eBay account help

Hi guys,

I've been a seller on eBay for a few years now. I've been selling successfuly and I even managed to get to Top Rated in their Global selling region, but lately for the first time i've really felt what its like to fall into the machinery of a really big corporation.

The problem i'm having is that recently I fell to below standard rating in the US region. This was due to an oversight on my part. I forgot to answer a case opened by one of my customers for a late shipment. Ebay had to resolve the case and this put me over the limit for "cases closed without seller resolution". The retarded system that eBay has set up now puts me in a spot were I could lose my account and everything i've worked for the last few years. Their sanctions are ridicolous. First your listings go to dead last. Then they charge you an extra fee(4%) on your listings sold. Then they start witholding your funds and the next sanction is going to be account for my store getting downgraded. Ultimately this process most likely leads to a suspensiion. Now I understand there has to be a certain system and penalties have to be made but this is too much. I've never had any issues with my customers, i'm still Top rated and above average in 29 of the 30 parameters that they measure for seller standards and my feedback is 99,9%.

Does anybody have any idea how this could be resolved? Ebay even goes as far as to constantly send you messages about how there is still time to improve, even though there is no realistic option to correct "cases closed without seller resolution".

I have an idea how I could fix this but its risky for me (though I guess I don't have much to lose). It involves a US based customer making 300 transactions from my store. This would be 10 transactions of 30 different low priced items, spread out over 15 days. I would ofcourse provide the funds for these transactions. Ebay would likely notice this but technically speaking it isn't against any rule. A customer is simply making a purchase and i'm following through on the transaction. I would provide a tracking number for the package as well. Does anybody know if this sort of thing could work? I'm prepared to pay anyone that would be interested in doing this for me. It would take very little work on your part, but you do need a verified US paypal and ebay account so that transactions count under the US region. It would also have to be concluded before 15th of june.

cm82 said:

The problem i'm having is that recently I fell to below standard rating in the US region. This was due to an oversight on my part. I forgot to answer a case opened by one of my customers for a late shipment. Ebay had to resolve the case and this put me over the limit for "cases closed without seller resolution".

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Well, considering that you have to get 5 "cases closed without seller resolution" each from different buyer in a 12 month period before it starts affecting your seller metrics, you should have been aware of this earlier.

cm82 said:

Does anybody have any idea how this could be resolved? Ebay even goes as far as to constantly send you messages about how there is still time to improve, even though there is no realistic option to correct "cases closed without seller resolution".

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You need to wait it out. If you have more than 400 transactions over the past 90 days, it will fall off your metrics after 90 days, if less than 400, 12 months. You're not really in THAT much trouble until they start reducing your selling limits. Just wait it out until your oldest "cases closed without seller resolution" and you should be okay. Don't do anything rash that will get you banned.

cm82 said:

I have an idea how I could fix this but its risky for me (though I guess I don't have much to lose). It involves a US based customer making 300 transactions from my store. This would be 10 transactions of 30 different low priced items, spread out over 15 days.

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There's a pretty good chance this will get you banned for feedback manipulation.

Even if you do get the 300 transactions it still will not affect the outcome of your evaluation this month as this months evaluation will be based on transactions only up until May 31st.

As for your plan to pay someone to make these purchases I think that would be just asking for trouble.

First thing is how do you know if it is someone you could trust. You send them the money to make a purchase and what is to stop them from running off with your money.
Secondly, how is paypal gonna see it if you send somebody money and they turn right around and buy something from you. Might look like your trying to launder money or something. Would most likely at least raise some flags on both accounts.
Thirdly, how is Ebay gonna look at it when the same account bought 300 items from you. Probably raise a flag there too.

If you really want to boost your sales from U.S. buyers then I would suggest you set up some auctions for your cheaper items and start the price at break even or even a slight loss. You can set it in your listing that you only ship to the U.S. and you block buyers from other countries.

Ebay allows you to sell the same product at buy it now and also have an auction for the same with out it being considered duplicate listings. Just dont allow the buy it now option in the auction listing.

If you have more than one bidder on the item you can offer second chance offers to losing bidders at their highest bid price. So technically you can make more than one sale per auction listing. I have done this and made 2 and 3 sales for a single auction listing.

Whatever you do... Good Luck! And I hope you learned that you gotta take care of your account.

toml3030 said:

Well, considering that you have to get 5 "cases closed without seller resolution" each from different buyer in a 12 month period before it starts affecting your seller metrics, you should have been aware of this earlier.

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It was actually 3 cases. 2 or 0,30% of transactions is the limit. I went over because 2 cases were opened from the same customer who bought items back to back in the span of a few days. You are right though I should have been aware, it is my mistake, no excuses there. It just feels like the punishment is too severe for what I did. Especially since the customer ended up getting both the items and the refund and the shipping times were not that long. It just feels like eBay could be handling these cases much better. Lumping every seller in the same basket just means that the effect of their policies gets nulled. The sellers that want to scam people are going to do so regardless of any sanctions or anything that eBay enforces and the serious sellers get affected by them completely disproportinatley.

toml3030 said:

You need to wait it out. If you have more than 400 transactions over the past 90 days, it will fall off your metrics after 90 days, if less than 400, 12 months. You're not really in THAT much trouble until they start reducing your selling limits. Just wait it out until your oldest "cases closed without seller resolution" and you should be okay. Don't do anything rash that will get you banned.

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This is why I feel like i'm being forced into something like this. With the downgrade of my store which is going to happen at the next evaluation I will be limited from listing as many items as I have now

Old Dog said:

Even if you do get the 300 transactions it still will not affect the outcome of your evaluation this month as this months evaluation will be based on transactions only up until May 31st.

As for your plan to pay someone to make these purchases I think that would be just asking for trouble.

First thing is how do you know if it is someone you could trust. You send them the money to make a purchase and what is to stop them from running off with your money.
Secondly, how is paypal gonna see it if you send somebody money and they turn right around and buy something from you. Might look like your trying to launder money or something. Would most likely at least raise some flags on both accounts.
Thirdly, how is Ebay gonna look at it when the same account bought 300 items from you. Probably raise a flag there too.

If you really want to boost your sales from U.S. buyers then I would suggest you set up some auctions for your cheaper items and start the price at break even or even a slight loss. You can set it in your listing that you only ship to the U.S. and you block buyers from other countries.

Ebay allows you to sell the same product at buy it now and also have an auction for the same with out it being considered duplicate listings. Just dont allow the buy it now option in the auction listing.

If you have more than one bidder on the item you can offer second chance offers to losing bidders at their highest bid price. So technically you can make more than one sale per auction listing. I have done this and made 2 and 3 sales for a single auction listing.

Whatever you do... Good Luck! And I hope you learned that you gotta take care of your account.

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I kind of agree with you. I have though about the money laundering issue and I think there is a way around it via bank transfer and working around paypal. The problem is that like you said it is sooo risky. Not only could someone run of with my money, they could do what I ask and even though from a technical standpoint everything looks ok, eBay still decides to ban me.

Thanks for the suggestions about increasing the sales. I'll try something like that though this is another thing that makes me so frustrated. I want to improve the right way, but everything eBay does is to make it next to impossible to sell anything. All of my listings go to dead last in any category that I try to sell. Basicly the only customers I still have are my regular customers.