Simple Delivery - not so Simple

[smile29y]

I am a private seller and have sold around 20 or so items this year, all £20 to £30 range and have had no problems with Simple Delivery, in fact up until now have quite liked the way it works. Last week I listed one of my rings for £180 and it sold today, but Ebay has managed the postage and the buyer has paid for the postage, but I now have a label for Royal Mail that is 48 tracked. I would never send by tracked as RM advise to send by Guaranteed Delivery 1.00pm, but I have no way of cancelling this label. Having read the Ebay T&Cs they elude to the fact that it is covered by the Ebay selling guarantee, but are Ebay really going to cover the value if its lost?

Desperate to know as I have to post to the buyer on Monday 

[tressygirl]

Not sure that jewellery is covered by Simple Delivery postage.

Use your preferred method and the label generated by SD can be cancelled and refunded to whoever paid for the label.

• If you selected 'Buyer pays’ when you created the listing, your buyer will automatically be refunded for any Simple Delivery label that isn’t used after 30 days

• If you selected ‘Seller pays’ and offered free postage on your listing, you'll need to fill out the Request a refund for Simple Delivery form for the label that wasn’t used. Make sure to send your request within 14 days of your item selling.  Also ensure you add the replacement tracking number of the service used, and it shows delivery.

You can then manually update your tracking this way:

• Go to "Orders Paid & Dispatched"
• Click on "View order details"
• Within the "Postage" section there's a small dropdown arrow next to "Track Package" - click on that.
• Click on the "Add tracking" option
• A box will come up with the current tracking number . Delete that and replace it with your tracking.

Use a laptop / PC to manage this,  Chrome seems to work well with eBay.

@smile29y 

[smile29y]

Thank you for the update, but have since spoken to Ebay and have confirmed I can send jewellery through Ebay up to a value of £750 using Simple Delivery. The postage contract is then between the Buyer and Ebay and the buyer is paying a Buyers Protection Fee which provides Insurance against loss or damage in the post - so no impact on the seller.

[**peaseblossom**]

Jewellery is excluded from Simple Delivery buyer/seller protection cover.   eBay Customer Service don't always get things right.  Unless they've changed it of course but I wouldn't bank on that.

[smile29y]

I've searched across Ebay to confirm that and I cannot find reference to Ebay excluding Jewellery from the cover, I have also asked AI the question and AI confirmed what Ebay were saying when I spoke to an operator. I have kept the conversation transcript as proof as well as the AI searches - all confirm that Jewellery up to £750 are covered under the buyers protection fee so I feel assured that they would not recover the money from me - but would loose my business after 25 years of using them if they did!!

[**peaseblossom**]

Scroll down to "Restricted or prohibited items" on here:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/selling/posting-items/setting-postage-options/simple-delivery?id=5575
Restricted or prohibited items > The following items aren't allowed to be posted with Simple Delivery: valuables, including, but not limited to, jewellery, watches, gems, precious metals, real pearls, silver and gold.

[smile29y]

How crazy can it be, do you think Ebay will get this corrected on their helpdesk given the way its misleading users. If you AI the question about sending jewellery through Ebay, it clearly states using the Simple Delivery process. If you then Google as a Private Seller Ebay doesn't provide Special Delivery through its Simple Delivery postage how do I send Jewellery, it states clearly that they produce a tracked label to use and its safe to do so as long as the value is under £750 - as the buyer has bought buyer protection.

Then you speak to the Ebay helpdesk and they tell you exactly the same and I then ased for them to send that in writing, to which I get a segment of text saying its covered by Buyers Protection.

You then send me a link to an Ebay page that specifically says the opposite. 

Further, the other restricted and prohibited items in their list I tried to list and all got barred with comments about the items being on the prohibited list (I tried a penknife, an item containing the words Nazi, etc..) and all were barred, yet with jewellery they accept the listing and will produce a shipping label. I have now resorted to sending the item on a Special Delivery even though the buyer has paid for the label and will do the same for the other over £50 item - I'm so glad its only these two items that I'm trying to sell.

This is absolutely diabolical service, to leave users in limbo - I've been a user of Ebay for 25 years and have never sen such poor communication. How do we get Ebay to unravel this mess and inform users correct on what they can and cannot do with valuables!! Is there a fast track reporting channel to get someone to look at this that you know of? Thank you for your help...

[papso22]

You have to believe the published policy and not the ebay agent.  Unfortunately they are wrong about jewellery being covered.

They are also wrong about buyer protection,  it has nothing whatever to do with protecting buyers from delivery issues.  Again, what it does do is made clear in the published guidance about the buyer protection fee. 

marco@ebay is there need for some agent education here?

[jckl1957]

I have asked for a response from the Community Team on this post - you may find it useful to read   

Re: Simple delivery of Gold jewellery

@smile29y

[smile29y]

I understand, but they therefore also need to either bar the listing of jewellery at the early stage of trying to complete a listing as they do with all other restricted and prohibited items and clearly publish why there has been such a change in policy as I have sold jewellery through Ebay for over 10 years now and cannot believe that there are so many Ebay private sellers still currently listing on Ebay - this needs to ripple to the top of the chain in Ebay before it creates a major issue.

[smile29y]

Hi jck1957,

I have read through the Simple Delivery policy and understand what Ebay are saying, but why are they therefore not blocking listings as they do with other prohibited items - try listing a blade and you are met with clear message highlighted in red that stops you from committing a listing and that applies to all the other restricted and prohibited items I've tried. Further, they then create a postage charge for the buyer and allow the seller to produce a label. Ebay, by all of its actions is really compounding the problem. 

Where are AI platforms getting their information from (I know you cannot trust AI, but it only creates its response from other published information?). I have items that are now completing over the next 5 days and three of them fall into this category, the poor buyer is going to pay for a service I cannot use and I have to pay out for Special Delivery which I might not get back from the buyer - I shall be making a claim from Ebay for this added cost due to their very bad communications. Finally if I cannot list jewellery, why does Ebay also have a page on how to list jewellery and how to package it - nowhere on that page does it say its prohibited in any shape, fashion or form!!

[jckl1957]

Listing and selling jewellery is NOT prohibited.

Currently, it is on the prohibited list for sending with Ebay Simple Delivery.

The only way you will get your postage cost back from Ebay is if you list items as free postage/seller pays.

Then, if you use Special Delivery, Ebay will refund the cost of the Simple Delivery labels so you would make a loss on the postage.

If items are listed as buyer pays for postage and you don't use the label, the buyer will be refunded the postage cost and you won't get anything back for the Special Delivery labels you choose to buy.

[smile29y]

Hi Papso22,

Thank you for the prompt to read the published guidance on protecting buyers and can see its not included in the detail of what is covered.

I thought I would post you this though, while I was reading the page, I had a message from my buyer, who had contacted Ebay to confirm that they would be covered having only paid £3 for the postage and they were told Ebay would cover them. Further I had a message pop up on the conversation screen where I had been talking to the customer, the massage was from Ebay and read: "Your buyer has reached out about their order. Since you used Simple Delivery, we'll work with your buyer directly on any delivery related questions". Exactly part of the original message from the Ebay agent. I've also just been reading the page on how to sell and post Jewellery and there's no mention on that page about certain categories not being able to sell Jewellery!