Winning bidder with no address listed with ebay

Flyonthewall

lovinituk wrote: »

I've never checked the PayPal address in over 50000 eBay transactions and have never had a problem.

I'm sure you've told me that before. Either way, that just makes you lucky. Up to you if you never want to check the Paypal addresses, but as that's what should be used that's what I'll always advise people to check.

lovinituk

soolin wrote: »

I think you may have been lucky- or have forgiving buyers.

I often choose a different address when I pay , on rare occasions I have still had it delivered to my house when it ought to have been with my mother or one of my sons, I've never left poor feedback though although once or twice I did email the seller telling them what had happened. One seller even offered me a fullr efund for my inconvenience, which I declined as I thought it was a bit OTT .

There must be thousands of medium to large sellers using Linnworks and that only ever pulls down the eBay address. I'm guessing it's similar for all the other software.

I know a few years ago they could be different but as mentioned above I was under the impression that when the PayPal address is confirmed at checkout it pushes that to the eBay transaction anyway.

lovinituk

Flyonthewall wrote: »

I'm sure you've told me that before. Either way, that just makes you lucky. Up to you if you never want to check the Paypal addresses, but as that's what should be used that's what I'll always advise people to check.

When you're dealing with 100-200 orders every day, it would be impossible to check them all against PayPal. And there are far larger sellers than us.

If it was really a widespread problem then surely software providers like Linnworks would have their software check or download the PayPal addresses?

lovinituk

Here's a similar conversation with one person complaining that their items were wrongly sent to Paypal address...!

http://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Archive-Seller-Central/Buyer-With-Two-Different-Addresses/td-p/1879240

Lots of people also saying it should be sent to the eBay address and at least one stating that eBay CS told them that is the correct procedure.

Also lots saying it should be the PayPal address.

Typical unclear eBay/PayPal issue!!

lovinituk

From the link above, this appears to back up my understanding that the final eBay address (after customer has paid) and the PayPal address should be the same...

This is how it happens:

At the point at which the buyer pays - they can select where the item is sent to.

They may be a student and have 2 addresses - college and home.
They may have a holiday home
They may simply wish an item to be sent directly to a friend or relative as a present.


When they do this - ebay take that address and put it on the paperwork - so it is on the invoice ( whichever version you print ) and on the sales record. They also pass that address to paypal - and paypal will then show you, the seller, the delivery address on your paypal record.

So -that after they pay - the only address that will appear to you, is the one they want it sending to.

You should never ever send it to the "You have won / sold" address - as at that time the buyer may not have decided where they want their item sending.

They can use this system to forward to another country - but - if they do so to pass a country block - you can ask ebay to intervene.

Now - the only time this won't happen - is if one or other of the sites is down ( ebay or paypal) - or they are disconnected for a short time for maintenance / glitches or site crashes.

If there is such an issue at the time the customer pays - you could end up with them being different. In those circumstances I would advocate the use of common sense - ie making contact or otherwise taking notice of the wishes of the customer.

It is extremely unusual for this to happen - but given the site crashes in the last week - there could be some occurances around at the moment.

AllSpent

I thought the whole point was to send to the Paypal address so you have some protection should the item go missing etc.

Recently, I have noticed a trend where a lot of buyers send a message post auction asking to send it to a different address, which I rarely do, for this reason.

soolin

lovinituk wrote: »

There must be thousands of medium to large sellers using Linnworks and that only ever pulls down the eBay address. I'm guessing it's similar for all the other software.

I know a few years ago they could be different but as mentioned above I was under the impression that when the PayPal address is confirmed at checkout it pushes that to the eBay transaction anyway.

It might work that the addresses align for business sellers with immediate payment required, but it cannot work for an auction win.

I sell something and get my ebay 'sale' email with an address, then a day later buyer goes into paypal and opts to have item sent to work instead of home rather than to the address stored with ebay.

Flyonthewall

lovinituk wrote: »

There must be thousands of medium to large sellers using Linnworks and that only ever pulls down the eBay address. I'm guessing it's similar for all the other software.

lovinituk wrote: »

When you're dealing with 100-200 orders every day, it would be impossible to check them all against PayPal. And there are far larger sellers than us.

If it was really a widespread problem then surely software providers like Linnworks would have their software check or download the PayPal addresses?

Just looked at an ebay sold email.

It says buyers registered address and then under that it says "Please note that the postage address may be different. You'll receive the postage address via email as soon as the buyer has completed checkout."

Once they've completed checkout the email you get is from Paypal saying that they've paid. Paypal also confirms that you have sellers protection when sending to that address.

You're only guessing other software is similar. Other software may use the Paypal address. Either way, it's third party software and you can't trust that they actually know which address is right to use. It might be easier for them to get ebay addresses rather than Paypal so they give you the ebay one.

Most of the people who post on here with address issues are private sellers anyway and so they should have no problems with checking Paypal.

Flyonthewall

Ok, in the help pages it says:
"The buyer has conflicting addresses between eBay and PayPal. Which one do I use?
If there is a conflict between addresses listed on the PayPal "transaction details" page and the eBay "view order details" page, we'll consider sellers to have met their shipping obligations under eBay Money Back Guarantee if they choose either address."


If they're the same it wouldn't matter anyway which you use and if it's different they seemingly don't care which you use. That is not what it says on the email though.



So seems ebay aren't sure either, but because of seller protection and Paypal being the final stage of confirming all details and paying, I'd still go by the Paypal address. I wouldn't trust ebay to agree with that in the help section of their site if ever there were an issue.


I suppose if you notice the two are different the best option is to contact the buyer and see what they say. Perhaps not practical for a large business, but it could prevent any issues if you choose the wrong address to send to (as in, which the buyer wants it sending to, not what ebay/Paypal could consider right and wrong).

lovinituk

Flyonthewall wrote: »

Just looked at an ebay sold email.

It says buyers registered address and then under that it says "Please note that the postage address may be different. You'll receive the postage address via email as soon as the buyer has completed checkout."

And that's the crux of it! The initial eBay email should never be used. The eBay and PayPal addresses only align once the buyer has paid.

Advising to use the PayPal address is not wrong. But equally it's not wrong to advise to use the eBay address AFTER the buyer has paid as they will be the same.