💬 Weekly Chat with the eBay Community Team- 16.11.22 @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 , dave@ebay  and katie@ebay . Between us, we have knowledge in Buying, Selling, ProTrader, Fulfilment, Parts & Accessories, 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. 

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. 

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

[hill-walker]

Hi guys.

As I'm sure you will be aware, from the many posts on the discussion boards,

(e.g. this thread: https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Seller-Central/Reporting-Scam-buyers/m-p/7321812#M622566)

many sellers are getting bombarded with off-eBay offers, requests for email addresses, Paypal addresses, etc. from obvious scammers, the vast majority, having set up a new account that very day.

Can you please explain to me, why it is so easy for potential scam buyers to open one account, after another, after another?

Why is there not a working verification system in place to prevent this from happening?

What is the correct procedure to follow, to have eBay shut down these scammers, and prevent them simply opening new accounts?

Thanks,

Steve

[kat@ebay]

---

@hill-walker wrote:

Hi guys.

As I'm sure you will be aware, from the many posts on the discussion boards,

(e.g. this thread: https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Seller-Central/Reporting-Scam-buyers/m-p/7321812#M622566)

many sellers are getting bombarded with off-eBay offers, requests for email addresses, Paypal addresses, etc. from obvious scammers, the vast majority, having set up a new account that very day.

Can you please explain to me, why it is so easy for potential scam buyers to open one account, after another, after another?

Why is there not a working verification system in place to prevent this from happening?

What is the correct procedure to follow, to have eBay shut down these scammers, and prevent them simply opening new accounts?

Thanks,

Steve

---

Hi @hill-walker ,

This time of year can increase the number of people attempting fraud and they often come up with new ways of doing this.

There is background verification checks performed by eBay that do catch potential fraud accounts.  While they do pick up on alot of these type of accounts they don't always get every account each time.   The best course of action is to report these accounts to eBay through either report a listing way or through customer support phone/chat. This way they can be sent to our risk teams for review and the correct action can be taken.

Thank you,

Kat

[hill-walker]

But these are BUYERS Kat, so no listings to report.

Do you seriously expect us to spend hours each day, talking to your reps to get something done?

Surely there must be a way to flag these scammers quickly and efficiently to eBay; if not, there should be.

These pondlife are only continuing to do this because, for them, it works. That means YOUR members getting scammed 😞

[hill-walker]

---

kat@ebay wrote:

---

There is background verification checks performed by eBay that do catch potential fraud accounts. 

---

Yet the scammers are opening new accounts daily... how, if your checks are working?

[bekia]

Have managed payments reverted back to 24 hours processing for orders. Since 3pm yesterday my payments are taking longer to process. Yesterday morning's orders all processed straightaway and were paid in my payout this morning. Everything after 3pm yesterday has processed this morning and none of today's orders have processed at all. All today's orders have a processing date of tomorrow. If this a change since yesterday afternoon it would have been nice to have been informed. If it is a technical issue please could it be investigated. 

[kat@ebay]

---

@hill-walker wrote:

But these are BUYERS Kat, so no listings to report.

Do you seriously expect us to spend hours each day, talking to your reps to get something done?

Surely there must be a way to flag these scammers quickly and efficiently to eBay; if not, there should be.

These pondlife are only continuing to do this because, for them, it works. That means YOUR members getting scammed 😞

---

Hi @hill-walker ,

I appreciate users don't want to have spend time reporting buyers but if they come across them then that is what they need to do.There is a huge amount of volume on the eBay platform and it does mean that while we do our utmost to catch as many accounts as possible its not always possible to catch everyone. 

We will share the examples of fraud accounts with our risk teams so they can continue to improve their process.

Thank you,

Kat

[hill-walker]

Well, might I make a suggestion then please?

In much the same way as you  put a "Was there a problem with this purchase" link up, for buyers, let's have a "Report a security concern" link on seller's Order Details, that links straight to your "Trust and Safety" dept?

Could save victims £1000s 

[dave@ebay]

---

community-team@ebay wrote:

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 , dave@ebay  and katie@ebay . Between us, we have knowledge in Buying, Selling, ProTrader, Fulfilment, Parts & Accessories, 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. 

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. 

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

---

Hi @bekia 

Thanks for reaching out. 

It can normally take up to 24hrs to process payments. I linked in with the payments team to see if there are any other reports of this and this seems to be the only report so far. 

I can see this was already escalated to be investigated and we will keep you updated of any progress. 

Thanks,

Dave

[pigeon396]

I have asked the seller to make a partial refund because the item was faulty and was also delivered later than estimated due to not using 1st class post which was stated on the listing. the seller says i have to return the item but due to the inaccuracies in the listing ie not making clear the item was faulty, the condition of the item and also the change in postal service used, the seller is deceitful. because of that i have requested a partial refund instead of returning the item as i get the impression the seller would be likely to dispute the case as they have already lied about the condition of the item and the postage. it is easier to keep or throw away the item and ask for the return postage cost instead. how do i get the partial refund i asked for which is in lieu of and approximately equivalent to the cost of returning the item. the seller has already asked for the item to be returned but instead of  this i will take the postage cost instead as a resolution because the seller is deceitful and untrustworthy.

