posted on July 7, 2002 02:23:58 AM new
We are fairly new to selling on ebay. We offered paypal as a form of payment. From the beginning we had nothing but problems.
Mainly payments not showing up in our inbox and not getting email notification either. We no longer accept paypal.
A customer paid for an auction on June 14th. He emailed us about the transaction and we informed him that we had no knowledge of the payment. He emailed us a copy of his paypal payment receipt and transaction number. We shipped his item that same day. A total of about 4 days had elapsed since he had paid for his auction and we shipped.
Today we emailed him asking if he had gotten his purchase. He writes back the following:
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I'm sorry to say that the answer is no. I am very frustrated with this entire transaction, and perhaps I should hear from you why I should not post negative feedback on your account.
1. The auction closed on June 15, and I paid Paypal the next day. Whatever problem you had with them, I have had with no one in the 50+ transactions I have done.
2. My e-mails took several days for you to answer.
3. Once you acknowledged payment, you wrote that my purchase "is scheduled to be shipped this week". That statement made me angry - every other seller with whom I have worked would have shipped Express Mail the next day. As it is, eight mailing days have now passed (skipping July 4) and I still don't have the item.
From my standpoint, this has been an absolute disaster. If the boots don't arrive by July 15, I will file a claim according to the eBay rules. You can consider this e-mail my attempt to settle this matter with you directly, but I don't expect to get a response for several days. If they arrive soon, the best I can do for you is a neutral feedback.
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1) His boots were shipped 4 days after his receipt said he paid. We still had not gotten notification from paypal when we shipped, just a copy of the receipt from him. The actual payment showed up in our inbox on the 30th of June. We have a postmarked delivery confirmation receipt for when the item was mailed.
2) Our auctions state when we answer emails and we don't on the weekend. That aside, It was never more than a day and a half before we responded to his emails.
3) I and my partners have purchased quite a bit on ebay over the years. We have never had ANY seller ship us apparel via Express mail. Our auctions state that we ship UPS or Priority.
3) My partners feel that paypal should be treated like a money order. Until it arrives in our inbox or we get notification from paypal that the payment has arrived, we haven't been paid. They also feel that it is the customer's responsibility to make sure their payment has been credited to us and resolve problems with paypal. I think it is both the buyer's and seller's responsibility to work through payment problems.
4) All of our auction terms are very clearly stated in out ads. Not in small print either.
The partner that answered his last email was pretty abrupt. She felt that he was making things up and that he was trying to create his own terms.
Sorry for taking so long. Do you think we handled this situation appropriately? I don't think she should have sent him such a grumpy email. Aside from that, I do not know what else could have been done. We do not control paypal or the mail.
In the past week we have had six packages returned to us by both UPS and the USPS, where people didn't pick them up or would not sign for them. Is this normal? In our online store we get maybe 1 returned package a month and the volume is much higher than it is on ebay.
One guy left us a negative claiming that he had not gotten his package in 20 days. He wanted the package left on the "Back Door with No Signature". His package was one of the ones that was returned to us this week. What type of feedback would you leave for him?
Thanks for any help. I have learned that it much easier to buy on ebay than to sell.
posted on July 7, 2002 03:59:32 AM new
I am going to put my 2 cents worth here but may get blasted for part of it, oh well.
1. Never ship a package until the payment shows up in your paypal account. If the buyer insists that he has paid, then have him/her double check the email address he paid. One tiny digit wrong will keep the payment from going to the correct account.
I have always received notification from paypal right away.
2. There should always be someone available to answer emails within a few hours, especially on the day your sales end. you and your partners could set a schedule for weekends.
3. Emails should always be friendly. Your partner could have gone to the paypal site and checked your account for that particular payment.
4. I don't understand why so many returns? Do you always require signature? If so this may be part of the problem, delivery confirmation without the signature may work better.
Well, that is my 2 cents worth. If I didn't help, sorry.
posted on July 7, 2002 05:54:44 AM new
2. There should always be someone available to answer emails within a few hours, especially on the day your sales end. you and your partners could set a schedule for weekends.
