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:

[thetrackz]

..and the Post Offices will just opt out of the whole thing. Crazy.

[papso22]

Ouch!  I hope they have made sure the communication is up to scratch.  The funny thing is that it's not really a PO problem as they are not the ones carrying the under paid for parcels.

[wintersdawn1]

It was posted on here that one post office is refusing all ebay packages with the wrong label, wonder what ebay will do if this is reported back to them...

[buffster1963]

And yet all day i have been hearing that the post offices are refusing them. 

[lucy_farmer]

Oh dear.

Did ebay actually *ask* any post offices?

Another thread this afternoon, says post office staff have been told to *refuse* wrong-label parcels....

This really is a massive male-chicken-up. A complete bin-fire and cluster-fart.

[deanem72]

Post offices Response to eBay

Nah, s*d off

[wintersdawn1]

Apparently there is an agreement in place that post offices must accept simple delivery packages even if the wrong postage label is on them:

[deanem72]

or so eBay state

If that is the case then why not show the actual agreement they have with the PO??  and does it apply to all contracted out shops as well?

Or do they have an agreement with someone else? RM who have nothing to do with local post offices?

[wintersdawn1]

The content or scope of the agreement didn't come up in the chat but marco said there is an agreement so it must be a written contract etc.

[jma2815]

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@wintersdawn1 wrote:

It was posted on here that one post office is refusing all ebay packages with the wrong label, wonder what ebay will do if this is reported back to them...

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On Monday this week my local post office refused a parcel for being the wrong size for the QR code I had. (It wasn’t SD, I’d bought the label on click and drop and weighed but forgot to measure, so my fault).

I was told I could buy another ‘top up’ label to take it into the next price bracket (and it would then have two tracking numbers for the postie to choose from on delivery 🥺) or take it home and repack it, which is what I did. 

I couldn’t have started trying to tell the postmistress ‘well ebay say you HAVE to take it’ - can you imagine?! 

[deanem72]

and of course what Marco said must be correct.  

Call me naive, but honestly I dont trust what someone said in chat to be fact, unless they can prove it or have documents to back it up.  

If there is an agreement surely this would have been mentioned in the promotions they have done for SD, showing that all PO will accept mislabelled parcels sent via SD

[wintersdawn1]

I think that a private seller that takes a package to the post office with the wrong simple delivery postage label on it will have to be given, by ebay, the specific response they should give to the post person, such as reminding them of the agreement they have with ebay to accept all such packages or else....!   

[jma2815]

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@wintersdawn1 wrote:

The content or scope of the agreement didn't come up in the chat but marco said there is an agreement so it must be a written contract etc.

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I’d like Marco to go and tell that to the lady who runs my village post office in rural Morayshire (Inverness). It would be a very quick conversation. 

[andha-21]

@wintersdawn1 

I read the screenshots and most of the posts.

You do realise he told you nothing?

The summary of his response was;

"If they don't accept it, tellus and we can report it"

Umm, great!

So how does that help the seller?

So how does that help the seller actually post it in the fictional 3 days turnaround when going by eBay's own EDD's it has to be there in 3 days.

He told you nothing.

[wintersdawn1]

A reply in the chat was posted asking how this will help the seller that has a package to send, but it was removed.

[brookheather]

I don't think marco@ebay.co.uk understands the difference between Royal Mail and the Post Office... I don't see why eBay would have any commercial relationship with the Post Office - surely they only deal with RM.  Without a direct relationship they can only ask RM to ask PO to accept parcels which is not going to happen.

My solution to this mess is that eBay need to use the same postage option that CeX use when you sell them some items - you just get a label that is valid for any medium parcel for up to 20 Kg weight - no need to worry about parcel size or weight.  eBay could then charge the buyer what they think it costs but the seller just gets a simple label to use on their parcel.

[cbclassicbuyer]

He also used the word 'should' somewhere earlier on 🤔🤔🤔🤔

[wintersdawn1]

eBay's SD terms say if their AI gets the weight/measurements wrong i.e wrong label produced, eBay say it's still ok to send it and they will sort it out but if the private seller gets it wrong then they have to pay.

If the seller leaves it up to the AI and the AI is not very good there could be lots of heated scenes in post offices across the U.K.

Hypothetical (but very possible) post office scenario:

Seller: A parcel to send please

PO: I'm sorry but this label isn't correct for this parcel

Seller: It's ok eBay have an agreement you've got to accept it, Marco said.

PO: I don't know this Marco person or the agreement to which you refer and I'm not accepting this parcel.

[vinylscot]

A major flaw in Marco's response was that he used the phrase "once in goes live". It may not be compulsory and universal yet, but it has been "live" for quite some time.

I'm inclined to believe there is an agreement of some sort between eBay and RM/PO (they would be mad to claim there was, if there wasn't), and I've posted more at length about that in another thread, but it's obviously not clear to all parties what that agreement is.