posted on January 27, 2001 09:27:52 AM
Hello,
I am a new seller to ebay. Before the holidays I listed quite a few items.
When I mail, I get a postmarked delivery confirmation slip for everything. I do that so, the customer has a tracking number and I have proof that I mailed the item.
All of a sudden I start getting emails from customers claiming their packages did not arrive. Most of the letters are coming from one state. Pennsylvania. I check the tracking numbers and they say delivered on most of them. A couple of the packages indicated that they had been shipped to the wrong state.
One customer in particular was proving to be real problem. She refused insurance. Then she left negative feedback saying she did not get the item. A few days later she files a fraud report with ebay saying that I never shipped her item and that she paid for insurance and I would not refund her money. A few days after she filed the report. Her package was returned to me. She did not pick it up from the post office. She asks me to ship them again. I do it and the tracking number indicates the package is in her city but has not been delivered. She writes to me and claims that she contacted her post office and they said they knew which package she was referring to, but the address label is unreadable. I check the tracking number a few days later and it says the package is being returned to sender. I still have not gotten the package. It has been several weeks. She writes more threatening emails saying that here uncle is a postman and she knows that I am ripping her off.
Two things bother me. If the address label (I printed it using my computer), is unreadable how did the post office know that package she was referring to and how did they know where to send it back.
In the cases of some of the other customers, If they paid for insurance, I filed claims and most of the claims have been paid by the Post office.
I got suspended by ebay. They claimed that I had "chronic" accepting payment and not shipping. I can prove that I mailed EVERY item that was paid for. I have written to safe harbor.
I also got an emails from two of my customers and another seller in the past week.
The other seller, told me to be carful that she thinks my problems may be caused by a powerseller. My customers, both wrote to tell me they had been contacted by someone claiming that I had not sent any packages to anyone and to contact ebay. The emails were anonymous. Both of these customers had already left me postiive feedback after getting their items.
The thing is the powereseller is in the same state where most of the uninsured packages have gone missing.
I wrote to ebay several times and they did not respond to any of my emails. I didn't hear from them until they suspended me. Is it common for other sellers to cause problems like this? Or am just a victim of the postal service?
posted on January 27, 2001 09:38:58 AM
really sounds like you are in a pickle over there... from problems that i have had in the past with eBay.. i must say that i have been fortunate enough that eBay did work with me on resolving the matter very quickly.. but that was nothing compared to what you are saying!! but if you keep on eBay sooner or later everything will work out.. if not do what the other many bad sellers do and just get a new account and start over fresh and hope that eventually either that powerseller will grow tired of the games or eBay will have corrected the problem
posted on January 27, 2001 10:43:14 AM
A PowerSeller would have no way to re-route those packages, so you must be suggesting that he/she somehow convinced your buyers to commit postal fraud by claiming they were never received when in fact they were.
That's a stretch.
Far more likely, for those that show arrival in the correct city, is that they're still in the PO waiting for pick-up. I assume you've notified your customers what the tracking indicates?
In my experience, virtually ever customer who claimed their package was lost later found it either at the PO ... or right in their own home.
And if you *still* suspect foul play, an easy solution can often be had by requiring the buyer to fill out the USPS form for tracking misdirected (uninsured) mail. Crooks are rarely that bold.
posted on January 27, 2001 11:24:55 AM
fountainhouse:
I really don't understand what is going on. I don't think that anyone is re-routing mail. I email all buyers a tracking number. They can see what is going on. Many of them just flat out refuse to pay attention to what the tracking info says.
I have had a slew of "unclaimed" packages returned to me. One of them arrived today. It was from a buyer that filed a fraud report. I notified her that her package had been returned, since it had not been picked up.
Her reply: "I don't have time to check on all of those slips I get from the post office and UPS". "They should contact me if I need to pick up the package." "If you don't ship my order TUESDAY, I will file mail fraud charges!!!!!"
No apology or anything. I forwarded her email to ebay. Maybe they will see that she is loopy.
I still don't understand how they suspended me without asking me any questions or for any proof that all of the items were mailed.
posted on January 27, 2001 11:57:48 AM
I am wondering what sort of items you sell that the customers are repeatedly out of contact with reality to think the post office is going to call them after a pick up slip is left?
If you can't get eBay to listen a lawyer is your next step. A big enough action will make them pay attention. Make it big enough to cover your potential losses for life.
posted on January 27, 2001 02:04:13 PM
ummm...I quit selling womens' clothing because I got so many weirdos. I can't say why that area attracts so many flakes but it does (not just my opinion--other friends and relatives who sell on ebay have seconded it. every holiday we share our "weirdest buyer" story!!)