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Sounds to me like you are being very responsible about answering your e-mails. I actually have a life outside eBay. The suggested eBay time frame, once an auction has ended, is 3 BUSINESS days (although I usually do answer my mail long before that, I like knowing if I decide at the last minute to take my grands away for the weekend, I have the right to do that..that's why I'm self employed..to make decisions good for ME!). No way am I going to sit on top of my auctions, just so I can immediately e-mail back. And in over 800 transactions, I don't have one complaint. If fact almost all mention fast shipping.
I wonder why you are having so much trouble with Paypal getting your payments. I have only once had one go to the wrong person, other than that, it always shows up immediately. It may say pending e-check, and I always e-mail back and say the item will ship when the check clears. That's someplace I would check out first..since that seems to be the main problem.
posted on July 7, 2002 05:57:07 AM new
Good grief, you are having far more trouble than most of us!
I am curious if in your email to this customer you included the Delivery Confirmation number and a suggestion that the customer ask at the post office. If you are getting signatures this is a major problem. Working people can't always make it to the Post Office and most carriers don't even bother to ring the bell to see if someone's home. They just leave a pick up notice.
As to the Paypal problem, if your name at Paypal is anything like your posting name here, I can see a problem. It is cute but easy to mistype.
Once in a while I will have someone pay and not get a notice from Paypal. Missing emails do happen. So now I always double check every payment to be sure it has been noted. This is not as difficult as it sounds, since I do each morning before packing commences and while I have the hard copy of the sale in front of me. (I'm older and still file hard copies of everything, when the computer goes down I am still in business.)
Perhaps you and your partners might want to review your procedures from the customer viewpoint. I would. Good luck!
posted on July 7, 2002 07:19:42 AM new
#1 - It isn't that hard to log into your paypal account each day to check for new payments. If you are aware that you are having problems with receiving emails from paypal, this would be common sense.
#2 - 1 1/2 business days for a response is an awfully long time. I could see if it were a 1 person operation, but you state you have "parters".
#3 - Don't require signatures on your delivery confirmation. This is why you have so many packages being returned. I would say that it would be your responsibility to re-ship the items at your cost (without signature required)
#4 - You have a delivery confirmation receipt - did you track the package on USPS.com? That will tell you in a heartbeat whether it has been delivered or not. Did you send the DC # to the customer for them to track?
I would say that while the customer's email was not that friendly, they are right. I would be upset as well that it took so long after I paid by PayPal for you to even acknowledge the payment.
posted on July 7, 2002 08:49:03 AM new
We only use delivery confirmation. I asked the postal clerk about our problem and she said that some areas were beginning to get signeratures due to increased postal fraud.
Our auctions state when we are available to answer emails. We are not springing anything on anyone. We also have a phone number in our ads that a customer can call.
We log into our account several times per day. His payment along with others sipmly were not there. It is hard to acknowledge what you did not get. We contacted paypal via phone several times about the problem, once they said it was a "glitch". Next time they figured the payers were using the wrong address. Our email address has a total of 7 letters and is a very common word. We use ecount now with no problems. I also do not think that 4 days from the time he paid paypal to the time we shipped is along time.
posted on July 7, 2002 08:55:24 AM new
A mistake I see here is you wrote that the item will ship in about a week. Not good. If you cannot make it to the PO, tell the buyer when you will be going. In this case, it should have been the next day (except sunday) unless special circumstances prevented you so. Since you have associates helping out in your sales, I see no reason you (or helper) should not be making a daily post office run. Then once you shipped the item, you need to e-mail the person to let them know the item is on the way the day you ship.
Another thing that troubles me is you state that you no longer accept paypal. Why did you take it in this case then, or did you make that policy after this case? I wouldn't give up on PayPal. Just be causious on it's use and never leave much of a balance there. Withdraw every week or $200.00 which ever comes first.
As far as the customer stating it should have been sent express mail, that was probably venting and really meant priority.
