RM postal issues warning on ebay

soolin

Just gone to print my labels this morning and ebay have the following warning on their label page:

Please be aware that Royal Mail is experiencing issues at the moment. We apologise for any inconvenience and if affected, ask that you try again later.

I only had a few RM items to go on my business account and all mine have gone through OK, so it looks like it may well be a local issue for some people.

In the past few weeks there have been lots of postal issues, especially on Vinted where for periods either RM wasn't tracking at all, or Yodel and then Inpost weren't showing receipt of items. 

Purple_Jumper

It doesn't bode well for Christmas if there are all of these problems in what I would assume to be a less busy period! 

sham63

Having this issue at the moment - sold an item this morning and I’ve chosen ‘courier collection’ with Royal Mail, booked collection for tomorrow.

However, I can’t print the label as “something went wrong” and there’s also no email from Royal Mail confirming collection tomorrow. 

sham63

Just to update - I have just spoken on the phone to Ebay and they have told me to book and pay for postage myself. They said the postage would be automatically refunded to me after 7 days. I asked about tracking was told to message my buyer with the tracking number and I would be covered. Hmm…

soolin

sham63 said:

Just to update - I have just spoken on the phone to Ebay and they have told me to book and pay for postage myself. They said the postage would be automatically refunded to me after 7 days. I asked about tracking was told to message my buyer with the tracking number and I would be covered. Hmm…

I wouldn't trust ebay customer service- there is no guarantee that the simple delivery payment will be refunded, and if it is refunded and it was a buyer pays item- then buyer gets the refund anyway. 

I'd be inclined to leave it another day see if the RM issue resolves- and if not, then cancel using the reason 'issues with buyers address' and message the buyer apologising for the cancellation and explaining that the RM label cannot be printed. 

sham63

Thanks Soolin, yes the buyer paid for postage. 

Very annoyed a as I’ve had this item listed for about 3 months so I was very pleased to find a buyer. 

soolin

sham63 said:

Thanks Soolin, yes the buyer paid for postage. 

Very annoyed a as I’ve had this item listed for about 3 months so I was very pleased to find a buyer. 

I think I echo @Purple_Jumper with their concerns that this doesn’t bode well for the hopefully busy period coming up nearer Christmas. Yodel had issues last week, a number of sellers on Binted are facing issues with items showing as unsent as Yodel never updated tracking, there are some issues with Inpost lockers not accepting drop off codes and now RM. 

sham63

Update; just tried again and this time I got my label as normal. So the ‘glitch’ looks like it’s been fixed. Phew! 

soolin

sham63 said:

Update; just tried again and this time I got my label as normal. So the ‘glitch’ looks like it’s been fixed. Phew! 

I'm just printing my ebay labels now- and yes the warning about RM has been removed on the ebay page.