Weekly Chat with the eBay Community Team- 08.01.25 @2pm

[community-team@ebay]

Hi everybody!

The Community Chat will open at 2pm and will remain open until 3pm on Wednesday. After that it will be closed for further questions. Of course, we will continue to take care of answering any questions that may still be unanswered—We’ll get to everything as quickly as possible. 

Please ask your questions in the thread below. In order to be able to answer your questions as quickly as possible, we ask you to have one question per post. Of course, you can make as many posts as you like in the Chat- the more the merrier!

Our eBay Community Team is made up of kat@ebay, and marco@ebay. Between us, we have knowledge in Buying, Selling, Fulfilment, Payments, and the Community itself. Anything we aren’t sure on we’ll know the people who will be! Please ask us any questions you may have and we’ll do all we can to support. We understand that certain topics, such as concerns about businesses possibly using private accounts, can be frustrating and important to you. Please refrain from asking the same question repeatedly in our weekly live chats. We assure you that we carefully review all posts in the forum and ensure that your concerns are communicated to the relevant teams for appropriate action.
To maintain a constructive and community environment, posts that repeatedly breach this guideline may be removed. Continued violations could result in further action against your community account. We appreciate your cooperation and understanding in helping us keep our community focused and respectful.

To ask your question, click Reply in the lower-right corner of this post, type your question, and click Reply between 2pm and 3pm. The community team will answer each incoming question in chronological order and will quote the original question in each answer. 

Please note that any reply without a question to the community team or discussion replies may be removed from the chat. We want to keep on track to get through as many questions as possible. We welcome all discussion to be moved to the discussion boards. 

If you missed the weekly chat time, please ask your question in the community boards and tag us or we will be back next week with another chat! 

Many thanks,

Your eBay Community Team

[ducatimondo]

Good afternoon Team,

We are experiencing some really bad weather again here in the UK.
When will eBay do anything about adjusting the estimated delivery times to compensate for that or otherwise make an announcement of some sort?

I have been checking some of our listings and they show as delivery on Friday - Saturday for Royal Mail 48, even though it is after our cutoff for same day shipping. That is therefore showing a 1-2 day delivery estimate.

Considering we are not getting most of our deliveries from courier or Royal Mail and Royal Mail didn't make our collection at all yesterday, due to the weather, then when are eBay going to pay attention to the weather and DO something?

Or are eBay just going to close the gate after the horse has bolted and just blame the sellers for "not shipping on time" as they usually do?

Thanks
Russ

[10.20]

Why does eBay make people provide so much information to the seller (apart from it being a very old form which looks like it needs updating) when replying to classified ads on eBay, which I think is a security risk, (email full name phone number postcode and user id) especially as they are often high value items - cars and camper vans, fake sellers can use this info to impersonate peoples bank. No other classified ad sites send that much info about the buyer.

[marco@ebay]

---

@ducatimondo wrote:

Good afternoon Team,

We are experiencing some really bad weather again here in the UK.
When will eBay do anything about adjusting the estimated delivery times to compensate for that or otherwise make an announcement of some sort?

I have been checking some of our listings and they show as delivery on Friday - Saturday for Royal Mail 48, even though it is after our cutoff for same day shipping. That is therefore showing a 1-2 day delivery estimate.

Considering we are not getting most of our deliveries from courier or Royal Mail and Royal Mail didn't make our collection at all yesterday, due to the weather, then when are eBay going to pay attention to the weather and DO something?

Or are eBay just going to close the gate after the horse has bolted and just blame the sellers for "not shipping on time" as they usually do?

Thanks
Russ

---

Hi ducatimondo, thanks for your question.

At the moment we have no confirmation on this, but we normally evaluate these situations, and the if needed we will announce a protection plan for the impacted areas like we have done before. Just keep an eye out on your notifications or here in the community as we will communicate to users that way as usual.

Thank you,

Marco

[bobsbrickstuff]

International Postage has been broken for months, unable to purchase any Royal Mail labels for parcels.