[lotsauctions]

On 27th october, via chat, I reported a techinical issue :- the Managing Orders screen for items waiting to be dispatched does not show the correct 'Sold Date'. It shows the Date Buyer Paid in both fields.  I even uploaded screenshots clearly showing this fault.  But is still exists and makes handling order very difficult.  Are you still working on it and is there a time scale for correction. Thanks. Anne

[ducatimondo]

When are eBay going to do anything about all of the duplicate listing sellers in the motorcycle vehicle parts categories.

Been asking eBay CS on the phone for more than 5 years to do something about it, to date nothing has been done worth noting.

I asked about it a few weeks ago on this chat, but the question was not ackowleged and the chat ended before anyone said anything about it.

Bit pointless having this feature if you ask a question and the conversation ends at 3pm, whether solved or not.

Surely you can contact me directly to discuss and I can give millions of examples, not an exageration.

Regards

Russ

[1antique2vintagechic]

Out of 100+ items for sale I have noticed for a long time now, on a daily basis that only 30-35 items appear to have a view(the majority being 1 view). 
also a maximum of three items sold per month (and this has been going on for over a year).

I have not had any proper response from customer service when contacted, 

[kat@ebay]

---

@pigeon396 wrote:

I have asked the seller to make a partial refund because the item was faulty and was also delivered later than estimated due to not using 1st class post which was stated on the listing. the seller says i have to return the item but due to the inaccuracies in the listing ie not making clear the item was faulty, the condition of the item and also the change in postal service used, the seller is deceitful. because of that i have requested a partial refund instead of returning the item as i get the impression the seller would be likely to dispute the case as they have already lied about the condition of the item and the postage. it is easier to keep or throw away the item and ask for the return postage cost instead. how do i get the partial refund i asked for which is in lieu of and approximately equivalent to the cost of returning the item. the seller has already asked for the item to be returned but instead of  this i will take the postage cost instead as a resolution because the seller is deceitful and untrustworthy.

---

Hi @pigeon396 ,

The seller may want the item to be returned due to wanting to check it and doing this can result in a full refund for you. While this is not an ideal situation ultimately eBay cannot force the seller to give a partial refund.  While you can try and work this out with the seller and ask them to go the partial refund route they do not have to do this.  

Thank you,

Kat

[bekia]

Thanks for that, mine have cleared straightaway for at least the last 18 months so I'm not sure why this has changed all of a sudden. It's really mucked up my finances for the next couple of days.

[kat@ebay]

---

@lotsauctions wrote:

On 27th october, via chat, I reported a techinical issue :- the Managing Orders screen for items waiting to be dispatched does not show the correct 'Sold Date'. It shows the Date Buyer Paid in both fields.  I even uploaded screenshots clearly showing this fault.  But is still exists and makes handling order very difficult.  Are you still working on it and is there a time scale for correction. Thanks. Anne

---

Hi @lotsauctions,

We haven't had reports of this specific issue here. Do you have a reference or ticket info number from the 27th of October that you can give me and I will follow up offline.

Thank you,

Kat

[ducatimondo]

When are eBay going to make the vehicle parts compatibility tool work properly on the app.

I asked about this last time I posted questions a few weeks ago too and the answer was posted to say it would be forwarded to the team.

If they don't know what is wrong with it, then it will never be fixed.

As an actual expert in vehicle parts, I would need to explain it to an expert in that department at eBay.

But there is no possibility to report technical issues to eBay or speak to technical teams, so nothing will ever get solved as who you explain it to will not necessarily understand what is wrong or be able to explain it to who needs to hear it.

Yet again, a daft way of doing things, when something works, the team that can fix it need to hear it straight from the proverbial horses mouth what is wrong in order to fix what is wrong.

Can someone contact us to help get the issue solved.

This, as my last question are at the heart of a good buyer experience. So it is somewhat a quandary that we are all trying to elevate that, yet can't due to some shortcomings beyond our control.

Regards
Russ

[lotsauctions]

Hi Kat.  Hope this helps:-

Customer Service Chat Transcript - SR# 1-456538893291

Thanks, Anne

[ducatimondo]

When are eBay going to address the issue that our contact telephone number, landline phone, was replaced with a mobile number when we were obligated to add a mobile number for these verification text messages you added months ago.

I have asked CS for help on this more times than I can remember, but nothing has happened.

eBay treat all accounts as being the same when they implement policy changes such as this and usually always biased towards small sellers or more accurately private accounts. They probably use only a mobile phone and not more. A limited company registered in England is obligated under English Law to have a landline telephone number they can be reached at.

So when they added this feature, the mobile number added for verification replaced the only other contact number on the account; as eBay did not make a place for a second phone number...

So now when eBay try to contact our limited company, they ring my own personal mobile, on occasion as late as around around 10pm...

This needs fixing, as you are using contact details for otherwise than intended when the information was  requested by eBay.

Again, this will time out before an answer is provided and I have a chance to reply, so please contact me directly to resolve this issue.

Regards

Russ

[kat@ebay]

---

@1antique2vintagechic wrote:

Out of 100+ items for sale I have noticed for a long time now, on a daily basis that only 30-35 items appear to have a view(the majority being 1 view). 
also a maximum of three items sold per month (and this has been going on for over a year).

I have not had any proper response from customer service when contacted, 

---

Hi @1antique2vintagechic ,

Ebay has recently changed how it counts views on listings. It now filters out non human traffic and displays a 30 day rolling count of listing views instead of a lifetime count. Due to this many users have noticed a lower number of views due to the non human traffic being removed.

In terms of sales it may be worth having a look at optimising your listings which can include removing some stagnant listings. Please see more info here and here.

Thank you,

Kat