I still have great luck with anything that attracts transvestites/transsexuals (mainly womens' plus size clothing and big shoes). Trannies are the BEST darn customers on Ebay! Lightning fast payment and nice folks.
[ edited by brighid868 on Jan 27, 2001 02:05 PM ]
posted on January 27, 2001 02:42:00 PM
My best customers are crossdressers. Only one got mad with me. His mail server was blocking my emails and he didn't know. He thought I was ignoring him. He apologized and has purchased many more items from me.
I have had some nut case sending me bible scriptures.
I didn't know that shoes and clothes would bring out the beast in people.
posted on January 27, 2001 03:03:32 PM
I am SORRY, but your whole story seems like a stretch to me. It takes a lot for Ebay to kick off a seller. I have been burned by several and Ebay does NOTHING! There is something either you are not admitting to or something you are leaving out of your story.
Sounds strange to me . . .
posted on January 27, 2001 03:56:35 PM
unclesmonkey, your story sounds familiar to me. I have no problem with what you say. Others have posted here with similar problems. I know of two others that have been suspended for the same reason. Ebay reinstated both after they showed proof of sending the items.
I sell in the shoe category. I am a powerseller and I have had strange problems also with mail. Most of the problems have originated with newbies with little or no feedback. Things have calmed down a little for me, however if you are new it can be overwhelming. When I started out I was one of the first big sellers in the shoe cat. There wasn't much competition. A little over a year ago I started having all kinds of problems with bidders and ebay.
Ebay moving my ads to adult, because they contained the word "kinky". People pulling my contact info for no reason. Ebay sending me a warning for "implying" that customers could buy outside the auction. All the auction said was "If you need something fast, contact me, I may be able to arrange for overnight mail". According to ebay that line could make someone think I would sell outside ebay. They even ended an auction where I was selling shoes in lots of 5. They said it was a raffle. Since I was a powerseller I was able to get someone on the phone. She said that every warning was due to someone contacting ebay and saying I was doing soemthing wrong.
She looked over the situations and said that I should have never been contacted about any of them. Whoever moved and ended my auctions never really looked at them.
Other sellers in the shoe cat were having similar problems. Some of us write each other and share ideas. All I will say is that many of our problems were with newbies that had addresses in the same state as a certain powerseller. One of my problem's email was the registered billing email listed with internic for that powersellers website. I pointed this out to ebay, they told me that they had warned the seller. My problems almost halted completely until this past November.
If you are selling leather thigh boots, you are probably being targeted. Most sellers that I talk to, have problems when they list those items. There is a seller in shoes that thinks they should be the only one selling them.
Contact SafeHarbor with all of the info you have. If you have any proof that you mailed the items send that also. Eventually someone will see it and actually looks at facts, not whining from jealous sellers.
posted on January 27, 2001 04:01:55 PM
You may want to make your auctions private for the large size shoes. I have had anonoymous emails sent to my transvestite customers, calling them names.
posted on June 21, 2001 12:22:02 PM
This post is an update.
I stopped selling on ebay completely after they suspended me. I opened an online store that does very well and I look on ebay as a very bad memory.
3 weeks ago I got an email from a seller on ebay asking if I would mind sharing some information with her on bidders. I replied that eventhough I no longer sell on ebay, I was not comfortable giving out information about previous customers. She responded back with a list of bidders she was having problems with and was suspicious of. Lo and behold! Nine of the email addresses were the same as those that lied to ebay about me. The funny thing is the email addresses were the same, but their names were different. There were another four names that I reconized, but the email addresses did match what I had.
She said that they had all filed fraud complaints against her and someone was contacting her buyers using a fake ebay id and claiming that she was accepting money and not shipping items. I gave her all of the info, that I had on the buyers and wished her luck.
She said that she had given safeharbor the info and was waiting for a response from them. She told me that she new of at least six other sellers in the shoe category that had had problems with these same bidders and had been suspended from ebay. All of them suspected a powerseller in the shoe cat.
The other day I get an email from ebay saying that my registration was reinstated. I did not ask them to do that and I have no intentions of selling or buying on ebay again. I checked and all of the bidders that were on my list had been suspended. The only one that was not suspended was the power seller that I thought was behind the whole thing.
I wonder why ebay finally acted. I am sure there were more than the 7 sellers I know of that were harrassed. I would think they would have a system in place to detect buyers that file lots of fraud complaints. I think what happened to me and the other sellers show how little ebay cares about the truth.
The only one that was not suspended was the power seller that I thought was behind the whole thing.