Now from the Buy Labels in Bulk page, it asks you to enter the dimensions, but the price stays at that for standard letter, making it possible to buy the wrong postage when you think you've entered the right information.

It's still impossible to buy Royal Mail labels for small and medium packages. Is there any progress being made on this issue?

[darth_baggins]

Any chance of getting order details on eBay messages from customers back? It's a basic requirement that was removed for no reason.

I know it's been fed back to 'the team' but this was months ago and we're still stuck with this abomination that is totally useless.

It would be nice if posting in this weekly chat actually got some results, because honestly, I've never really had anything other than 'thanks for the feedback, we'll send it to the team'.

Time to show some teeth community team and start fighting for these things that sellers ask you every week. Chase 'the team' up, give us some updates, pester them on our behalf.

Otherwise you may as well just cancel the chats because they're mostly useless.

[dubby013]

I'm in the UK. My account was taken over by a hacker Feb last year. After lots of calls to Customer service Agents, I got it back, but with the negative balance that the Hacker fruadulantly caused.
With many further calls to Ebay Agents, who promised it will be dealt with and returned to a zero balance. Just before Christmas, I had a no-reply email from Ebay, demanding I pay the balance or it will passed to a Debt collection agency. So now I am being harassed, and the stress is affecting my health.
I need to put all this in writing via an email to Ebay Appeals Dept, but customer service say can't be emailed.
Can anyone please help me find an ebay email address to a department that can help.
Thank you
Tom (dubby013)

[bobsbrickstuff]

Deleting a listing variation doesn't work. A couple of weeks ago it took an hour to add one item to a listing, because it kept on readding items back that I sold and deleted from the listing months ago. My original post on the issue was made over 6 months ago and has since been archived.

https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Technical-Issues/Bug-when-deleting-listing-variations-entries-not-ac...

[marco@ebay]

---

@bobsbrickstuff wrote:

International Postage has been broken for months, unable to purchase any Royal Mail labels for parcels.

Now from the Buy Labels in Bulk page, it asks you to enter the dimensions, but the price stays at that for standard letter, making it possible to buy the wrong postage when you think you've entered the right information.

It's still impossible to buy Royal Mail labels for small and medium packages. Is there any progress being made on this issue?

---

Hi bobsbrickstuff, thanks for your question. 

I haven't seen any threads recently on this, do you have a couple of examples that you could share with us, so we can report it to our technical team for review?

Thank you,

Marco

[kat@ebay]

---

@10.20 wrote:

Why does eBay make people provide so much information to the seller (apart from it being a very old form which looks like it needs updating) when replying to classified ads on eBay, which I think is a security risk, (email full name phone number postcode and user id) especially as they are often high value items - cars and camper vans, fake sellers can use this info to impersonate peoples bank. No other classified ad sites send that much info about the buyer.

---

Hi @10.20 ,

They would ask for the details required to facilitate a sale between the buyer and seller.  It allows the seller to be able to communicate with the buyer usually to arrange collection for those type of items.  It is not within eBay's control if a seller has intentions to misuse the information provided.

Thank you,

Kat

[marco@ebay]

---

@darth_baggins wrote:

Any chance of getting order details on eBay messages from customers back? It's a basic requirement that was removed for no reason.

I know it's been fed back to 'the team' but this was months ago and we're still stuck with this abomination that is totally useless.

It would be nice if posting in this weekly chat actually got some results, because honestly, I've never really had anything other than 'thanks for the feedback, we'll send it to the team'.

Time to show some teeth community team and start fighting for these things that sellers ask you every week. Chase 'the team' up, give us some updates, pester them on our behalf.

Otherwise you may as well just cancel the chats because they're mostly useless.

---

Hi darth_baggins, thanks for your input.

We do share feedback, but sharing feedback doesn't necessarily means that all feedback that is provided here will be adopted or implemented. However, it is taken into consideration. You're more than welcome to keep sharing your feedback with us if you wish, but again, please note that doesn't necessarily mean that all suggestions will be implemented.

