Ebay's response to Post Offices who refuse Simple Delivery packages with the wrong label on them

[wintersdawn1]

This was Ebay's response in the chat today:

[theelench]

Exactly that.

If it costs £3.71 with both carriers selected, why does it cost any more if only one is selected?

It's just another way for ebay to steer buyers toward whichever option makes ebay most money.  If a seller wants to use the other option, the buyer pays ebay more so that ebay makes its target level of profit per transaction. 

[akemp1]

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@theelench wrote:

If it costs £3.71 with both carriers selected, why does it cost any more if only one is selected?

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It's a penalty for not helping ebay towards it's massive spend commitment to Evri.

[incredible_how]

That's interesting about the top up - someone was saying in a thread that they had made a mistake but the post office wouldn't top it up. I thought they would...

[kath3735_wxmjn]

my local PO says they are just taking in the item and that any additional costs will be sorted out by RM at the other end (that is what he has been told to do).  Begs the question , does that mean RM will be asking the buyer for extra postage or going direct to E BAY.  I somehow cannot see how either of those scenarios would work out.

[wintersdawn1]

From the buyer perspective:  As the buyer bought the postage from ebay and trusted ebay's AI to get the postage right so ebay are responsible, even though RM will probably chase the buyer for the extra before giving them the package etc.

From the private seller perspective: Ebay have said if the private seller leaves it up to ebay's AI to get the postage correct and it turns out to be wrong, ebay say post it anyway and they will sort it out.  With ebay's AI at fault then RM should chase ebay and ebay make their AI better.

In both of the cases above the responsibility for wrong postage seems to be with ebay.  This situation may backfire on ebay as they wanted to take control of postage to make more money.

[incredible_how]

I think RM would be asking the buyer for the money (plus admin) if it is not right. I can't imagine RM going directly to ebay. 
I'm not listing medium parcel items at the moment.

[andha-21]

Unless they plan to use their cover caveats/exclusions/disclaimers etc

[wintersdawn1]

Yes, the usual process is RM ask the recipient of the package for the extra postage if it's under but as the buyer bought the postage from ebay the buyer could raise this with ebay as they set the postage, the same as they would if it was a private/business seller who got the postage wrong.

[sml192]

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@kath3735_wxmjn wrote:

my local PO says they are just taking in the item and that any additional costs will be sorted out by RM at the other end (that is what he has been told to do).  Begs the question , does that mean RM will be asking the buyer for extra postage or going direct to E BAY.  I somehow cannot see how either of those scenarios would work out.

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Any surcharges/penalties will just be charged directly to eBay's Royal Mail business account at the end of each month. 

[vinylscot]

I think eBay will honour all RM claims for underpayment and INRs/damaged deliveries.

Look how much they are making from EVERY private sale - 75p BPF, plus well over £1.00 profit for every single parcel that goes by SD. That's without even adding the 4% buyers' commission, the cash amount of which varies with the amount the item sold for.

They will have this built into their calculations, but even if there were claims of some sort on, say 10% of ALL packages, eBay would still make a tidy profit. Of course, if the figure got anywhere near that, eBay would re-configure the terms, or make some other changes.

This is going badly enough; do you think they would exacerbate things by knocking back claims?

In "real life" there should only be claims on a tiny minority of cases, probably well under 1%, though there may be a few teething problems at first, until the RM contract settles down, and people stop trying to exploit some of the obvious loopholes in the system.

[kath3735_wxmjn]

cannot see many buyers being happy about being forced to cough up extra money to get their parcel and then try to get it back from e bay if that is what will happen.

[sml192]

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@kath3735_wxmjn wrote:

cannot see many buyers being happy about being forced to cough up extra money to get their parcel and then try to get it back from e bay if that is what will happen.

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Buyers won't be asked to pay any extra.  The items will be delivered as normal and any surcharges will just be charged directly to eBay's Royal Mail business account. 

[9150simon]

Previously any items that were overweight / underpaid with RM, would have been thrown out by the sorting machines and could languish in their system for days until the buyer paid the excess fee.  Now what will happen if only a small % are incorrect, the logistics of RM keeping track of all of these underpaid items could be staggering.

I have worked for RM and nothing happens quickly or easily so it is going to be very interesting over the next few weeks to see what comes of all these shenanigans.

[vinylscot]

If you have worked for RM, you should have a better idea how contracts like this work. 

[cbclassicbuyer]

Main Post office in Horncastle, Lincolnshire, have had no notification from Ebay or the Post Office  re overweight /oversize parcels. I've just had an item refused. 

[9150simon]

What is baffling me is that the Post Office and Royal Mail are separately run now , so any agreement with RM is not an agreement with the PO's. 

"Royal Mail and the Post Office are separate companies with independent Boards. Royal Mail is the company that delivers parcels and letters – the provider of the universal postal service. The Post Office is the nationwide network of branches offering a range of postal, Government and financial services."

Changing things within RM is a bit like steering the proverbial battleship, things take time to filter through and although I haven't worked in the sorting offices, I do know that if underpaid / wrongly weighed parcels are going through, they will be taken out of the system and I don't see how weights and costs are going to be amalgamated from all of the sorting offices to be charged to ebay.  Meanwhile I can see lots of late deliveries and unhappy buyers.

[incredible_how]

In theory it's only oversize as Simple Delivery has weight categories to choose from is that right?

hope ebay have something helpful to say...

the post office are the gatekeepers for royal mail.
I'm definitely not listing any medium parcels at the moment.