Hi all
To give some background - my seller rating has recently dropped to below standard - this was due to me dispatching 60x auction items 2 days late...
I had 60x auctions all individually ending on a Sunday evening - but they were unfortunately not dispatched until the following Wednesday - I had my auctions setup to have the items dispatched within 1 day. So far - if I was reading this as well - I would state that follows guidelines as to receiving a defect as the dispatch was 2 days late
However - during those auctions - which were 10 day auctions - I unfortunately lost my mum. So during this time, I didn't have the time - nor the mindset - to come onto eBay and pause the auctions before they ended. Once they did end - I asked my wife to kindly message all of the buyers on the Monday afternoon to state that there will be a delay in me getting their items to them, and the reason why - everyone replied and was happy for the items to be received late. My wife extremely kindly then spent the Tues/Weds packaging them up and posting them out on the Wednesday - 2 days late
I then - and rightly so - received strikes against my account as they were dispatched late - and also delivered late. I appealed the defects on my account - stating that these had now taken me into a below standard seller - I've never been below standard, in 20 years with eBay and with my feedback being 2,600 - I know my way around eBay. In each of the appeal boxes - I selected the mitigating circumstances - circumstances that meant I was unable to fulfil the dispatch of those 60 items on the day I said I would - and I entered into the comment boxes the - what I thought - was a valid reason as to why I was late dispatching the items
Within 5 minutes - they all came back declined. I think this was an automated process - and the generic message returned was that all items were dispatched late. Which... I know... thats why I appealed and gave you the reason as to why they were late
Sent a message to eBay customer service to again state the reason and mitigating circumstances as to why they were dispatched late, and was told that I couldn't appeal - the defects will remain on my account. Kindly informed me the only way I can become a standard seller again is to sell more items and dispatch them on time to get my defect rate down....
... but whilst I'm below standard, my search rankings are diminished as punishment and I have to pay extra fees on my items - which isn't currently making eBay a viable option for me
Has anyone else ever had this issue? I'm confused as to why eBay have a 'mitigating circumstances' option to select when appealing a defect, because, I feel that I had a reasonable and valid mitigating circumstance as to why it was delayed... but it was declined. I wonder what mitigating circumstances are actually approved by eBay!...
So - could be the end of my eBay journey - for now anyway - as I can't viably do business on here with diminished search results and extra fees...
