posted on April 20, 2004 01:29:42 PM
ARGH!!! This is where the Irish temper is coming out!
I use eBay invoices to send combined invoices to my buyers when auctions close. Last night had a bunch of auctions end, and I used the invoices same as I always have.
I did notice a slightly different look to the invoices (color, for one), but other than that, nothing major. I have received 3 payments from buyers so far via PayPal with NO s/h!!! One noted "Thank you for the break on s/h!". Another noted "Paid per invoice."
I emailed the buyers and explained somehow or another eBay dropped the s/h off, and I was very sorry for the inconvenience, but I would be refunding the PP payment and sending PP invoices for the corrected total which included s/h.
So far, I haven't heard from any of the three.
And the clencher to this - the buyer who wrote "Paid per invoice." is also a seller. My s/h is clearly stated in the item description. There are notes on the auction pages that I combine shipping. Additionally my EOA notice (from Vendio) says I will send combined totals to buyers who have won multiple auctions. Just the way she added that note and hasn't acknowledged my email or resent payment has gotten under my skin.
Now why oh why don't they sell 2 Buck Chuck in SC?????
__________________________________
"The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work." - Richard Bach
posted on April 20, 2004 01:40:05 PM
Yeah, we had a problem invoice this morning too. It was like it was frozen. We couldn't make any changes to it at all and it wouldn't even let us 'un-combine' the auctions. The reason we were checking into it is because the buyer said that she was unable to access the invoice link or something like that, so she had problems on her end too.
posted on April 20, 2004 01:42:37 PM
I have reported it to eBay also, so hopefully they will get it fixed.
You mentioned a buyer having a problem with the payment link - I have had one buyer report the same problem! He said he received an error message from PayPal that read...
Error Detected
We cannot process this transaction because there is a problem with the PayPal email address supplied by the seller. Please contact the seller to resolve the problem.
If this payment is for an eBay listing, you can contact the seller via the "Ask Seller a Question" link on the listing page. When you have the correct email address, payment can be made at www.paypal.com.
Sheesh, I wish they would quit trying to fix things that aren't broken!
__________________________________
"The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work." - Richard Bach
posted on April 20, 2004 01:54:30 PM
Jack mentioned a problem with this last evening as one of his auctions had FREE (in green font) for shipping.
Yesterday the "ask seller a question" link didn't work very well because when you wrote your message and then submitted it you were brought to an error page and your whole message was lost. I had trouble with it and some of the people wanting to ask me about shipping costs on an item also had problems.
Everytime ebay changes anything the system stutters and makes mistakes for awhile before it gets back on track. The "no shipping fees" or "free shipping" is going to cause huge headaches for sellers.
posted on April 20, 2004 02:57:33 PM
I had the opposite problem: buyer had two auction wins and I do not combine.
However, somehow eBay's Checkout thoughtfully combined them and applied one shipping charge. (This never happened before and hasn't happened since.)
The buyer insisted that eBay's Checkout was law even though she acknowledged the auction stated no combined shipping.
I refunded her incorrect payment, she refused to re-pay, and you can guess the rest.
What I find intriguing is the "rule" the buyer seemed to be applying. Okay, if eBay's Checkout is law, then if they'd applied a $500 shipping charge, instead of $5, the buyer would have had to pay it?
No, of course not. As old as I am and as experienced, I still get dispirited sometimes about peoples' lack of integrity. I suspect this depresses you as well, wgm.
posted on April 20, 2004 03:27:18 PM
That's exactly it, fluffy! I am a true believer in karma, and am honest to a fault sometimes I guess. It does disappoint me that some people can act like that. Sellers are human and can make mistakes from time to time - but in this case, it was eBay's mistake.
