Ebay bending the rules?

custardy

arcon5 wrote: »

Never a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket.

Thought the same
After 8 years and a decent turnover,I would have expected them to have their own site running at least.

chemical.galaxy

Garawa wrote: »

I believe this person may have mistakenly did it or gave it no thought as no-one queried the cost at the time or mentioned it in feedback, all delivery charges are kept as low as possible to avoid these situations. Very annoying.

You can work out exactly who gave you the low star (a laborious process I have gone through a few times) but it probably would not do any good - what would you do? the buyer won't remove their feedback and I doubt that Ebay would either...
All you can do is offer free post on items or low postage and sell more items to dilute the bad score...

Garawa

Strapped wrote: »

How did you do "a cost check with the courier"? Did they tell you their customer's rate? Really? And was that £2.95 including or excluding VAT? (And if including, could you please tell me which courier because that's a great price).

It was 6 months ago and I cannot remember the courier but yes, it is quite simple to get a price estimate. When the item arrived I weighed it and measured it and did a price enquiry (however I believe the price was £3.95 NOT £2.95) but it was DEFINITELY cheaper than for just one of the parcels let alone 2 in 1)! The item wasn't big at all and very light. As for the customer rate, wouldn't that be a smaller charge for regular business users compared with one-off individuals which makes it worse???

Garawa

I think that example is quite bizarre because Ebay must be in receipt of some decent income from firms like those and then ban them and yet allow many to sell quite clearly counterfeit goods on there.

I truely believe this "extra" rating is a way of fiddling their profits. Why? My wife wrote a stern letter explaining how just 1 rating has caused her problems. She was basically told it was right, there was nothing she could about it and that it will be reviewed again at a later date. She went into her account and her rating was back to 5/5. Funny how it can alter when challenged so was it sneakily adjusted before?

As for charging less postage, it is very simple to do a price check on Royal Mail. We charge about 20-30p on top depending on the size of the item (will could not buy a jiffy bag for that price). Ebay's own rules state "You can then add a reasonable amount as compensation for packaging materials, plus a modest handling cost" and yet penalised my wife for abiding by the rules.

jetplane

purple321 wrote: »

Go onto your feedback page, click on your seller dashboard, then click on performance then view 12 month trending data and you will see which month it was. You NEED to find a few things to sell to improve the percentage otherwise if it stays the same you will be banned.

I find this incredible to think that some one could leave low stars out of spite resulting in a seller being affected like this. OK so the system is flawed but to have such serious consequences as losing your account. So in theory could someone target a seller (either themselves if not blocked or with help from an other) and leave enough low stars to trash the account?

Garawa

I would say that it is possible given that we were affected by one less than perfect score. We didn't lose our account or anything like that but it came from an issue a lot more menial than what others have had.

I just don't understand Ebay's high mighty moral stance. They are saying they want sellers to perform to the highest standards but never respond to items that are clearly counterfeit or in breach of copyright issues. If they are not careful they will have banned all the reputable sellers and be left with only dodgy ones.

Blether

Think I will be putting free P+P on from now. If you don't communicate with your seller they can't mark you down on that either. Still think it stinks the fact that it is secret. Somebody can sabotage your account and you can't challenge and half the time it is due to external circumstances like postal services.

Strapped

Garawa wrote: »

It was 6 months ago and I cannot remember the courier but yes, it is quite simple to get a price estimate. When the item arrived I weighed it and measured it and did a price enquiry (however I believe the price was £3.95 NOT £2.95) but it was DEFINITELY cheaper than for just one of the parcels let alone 2 in 1)! The item wasn't big at all and very light. As for the customer rate, wouldn't that be a smaller charge for regular business users compared with one-off individuals which makes it worse???

You can't remember, or doesn't exist? :whistle:

Garawa

????????

Not sure what strapped is insinuating but what I wrote was correct. If every parcel cost a fortune nothing would get sent.

As for Ebay I think we will do the same, try free posting - easier to do on smaller parcels I think though. We have checked our rating again and it now stands at 4.7!!!! So in the space of 3 days without selling anything or getting feedback, the rating has been 4.8, 5.0, 4.7. Very very odd!

soolin

Garawa wrote: »

????????

Not sure what strapped is insinuating but what I wrote was correct. If every parcel cost a fortune nothing would get sent.

As for Ebay I think we will do the same, try free posting - easier to do on smaller parcels I think though. We have checked our rating again and it now stands at 4.7!!!! So in the space of 3 days without selling anything or getting feedback, the rating has been 4.8, 5.0, 4.7. Very very odd!

Have you followed the instructions on the 'seller dashboard' thread and run reports to see what is happening?

A basic trending report would be useful as it sounds like you are beginning to get a run of 3 or 4*