While I was getting ready to close some Unpaid Item Cases…
I noticed my cases when from "cases" to…
Requests.
What do you think of the new name change? Does a request sound better than a case?
So I woke up today to a case opened by a buyer. There are a TON of reasons this case should not have been opened, but the first one is that the sale date is JULY 22!
The other reasons…
I called eBay and they agree, that this case should not have opened, because it was 30 days past the sale date. They want me to wait for the buyer to respond or for 3 days to go by, and call again to have eBay close the case out because the buyer altered the item by washing it. I pressed the eBay CS rep on how and why the case was opened in the first place since it was past 30 days. He didn't have an answer.
I did a little checking on my own…
The items below are both things that *I* purchased. I bought one August 21st and the other on August 28th. These two items are between the date that the buyer that opened a case against me. You'll see that I can not open a case against my sellers.. Why was the buyer able to open a case against me?
You can see that both of these screen shots show that "The deadline has passed to open a case." How is it possible that that my buyer can open a case, but I can't. Why are we using a defect system that CLEARLY has issues and is not ready for roll out?
On Friday I received message from eBay letting me know there was a "not as described" case opened against me. I went to the case to see what the buyer was upset about, and here is what the buyer wrote:
"Hi! I thought I ordered this item in L (or even XL if you have it). I received it in a size M, but that won't fit me. How can I get a size L or XL? It needs to be 18", nude, size L or XL. Thank you for helping me. "
I know what you are thinking… "why did she send that poor woman a MEDIUM, when she wanted a large or extra large?" After I read her complaint, I thought the same thing too.. until I read the description and item specifics, where it states the item is a Medium. There is even a PHOTO of the tag, where it says MEDIUM.
If you are not familiar with eBay's new "defect" system, ANY open case, for whatever reasons, counts as a DEFECT. If you are a moderate volume seller that sells in a clothing category, you just might get a few cases opened against you for "not as described" when in all actuality the item doesn't fit the buyer. (True story it is happening to me.)
**Also if you read my blog, you'd see this post about how buyers are basically encouraged or pointed in the direction to open a case INSTEAD of message the seller first.
If you're not a seller, you may be wondering what all this means…. If you have more than a 2% defect rate, you lose your "Top Rated Seller" status, which means to me, that I will not receive a 20% discount in my fees each month and I will not place at the top of "best match" searches. If you have more than a 5% defect rate, you could lose your selling privileges.
Did you know there are sellers with 100% positive feedback that are at or close to the 5% defect rate? That seems crazy right?
This is what a defect means to eBay:
Opened case = unhappy buyer Unhappy buyer= bad seller Bad seller= Needs to be coached into a better seller OR removed from the site.
This is what a defect means to a good seller:
Open case= Defect Defects= less site visibility which = less sales. OR you could be removed from the site all together.
Currently the way eBay has things set up ALL CASES OPENED for ANY REASON count as a defect. This just blows me away. How and why do they think this is a good idea? It is OBVIOUS that I've done nothing wrong with this case, and that the buyer did not read the description, look at the photos or pay attention to the item specifics… yet some how *I* am responsible for this.
If you are wondering how I responded to this case, my response is below:
As of today, the buyer has not responded back to me. :/