As of now, I still haven't received replies to the emails I sent out, nor have I received the corrected payments...so I am in the same boat you are, fluffy
__________________________________
"The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work." - Richard Bach
posted on April 20, 2004 06:43:45 PM
Fluffy, that happened to me, too. Somehow in the shipping it stated 1.00. I dont know if I keyed it wrong, or it popped up as that. But in the body of the auction it clearly said shipping 3.95 or whatever it was. The buyer said the invoice was law. For two dollars I would have ate the difference and moved on, but he was so damn arrogant about it. I didnt even want to trade with him. Figured he should go finagle somebody else for their time. Of course, he gave me my very first neg...lol.
posted on April 20, 2004 07:00:56 PM
I do believe eBay may be getting bombarded by sellers over this - just got a response back...
Thank you for contacting eBay.
We made some changes to the Payment & Shipping sections of the Sell Your
Item form and the auction page that may have indirectly affected the
invoices and End of Auction notices. We are researching the problem. If
you could write back with some item #s for examples, this may help us in
resolving the problem.
It sure would help if they would post something about this on the Announcements Board to lend some validity to the challenges some of us sellers are having.
__________________________________
"The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work." - Richard Bach
posted on April 20, 2004 07:08:29 PM
I wonder what would happen if you replied with the affected auction numbers and asked them to credit you the amount of the lost shipping?
posted on April 21, 2004 04:54:04 AM
I copy-and-pasted all the invoices and emailed them back to eBay last night. Now all of a sudden, it appears I am the only one having this problem (I think not!) - here is the latest reply...
------------------
Hello Again,
Thank you for writing once more in regard to your invoices. I apologize
for the difficulty you have experienced and I will be happy to help.
We will need a little more information before I can pass this on to our
site engineers. First, I see that in your items, no shipping was
specified in the usual way, you only mention the cost in the
description. After reviewing the messages you have sent, it is not
clear whether the invoices were generated properly, and that you simply
did not revise the shipping cost. I need to you specifically state what
steps you took, and whether you are certain that you did manually change
the shipping amounts.
Also, no other members are reporting this problem yet. Because this may
be a very specific issue if it is our servers, we will need the full
headers for at least one of your invoice emails. The full headers will
contain detailed information about the specific servers that generated
the emails, so that our engineers can find the cause more quickly.
Please reply and mention the steps you took to send the invoices, and
confirm that you are certain that you did manually enter a shipping
cost. Also, in your reply please paste in a copy of the full headers
for at least one of the invoices. With that information, we can have
our engineers research your report.
A header is a paragraph of technical information showing the entire path
of the email, from origination all the way to you, similar to the
example I have pasted for you below.
Return-Path: <sender email address>
Received: from mail-pacbell.net (mailgw5.pacbell.net [206.13.28.23])
by ixmail9.ix.netcom.com (8.8.7-s-4/8.8.7/(NETCOM v1.01)) with ESMTP id;
for <recipient email address>; Mon, 22 Mar 1999 06:34:48 -0800 (PST)
From: <sender email address>
Received: from 207.214.211.69
(ppp-207-214-211-69.sntc01.pacbell.net [207.214.211.69]) by mail-
gw5.pacbell.net (8.8.8/8.7.1) with SMTP id GAA15251; Mon, 22 Mar
1999 06:34:28 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1999 06:34:32 +0100
If you are uncertain how to find the full headers with your email
program, you may be able to learn how to find them using your email
program's help files. Unfortunately, we don't have the instructions for
each email program. If you would like specific instructions on how to
find the full headers, please go to the following link for some helpful
information:
http://www.haltabuse.org/help/headers/
It is my pleasure to assist you. Thank you for choosing eBay.
Regards,
ebay Rep's name
eBay PowerSeller Support
-------------------------
Sooooo, I just emailed them ALL the invoices with headers and a step-by-step of how I do my combined invoices (checking the boxes to the left, etc. etc.). I have been using their invoices for combined and international for quite a while now - not like I just started using them and don't have a clue to fill them out. Heck, a Rhesus monkey could figure them out!
Just another day in paradise....
__________________________________
"The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work." - Richard Bach
posted on April 21, 2004 11:38:22 AM
I have gotten those, they suck!
But I just wait until the seller contacts me.
I am not sure why ebay jumps the gun and prenotifies when you still have to do your accounting with the seller.
Hoping Ebay reads this!
J
