What is the matter with eBay these days?

[epigramophone]

Last weekend I sold three items on eBay, who entered this note on my seller's page : "Dispatch by Wednesday 31 May".

Monday 29 May being a holiday in the UK, I posted the items as soon as the Post Office re-opened on Tuesday 30 May, and when I got home I logged into eBay and marked the items as dispatched.

This morning 1 June I noticed that eBay has entered "Dispatch now overdue" against each item. If they had taken even a superficial glance at my seller's page, they would have seen that each item had already been marked as dispatched.

Needless to say I will ignore their incompetence as I have proof of posting. Instead I will await feedback from my buyers. When this arrives it will be interesting to see whether eBay will remove their incorrect entries.

When I logged in this morning two out of the three buyers had already left feedback, maintaining my 100% record, and the silly reminders had mysteriously disappeared.

As an occasional seller I tolerate eBay's shortcomings, although like others I resent their unjustified imposition of fees on my postage charges.

As far as payment methods are concerned, as a buyer I always pay cash when collecting an item in person, and as a seller I encourage buyers to do the same if collecting. If they insist on using PayPal when collecting I get them to sign a receipt, so that there can be no question of a fraudulent chargeback claim in the future. Sellers have to protect themselves, as eBay will always side with the buyer right or wrong.

[Steve]

Last weekend I sold three items on eBay, who entered this note on my seller's page : "Dispatch by Wednesday 31 May".

Monday 29 May being a holiday in the UK, I posted the items as soon as the Post Office re-opened on Tuesday 30 May, and when I got home I logged into eBay and marked the items as dispatched.

This morning 1 June I noticed that eBay has entered "Dispatch now overdue" against each item. If they had taken even a superficial glance at my seller's page, they would have seen that each item had already been marked as dispatched.

Needless to say I will ignore their incompetence as I have proof of posting. Instead I will await feedback from my buyers. When this arrives it will be interesting to see whether eBay will remove their incorrect entries.

When I logged in this morning two out of the three buyers had already left feedback, maintaining my 100% record, and the silly reminders had mysteriously disappeared.

As an occasional seller I tolerate eBay's shortcomings, although like others I resent their unjustified imposition of fees on my postage charges.

As far as payment methods are concerned, as a buyer I always pay cash when collecting an item in person, and as a seller I encourage buyers to do the same if collecting. If they insist on using PayPal when collecting I get them to sign a receipt, so that there can be no question of a fraudulent chargeback claim in the future. Sellers have to protect themselves, as eBay will always side with the buyer right or wrong.

I fully understand your reasoning here but in all honesty I doubt that obtaining a signed receipt from a buyer is any more useful than a chocolate kettle where Ebay is concerned. I had a similar situation a few years ago when an item was tracked and a buyer signed a receipt to verify delivery. The buyer then opened a dispute and claimed they never received the item. Even though I contacted Ebay with the 'evidence' and spent several hours talking to US Ebay and Paypal at my expense they would only keep reiterating that the buyer hadn't received the item. They ignored the evidence and even declined to see what I had in my possession. Or put simply: the buyer is ALWAYS right! When the buyer asked Ebay to step in Ebay just refunded the money outright without any consideration for the evidence at hand so the buyer got the item AND the money. I found out that the buyer was a scam artist and had perpetrated similar scams with other sellers prior to my 'sale'. That was when I realised that Ebay was a poor site to deal with and from that day forward I've gladly boycotted it without regret.