Thank you,

Marco

[kempseykate]

Any update as to when we can expect an announcement about the mandatory Simple Delivery for private sellers as announced by the CEO in October, please?

I have already taken the decision not to buy on here any longer, I would quite like to know if it will still be possible for me to sell on here ASAP.

[kat@ebay]

---

@dubby013 wrote:

I'm in the UK. My account was taken over by a hacker Feb last year. After lots of calls to Customer service Agents, I got it back, but with the negative balance that the Hacker fruadulantly caused.
With many further calls to Ebay Agents, who promised it will be dealt with and returned to a zero balance. Just before Christmas, I had a no-reply email from Ebay, demanding I pay the balance or it will passed to a Debt collection agency. So now I am being harassed, and the stress is affecting my health.
I need to put all this in writing via an email to Ebay Appeals Dept, but customer service say can't be emailed.
Can anyone please help me find an ebay email address to a department that can help.
Thank you
Tom (dubby013)

---

Hi @dubby013 ,

Thank you for reaching out.  I will need to check into the details for this. I will follow up offline and then  update you.

Thank you,

Kat

[ducatimondo]

---

marco@ebay wrote:

---

@ducatimondo wrote:

Good afternoon Team,

We are experiencing some really bad weather again here in the UK.
When will eBay do anything about adjusting the estimated delivery times to compensate for that or otherwise make an announcement of some sort?

I have been checking some of our listings and they show as delivery on Friday - Saturday for Royal Mail 48, even though it is after our cutoff for same day shipping. That is therefore showing a 1-2 day delivery estimate.

Considering we are not getting most of our deliveries from courier or Royal Mail and Royal Mail didn't make our collection at all yesterday, due to the weather, then when are eBay going to pay attention to the weather and DO something?

Or are eBay just going to close the gate after the horse has bolted and just blame the sellers for "not shipping on time" as they usually do?

Thanks
Russ

---

Hi ducatimondo, thanks for your question.

At the moment we have no confirmation on this, but we normally evaluate these situations, and the if needed we will announce a protection plan for the impacted areas like we have done before. Just keep an eye out on your notifications or here in the community as we will communicate to users that way as usual.

Thank you,

Marco

---

Good afternoon Marco,

Thank you for your reply.

Your reply, disappointingly suggests that eBay are going to do the second of what I said in my question.

The estimated delivery times could easily be lengthened, to add a few more days on.

That would reassure sellers that eBay do care about them, even slightly.

Doing nothing however makes us all think that you do not care about either buyers or sellers.

Both need to feel like they have a good experience.

Sellers will not have a good experience when we are bombarded with "where's my stuff" messages in the coming days.

Buyers will not have a good experience when they do not get items when they expect them.

As it is, buyers always blame the seller when something does not arrive as quickly as expected and usually starts with "you said it would be here by ** date and it hasn't arrived".

eBay need more transparency that it is eBay that are in control and 100% responsible for the estimated delivery times.

I for one am sick of the flack, when eBay can't successfully add 2 numbers together to get a fair estimate.

This is worsened when all delivery services throughout the whole country are unpredictable and yet, eBay do nothing to help.

Please help with more than "we may or may not do something at some point, perhaps, maybe"

Thank you
Russ

[bobsbrickstuff]

My original post about international shipping being broken. The tech team have acknowledged the issue to me in email, and separately to Kat, but aside from that we're in the dark about it all.

https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Seller-Central/Unable-to-purchase-International-shipping-for-any-par...

Someone else's post on the letter dimensions

https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Technical-Issues/Change-to-royal-mail-shipping-labels-for-internatio...

[marco@ebay]

---

@bobsbrickstuff wrote:

Deleting a listing variation doesn't work. A couple of weeks ago it took an hour to add one item to a listing, because it kept on readding items back that I sold and deleted from the listing months ago. My original post on the issue was made over 6 months ago and has since been archived.

https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Technical-Issues/Bug-when-deleting-listing-variations-entries-not-ac...

