Sending to the "wrong" address? Have you had Seller Protection denied?

[pillarboxred]

I have two item to post and they both have "Warnings". Both addresses look fine to me in terms of being formatted as postal addresses are in the UK: ADDRESSEE above STREET above TOWN above COUNTY above POSTCODE.  EBay "thinks" these addresses are wrong and should be COUNTY above TOWN but I won't be covered if I send to "another address". What is another address in this context? Is it other than the one displayed or the one eBay "thinks" I should use or, as the data is identical although the placements differ, doesn't it matter?

Does eBay save money by denying compensation to members confused by this? What information is eBay using to derive the "correct" (according to them but very weird and irrational to me) addresses?

[alpha-pods]

The way I deal with this is to send a message to confirm the address prior to shipping, if no reply withing about an hour i phone the number on the order if there is one to inform them and ask them to respond so that I can ship. I don't ship until i get a response as my items are fairly high value.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

It's more than likely the way that the address is held in the RM database.

Easiest way to check is use find a postcode and it will give you the full address.

https://www.royalmail.com/find-a-postcode

But as long as the information is the same, just in a different order, it should make no difference at all.

[lucy_farmer]

Ebay started sending me 'confirm your address' (I mean my own address) messages about a year ago.

Which is odd as I've been on ebay for 21 years and have never moved.

(They'd send the address they have always had for me, followed by the address they thought it should  be.

The difference between the two was the county (Buckinghamshire). 

I'm in Milton Keynes which is a 'Unitary Authority' and doesn't need a county, so I never bothered putting 'Bucks.'  into 99% of things that needed an address............)

But to 'keep the peace' with the ebay computer, I clicked the one they wanted....... but the message kept on being sent for several months regardless of me 'doing as I'm told'.

I think the address computer has been having a bit of a tantrum.

If I were you, I'd click the one they want.

As long as the name, postcode and house number match up, the order of the stuff inbetween is probably immaterial. (it's the postcode that does all the heavy lifting on addresses; the only time a human looks is the actual postie when they put it through the correctly numbered door..)

And if ebay decided that swapping the order of 'County' and 'Town' made it officially wrong when it comes to seller protection, they just wouldn't have a leg to stand on... I know ebay have made some very strange decisions in the past but that would be utterly ludicrous!

[4_bathrooms]

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@therenewalworkshopltd wrote:

It's more than likely the way that the address is held in the RM database.

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It isn't; I use RM's PAF data on my own website. This has been happening for years on eBay - it seems eBay have mapped the "Town/City" and "County" fields the wrong way around when pulling the PAF data.

[jlovie]

The GSP depot always comes up as incorrect address and wrong postcode.

[4_bathrooms]

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@jlovie wrote:

The GSP depot always comes up as incorrect address and wrong postcode.

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It's a double-issue.

The first is eBay seems to have the town (Lichfield) mapped incorrectly as mentioned. The second is the postcode for the GSP hub belongs to the GSP hub itself as a single, large postal user and has only existed since 2017. eBay are likely using an old PAF file that was created before that postcode existed. 

[johnnyrideon2015]

i have had sellers contacting me on occasions to check my address. 

some sellers have no problem, others scratch their head. 

mind you the town I live in doesn't know where it is sometimes. or how it spell its own address..

even the local council gets it wrong. with its own official signs spelt differently.

so sometimes I blame the weirdness of certain places, according to local government changes and boundary movements.  its not always the sellers fault.  and some postal services are as confused as we are ...........................and ebay is always confused. 😄

[pillarboxred]

These were posted to domestic UK buyers.

[pillarboxred]

"But as long as the information is the same, just in a different order, it should make no difference at all."

That's what I was wondering and hoping but you know what lawyers are like and knowing precisely what is meant is crucial because, when money has to be paid out, they'll worm around any wording.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

But unless your talking thousands, do you really think that lawyers will be involved?

I don't use Ebay post at all and the address's are picked up directly by RM.

Every single item uses that address.

So if it's different for some reason in the Ebay database, then I am absolutely certain that at some point during the time that I've used Ebay, that will have have happened.  I've never had an issue with that sort of thing, unless the customer has provided an incorrect address.

So I think that it's fairly safe to say, that if you use the address that is provided by the customer, it will be fine.

And frankly, I wouldn't be changing the address from what the customer has written (unless absolutely wrong), to what Ebay thinks is correct.

[lloydsgifts]

As long as house number and postcode are correct it is fine to post.

[papso22]

When ebay says you need to send to the address provided at checkout, they mean the place  I.e a specific property that the buyer chose.

A place is identified by an address, but as long as that address is sufficiently detailed to enable that identification,  it is good enough.  The actual ordering of the information is largely irrelevant as long as it is there. 

Ebay are not going to deny a claim where two of the rows are in the 'wrong place' according to them, as long as what there is identifies the property as the one the buyer chose for delivery.

[ed_58611]

According to Royal Mail...

[simplyessential_uk]

It will be fine to correct it as long as the house number / Street and or postcode are correct.

If a claim was submitted its all bot driven so if the tracking is marked as received then you have seller protection and it would be upto the buyer to dispute this.  

[jlovie]

Another problem I occasionally have when using eBay postage is an error saying it's unable to create a label with the information supplied.

This is always because the address has too many characters for the fields.

I've always been able to fix it by some editing, moving first line to company field, abbreviating etc.

It's usually for addresses in industrial estates, with several lines, where they've used one long line separated by commas.