As far as signature confirmation, in order to be covered by paypal's protection plan, you must send by signature confirmation, not just delivery confirmation like revvassago
states. As usual, he has his facts incorrect.
Those returned items will be the responsibility of the buyer to repay for postage since they did not give proper address for delivery confirmation. If they are going to use PayPal, then they need to confirm an address they will be at when the package arrives so they can sign for it.
Then start answering your e-mails. You need to do them everyday, including weekends if you have auctions running. If you only run auctions during the week and have then end before the weekend, then taking the weekend off would be OK. I had e-mailed a seller about an auction that had a couple of days left on it, and did not get a reply until 3 hours after is closed. Did this seller think I would be buying the item after not getting a response for over two days? Not a chance. Communication is key. Let the buyer know every step.
1: End of Auction notice sent personally and not automated.
2: Payment received and when it will ship.
3: Item has shipped notice and thank you. I will leave feedback now.
This way the customer doesn't feel they are being ignored and have an idea when the item should arrive.
posted on July 7, 2002 09:22:07 AM new
Thanks for the help everyone.
We did not tell him the item would ship in a week. I do not know where he got that from. That isn't even in our auction terms. We ship daily, including Saturday. Sometimes we do more than one run to the post office.
We use auction maangement software. We get a copy of the emails that are sent to the buyer. Buyer got tracking number, when we shipped. He also got a followup email asking if his package arrived safely. His response to that email is in my first post.
Our items are not scheduled to end on the weekend.
We got an email from him a few minutes ago. He was very pleasant. He said that he has been home every day to sign. I responded with an apology for the curt email he got yesterday and tracking info again.
We made the policy about 2 weeks after this case. Aside from the notification problems. They restricted our account. We got an email saying that we needed to change our password and security questions. We did that and they lifted the restriction after we called them. About a week later the same thing happened only this time they wanted a bank statement, I faxed that over. I called and asked them what was going on they said that our account may have been breached AGAIN. We did not know it had been breached the first time. We canceled the credit card associated with the account. We also had the bank close the checking account associated with paypal and issue us another account. The first time we thought it was just that I password was too easy or something. They never let on that someone may have illegally accessed our account the first time.
posted on July 7, 2002 11:22:52 AM new
Regarding the undelivered package, it's probably at the customer's post office. Often the mail carrier won't leave a note in the customer's mail box or PO box and so the package sits at the post office for a week (or more) until the customer goes looking for it.
This seems to happen every 100 packages or so. After about 2,000 packages shipped through the USPS, I have not had a single one lost.
posted on July 7, 2002 12:12:05 PM new
My friend and I laugh every week. The only package USPS ever lost was one I mailed across town to her. That was last summer and it has never shown up.
I did see those exact items on sale on ebay though!! LOL!
posted on July 7, 2002 04:19:58 PM new
biskitsandgravie,
You last post sounds like a more sound businesslike approach. Wish it was stated more clearly that way. How it was determined about the late shipping is your original response #3 states it as such.
On a personal note, I would dump the auction software and do more personal e-mails. Yes it is a little more work on the front end, but you will have many less problems on the back end. The buyers like to be informed personally and not with canned responses. We get enough canned resonses from ebay itself, the buyer doesn't need any more.
posted on July 7, 2002 06:43:22 PM newThere should always be someone available to answer emails within a few hours, especially on the day your sales end. you and your partners could set a schedule for weekends.
Are you people doing some kind of recreational pharmaceuticals when you come up with this bosh? Sellers are allowed to set their own hours. It's one of the few actual benefits of this business.
I urge others reading AuctionWatch to take these "shoulds" with a huge grain of salt...more like a 50 lb. bag of Morton's.
As far as discarding automatic emails in favor of the personal approach...BWAH HAH HAH! My customers love the prompt notifications they get from our program that runs every 30 minutes and fires off their payment information. With 575 current seven-day auctions, you bet your sweet bippy we use software to send mail.
