eBay often gets a lot of flack around here because many of us sell on there and the quality of buyers isn't always the best (scammers). And some of the criticism is deserved. But I was recently reminded that sometimes they do covers our asses. I received the following letter from them:

 

Thanks for consistently delivering exceptional service to your buyers. We're here to provide you a marketplace where you can sell with confidence. That's why we've taken the following steps during the past month to protect your account:

• Automatically set 21 of your detailed seller rating(s) to 5 stars from qualifying transactions
• Prevented 2 eBay Money Back Guarantee request(s) from being opened too early in the past 2 months

We've already updated your seller dashboard to reflect these changes, which are for transactions made during the past year. When we remove transaction defects, your transaction defect rate may not go down if you had transactions that received more than one defect.

We'll continue to improve our monitoring, detection systems, and policies to protect sellers like you. To see these updates, go to you seller dashboard.

 

*** END MESSAGE **

 

I wasn't event aware people had tried to get money back and they blocked them for me. I have a guess it is some of the 0 feedback buyers from this Christmas. It's nice that they finally providing some protection for us sellers.

Edited January 7, 201511 yr by brick_slayer

I got the same email and they said they prevented 1 request for money back. As you mentioned i am glad to see they are finally helping the seller out. Over the last year they where all about protecting the buyer and sellers would be left on there on. This has definitely given me more faith in eBay. 

 

Does any one know if there is a way to check what item or items had money back requests on them? I have looked at my dashboard like ti says but it does not tell me anything.

Edited January 7, 201511 yr by anolian

Luckily I've never had enough problematic buyers to write about, but I did receive the same message and it was nice to see they're looking out for us sellers. I think the perception of bad transaction frequency is overblown and I always strive to satisfy my buyers.

I had one blocked Money back guarantee as well.....I've sold one item in the last 6 months...(Edit: YEAR)... I don't like that percentage of goobers "shopping" on eBay.

Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Brickpicker mobile app

Edited January 7, 201511 yr by blue leader

Most sellers and buyers have a great experience buying online, whether it is on eBay, Amazon, Target, ect...(and hopefully BC soon).

You only hear about the bad ones for obvious reasons and that usually distort the reality of things

I agree...I've never actually had a problem with ebay or amz. Kind of an eye opener that I was 1/1 on scammers this year though.

Kinda off topic...Ebay gets a bad rap.  Thanks to them, I don't have to worry about protecting customer data, driving traffic to my website, updating a website with the most recent features to ensure a good user experience for my customers. etc.   I can focus on my business.

People who ***** about the fees have never tried doing the above.  The cost in time and $$$ is a lot more than the percentage you'd pay to ebay or amazon.  

Edited January 7, 201511 yr by pickleboy

I don't have to worry about protecting customer data, driving traffic to my website, updating a website with the most recent features to ensure a good user experience for my customers.

 

Ebay does not worry about this either

Kinda off topic...Ebay gets a bad rap.  Thanks to them, I don't have to worry about protecting customer data, driving traffic to my website, updating a website with the most recent features to ensure a good user experience for my customers. etc.   I can focus on my business.

People who ***** about the fees have never tried doing the above.  The cost in time and $$$ is a lot more than the percentage you'd pay to ebay or amazon.  

I agree with this.  They take a fair fee considering the customer base, ease of listing, and partnership with Paypal/ease of payment.  I am a big fan.

Most of my sales are via ebay, and after years and years of selling stuff on there (not just lego). My biggest headaches are from the shipping companies themselves, not the buyers. Sure there are a few bad eggs, and i have been scammed once or twice, but shipping problems are always my biggest issue.

 

Wrongly re-routed packages, delivery to wrong addresses, no delivery at all, lost mail, returned items with no delivery attempts, and the most frequent: (especially this holiday season) severely damaged items. Of course i have insurance on all my items aside from polybags; but claims take forever for them to process.

 

Overall though the amount of issues i have vs smooth transactions is like 2-5%. However my local meetups issue rate is more like %50 due to people flaking out, backing out last minute, no shows, and attempting to lower the price once they meet me.

I've been selling on Ebay since 2009 with well over 1,000 sales and I would estimate that the problem children for me are in the area of 1-3 per 100 at most.  Although I know that they (Ebay) really doesn't care about me (Silver Power Seller) I still think they offer a fair amount of value, even if their fees are rising at a rate not consistent with their performance.

 

 However my local meetups issue rate is more like %50 due to people flaking out, backing out last minute, no shows, and attempting to lower the price once they meet me.

I'm noticed this being more of a problem lately as well. Though I don't budge on the price much.