, asking me to not cancel, saying that it was okay to send the item to the original address.  Because he took so long to respond to my messages, I canceled/refunded, believing that he had lost interest in the item.  I replied to his message, saying that I had already canceled/refunded because I hadn't heard from him and again suggested that he could re-order the re-listed item.  No response.  So, as it stands, this is a No Sale.  Perhaps I should have been more patient, but I'm used to buyers promptly responding to messages, especially when they initiate the conversation.  I want to thank you again for your helpful advice.  Your support is greatly appreciated.