---

Hi bobsbrickstuff, thanks for your question.

I will look into it for you no problem. After the chat, I will get back to you in that thread you left there.

Thank you,

Marco

[kat@ebay]

---

@kempseykate wrote:

Any update as to when we can expect an announcement about the mandatory Simple Delivery for private sellers as announced by the CEO in October, please?

I have already taken the decision not to buy on here any longer, I would quite like to know if it will still be possible for me to sell on here ASAP.

---

Hi @kempseykate ,

Thank you for following up. We don't have confirmation on that as of yet. Once there is an update we will share it with you.

Thank you,

Kat

[10.20]

Hi Cat, but we can communicate via eBay's messaging system, it's unnecessary to provide all the information the form requires in the first instance, a phone number is the most that is needed, eBay needs to act responsibly and protect peoples information due to the large number of fake classified ads posted in the vehicles section and financial frauds going on online generally. The form fills that info in and makes you include it when replying to a classified ad. It is completely unnecessary.

[marco@ebay]

---

@ducatimondo wrote:

---

marco@ebay wrote:

---

@ducatimondo wrote:

Good afternoon Team,

We are experiencing some really bad weather again here in the UK.
When will eBay do anything about adjusting the estimated delivery times to compensate for that or otherwise make an announcement of some sort?

I have been checking some of our listings and they show as delivery on Friday - Saturday for Royal Mail 48, even though it is after our cutoff for same day shipping. That is therefore showing a 1-2 day delivery estimate.

Considering we are not getting most of our deliveries from courier or Royal Mail and Royal Mail didn't make our collection at all yesterday, due to the weather, then when are eBay going to pay attention to the weather and DO something?

Or are eBay just going to close the gate after the horse has bolted and just blame the sellers for "not shipping on time" as they usually do?

Thanks
Russ

---

Hi ducatimondo, thanks for your question.

At the moment we have no confirmation on this, but we normally evaluate these situations, and the if needed we will announce a protection plan for the impacted areas like we have done before. Just keep an eye out on your notifications or here in the community as we will communicate to users that way as usual.

Thank you,

Marco

---

Good afternoon Marco,

Thank you for your reply.

Your reply, disappointingly suggests that eBay are going to do the second of what I said in my question.

The estimated delivery times could easily be lengthened, to add a few more days on.

That would reassure sellers that eBay do care about them, even slightly.

Doing nothing however makes us all think that you do not care about either buyers or sellers.

Both need to feel like they have a good experience.

Sellers will not have a good experience when we are bombarded with "where's my stuff" messages in the coming days.

Buyers will not have a good experience when they do not get items when they expect them.

As it is, buyers always blame the seller when something does not arrive as quickly as expected and usually starts with "you said it would be here by ** date and it hasn't arrived".

eBay need more transparency that it is eBay that are in control and 100% responsible for the estimated delivery times.

I for one am sick of the flack, when eBay can't successfully add 2 numbers together to get a fair estimate.

This is worsened when all delivery services throughout the whole country are unpredictable and yet, eBay do nothing to help.

Please help with more than "we may or may not do something at some point, perhaps, maybe"

Thank you
Russ

---

Thanks for your reply, bobsbrickstuff.

Since we have no further information on this for the moment, I'm afraid that's all I can share with you at the moment. 

Thanks,

Marco

[kat@ebay]

---

@bobsbrickstuff wrote:

My original post about international shipping being broken. The tech team have acknowledged the issue to me in email, and separately to Kat, but aside from that we're in the dark about it all.

https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Seller-Central/Unable-to-purchase-International-shipping-for-any-par...

Someone else's post on the letter dimensions

https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Technical-Issues/Change-to-royal-mail-shipping-labels-for-internatio...

---

Hi @bobsbrickstuff ,

With regards to the international shipping labels one it is as you have mentioned logged with tech. Its still being worked on at the moment. Once there is a further update on it I will reply back to the original thread.

Thank you,

Kat