Only ship with tracking from now on?

[oatmeal]

I see a loophole that once again favors the buyer over the seller. Buyers can always open up a case claiming that they had not received your item. If the seller had shipped the item with no tracking (because tracking costs more money), then there is no way to prove to ebay that you shipped the item. All you can do is say here is the receipt I got from my post office. The buyer then can keep the item they bought from you while ebay will automatically take the money out of your paypal account and give it back to the buyer.

Most buyers are honest and wouldn't do such a thing. But experience conniving buyers know how the system works. Once they see you ship an item and no tracking is provided, they could realize how easy it would be for them to just wait 30 days, and then open a claim and say they didn't get the item and now they just want a refund. Ebay only allows you like 4 or 5 days to respond before the money is given to them by default. They already freeze the money out of your paypal so you can't withdraw it, but only refund it.

Why is this loophole allowed to exist? Doesn't ebay realize how simple it is to claim you didn't receive an item and the seller would have no way to prove the item was delivered to them since there was no tracking??

Therefore: all sellers should only ship items with tracking. Pay the extra few bucks and get tracking for all your shipments.

 

[oatmeal]

I just wanted to add from my own experience in the past, I had ordered a $10 toy from China. The seller shipped it out, but I hadn't received anything after allowing 45 days. Since most air mail from china never come with tracking, the seller just told me they'd send me another one. About 20 days later I got the 2nd one they sent out to me and all was finished. But about a week or so later, the first order actually arrived!! It was well over 60-70 days now but I had two toys. Obviously then, the seller had shipped the first item out but due to reasons out of their control, it was delayed or something happened.

I never asked for a refund, but had I did, I guess I could have easily gotten my $10 back and then weeks later receive my item in the mail. Nobody would have been able to prove that I did or didn't receive an item. It's all just based on whether or not you have tracking to prove it or not prove it.

 

[Adamsss]

Useful reflections. Thank you for sharing. In this case, yes, it's rational to use tracking, especially when the question is about something more than just a toy.

 

[HoNeYBiRD]

Shit happens. So many things can go sideways with shipping even if both the seller's and the buyer's intentions are inherently good.

Once i ordered a bottle of perfume from a big US retailer (US->EU, standard shipping, no tracking). The item didn't arrive in the given time frame, so i opened a dispute on PayPal and of course i won. Even a big retailer can't do anything, if i say, that i didn't get the product, which was true in my case. Plot twist: i got the bottle a week later, i guess it was stuck in customs, which happens often with perfumery. So i had the item and the money too, although i wasn't trying to scam the company.

On another occasion, i ordered some inexpensive jewellery from China with no tracking, when i got the package, it was opened and the goods were stolen. I didn't bother to open a dispute, because i knew that the seller shipped it and someone stole it later. It wasn't the seller's fault, definitely not mine, but i still didn't get what i paid for.

I guess you can't do anything more than calculate with these losses. If you ship with tracking only, that will mean increased shipping costs, if it becomes too high, especially if it's an otherwise low priced item, your potential buyers will go somewhere else, competition is fierce.

 

[oatmeal]

Thanks for the replies.
Yeah, when my experience occurred, I wasn't intentionally trying to scam the seller. The toy never came and I just told the seller and he generously sent out a 2nd one. The 2nd arrived, and I moved on, left the seller positive. But like 2 weeks later, the 1st one he had sent out now 60+ days ago had finally arrived so I had two!

Anyone else can chime in? Has ebay found any way around this? I mean seriously, is this loophole really that gaping wide open? So, if I was intentionally want to get free goods, I could just shop around on ebay for things that will be shipped to me without tracking? I did contact ebay about this buyer because I wanted them to see if the buyer had a history of doing this. The buyer has a 100% feedback. But only ebay would be able to tell in their records if this buyer had opened many other "refund" cases to "non-tracked" shipped items. That's the only way I can see ebay being able to nab someone who does this. There must be some sort of "grace period" where you are allowed 1 or 2 times a year to do that. But if someone had done this 10 times a year, that should raise red flags that this buyer is abusing the system.

