Have you picked up some defects on Shipping?
Its not hard to do and you have to watch it like a hawk!!!
These examples are from personal experience and have been resolved by phoning eBay or using their Customer Contact form.
So Lesson 1:- Always contact eBay to try to resolve a defect.
Why should I???
Answer:- because they do help and do listen.
Lesson 2:- You are so cross you can't think straight or are going to loose you temper
Answer:- Vent somewhere else first, Facebook, friends scream at wall etc, until you are calmer before you phone eBay
Lesson 3:- Find Help & Contact on your eBay page.
Yup it's a bit of a nightmare finding your way round. My personal take on this is if they are swamped its harder to get to where you want to be to find the info to contact them. So keep trying and remember you want a good outcome - your defect taken off, so keep going and keep calm. Keep trying till you find an answer or near match to your problem.
You don't have to go through with your query, read whats on the page, if its not quite right go back and try another route. I have spent many hours doing this to keep my 100% record. It's not a hardship it's just the way you have to do business on eBay. Remember any business you run will give you problems. So in all cases you the business owner have to learn to deal with them in a professional way. Well that is if you the business owner want to run your business in a professional way?
Lesson 4 - Is this really a wrong or questionable Defect??? Or are you just sulking because you were late shipping??? If yes fess up to yourself and learn, then do better next time. Go open wine, whiskey etc and drown sorrows. Then look at your next eBay sales and do better. You know you can.
Lesson 5 - Yay! Questionable Defect so we are now going to look at my two examples of when Ebay will change your defect and take them off your account.
Defect 1 - Customer Requests a change that causes a defect
Customer contacts me via eBay mail and asks that I ship to get to her Mother on specific date as Mother is away until then.
1st check that shipping address is on eBay and that you can ship to the Mother or you will not be covered by eBay rules and customer can claim money back and you have no legs to stand on. You know they are going to try and do a fraud.
OK customer has got Mothers address as delivery so I can comply with their request. Its complex already !!! I feel this will cause more problems so I am going to be nit picky about adding tracking details and posting dates, keeping receipts handy and record of emails etc.
Action to take:- Change my shipping method from Next Day Courier to 2nd Class Recorded. No action can be taken on eBay page as customer already paid.
You can save disasters by thinking ahead - or learning from my experience
So I email back confirming that I am changing shipping method as I can't ship by next day due to other commitments in my work schedule. I change shipping to 2nd class recorded. However, this does mean that I have to pay an extra £1. Result £1.00 less PROFIT here.
All this has happened after customer has paid the invoice. So I can not go back and change the shipping on the invoice. Something I could have done if the (stupid, thoughtless, or just plain did not think) customer could have asked before they bid or paid!!! SO ALL THIS HASSLE IS THE CUSTOMERS FAULT.
Next action is to ship and record tracking data on the item. This done I go have the evening glass of wine and my dinner.
Week later DEFECT shows up on my Seller Dashboard. Not a happy Easter Bunny so I go investigate. And yes its that delivery.
Action Taken
Trawl through eBay help and send email on shipping to Customer Services at 8PM they respond at 3AM. Phone buzz wakes me up. Yay they agree I have done what customer asked, they can see this from emails between me and customer.
Result
Defect removed. Next time this happens I will contact eBay first to tell them what is going on before I agree.
So I learn another lesson - you never stop learning on eBay always something you have not come across happens on here.
2nd Defect - eBay system & Royal Mail anomaly causes defect
I go look on my corrected Seller Dashboard and WHAT the Heck??? A defect is still there. No way they said it would be removed, so I go check the eBay email again. Ah it says may take 7 days to show up on your page. Yup I have to wait.
So life passes and its now Easter Sunday, nothing else to do as shops are shut so on to eBay and not a lot happening so I can get a phone call from them. This may only be available to Top Power Sellers.
I phone, very nice helpful lady called Anna, remember she is stuck working on Easter Sunday, so I am extra nice and have a laugh and joke with her.
We look at the first defect, its cleared, "Oh dear she says you got another one". So we go look at that and find this on the tracking details.
eBay system does not allow for this eventuality so you are always going to pick up a late delivery on this type of delay. YES I know how stupid is this, but its a known anomaly and eBay don't seem to be working with Royal Mail to resolve it. Big Moan here.
Result Defect removed.
Lesson learned keep an eye on your defects, act quickly and get them resolved.
Action taken:- Think I will be contacting Royal Mail (by using CEO EMail site on google) again to alert them to this problem.
CEO MAIL on Google lists the email direct to all UK business Top Dogs, so you can go straight to the top person. I have found this to be so good to do. Top person is often in total ignorance of the problems being dealt with by their lower minions!!!
They will panic, as they are shielded from problems like this. They alert one of their aides who is tasked with "Sort this pain in butt out" order. Result you get action taken. Big smile here.
I will update later if this gets any results.
Happy eBaying you can comment or ask questions here or go to my Facebook page Mad Bird Designs UK
Love always Joan