 

[toml3030]

Anyone else can chime in? Has ebay found any way around this? I mean seriously, is this loophole really that gaping wide open?

Dude, read the fine print. YOU THE SELLER is responsible for getting the product to customer in reasonable time. Not getting the product to the customer in 45 days is not reasonable. That was a total failure on your part.

 

[loedown]

Dude, read the fine print. YOU THE SELLER is responsible for getting the product to customer in reasonable time. Not getting the product to the customer in 45 days is not reasonable. That was a total failure on your part.

This, you need to make sure you are in constant contact with the customer and also that you make them very aware that the shipping times might be x amount of time.

Set the expectations from the jump.

 

[conman3030]

When it comes to eBay, the buyer is always right. Period.

Here are the two most common scenarios that I run into on a daily basis as an eBay seller.

1) My lower cost items are shipped out via regular post (no tracking). MOST of the time people buying these lower cost items (under $30) aren't going to claim they haven't received it if they had. BUT if they do claim that they didn't receive the item, then you need to just cut your loses and refund them. They will win whether you fight it or not, so you might as well make the buyer happy and try to avoid receiving negative feedback.

2) My higher priced items (usually over $30 assuming I will still make profit based on paying for tracking) are shipped with tracking. The buyer can still scam you easily enough by claiming that the item isn't as described. You, as the seller, will be forced to pay for shipping back to yourself OR you cut your loses and let the buyer keep the item. In both cases you have to refund the buyer.


Ebay is always looking out for their buyers, not their sellers. So you need to figure out if you will still make profit selling even with the unavoidable buyer complaints / refunds.


Hope this helps! If you have any other questions feel free to send me a PM.

 

[Cushy Prisons In USA]

Tracking is the safest and the only way i go when selling online

 

[oatmeal]

Thanks conman.

So then, wouldn't ebay eventually have a record or history on a buyer who makes these claims often? I know that we can't see it and know how many times they have claimed and demanded a refund, but wouldn't ebay be able to see? This would ensure that some buyer isn't doing this like 5 times per month and getting away with free items.

At least if I know that the buyer hasn't claimed for a refund ever, or maybe their first time in year, I would be fine with it because I know he's not abusing system or scamming me. But what gets me is that this loophole seems like it can be used by buyers as many times as they want, but I"m hoping that ebay does know how many times you do this. There should be an allowable threshold that would redflag a buyer who constantly demands refunds like 2% rate, as sellers have the same thing in our defect rate.

 

[edmflow]

As a seller ALWAYS SHIP WITH TRACKING to avoid this problem or else face the consequence of vindictive buyers.. I NEVER ship out an item without tracking so that eliminates one less problem. But I'm pretty sure people have their horror stories regardless.

 

[Dawgtown]

As a US based eBay seller and having managed more than 4-5 seller accounts simultaneously in different niches, I have shipped thousands of items worldwide. I have used FedEx, UPS, and USPS and in my experience, USPS has always been the best choice for my eBay businesses. As a seller, the benefit are free tracking is valuable when purchasing postage online. I also receive 20% discount on shipping fees. Most items are sent via USPS flat-rate shipping or First Class service. If 90% of my items are shipped out within 1 business day, it helps me retain my top-rated seller status.

In over 8 years of eBay, I have had only 2, yes 2, lost packages. One item was sent UPS back when I first started. Buyer got a refund and I had to eat the cost of that. In the other situation, the item was shipped USPS small flat-rate box and arrived 2 days later to its destination. The item was marked as delivered but the buyer claimed that it was stolen. He opened a case with eBay, I had to issue a refund on the item, but I was reimbursed the item amount from eBay because I explained the situation.

Keep in mind that for a large company like eBay, who is also the original founder of PayPal, it is in their best interest to retain both buyers AND sellers. The best course of action is to make sure and respect your business and your valuable time. Protect yourself by documenting everything, upload tracking information your items that you sell, and place disclaimers in your listing that further protect you by weeding out bad buyers. I explicitly state in my listings that I will ONLY ship to validated PayPal addresses. You can go a step further and refuse sale if buyers have less than 10 feedback rating, etc.