Late delivery defects / royal mail not scanning

[wolfcycles]

Hello

We have recently had a barrage of late delivery defects taking us up to 4%, resulting in us being due to loose our top rated status this month. 

We have recently switched to Royal Mail as our default courier, but it appears they are regularly not scanning items until the day of delivery rather than the day they receive our parcel. Consequently, the late delivery defects we were previously getting struck through as we had dispatched the item on time, are now counting defects as eBay consider we have not dispatched the item until this first scan date, so we don't get our "on time dispatch waiver".

The 4% late delivery rate we now have reflects the percentage of parcel RM are delivering late (we very rarely have a genuine late dispatch).

Has anyone else found anything similar? I'm trying to explain the issue to eBay customer support but don't feel they really understand it. We can't easily just not upload tracking as we ship through 3rd party provider Veeqo and it is auto synced. 

Thank you

[mac-2567]

I am larger seller, maybe 1500 units a month - Same is now happening and only just spotted it
I am at 2.8% and about to lose my super seller status and this time it will likely close the business as things are challenging. I complained today and could not appeal any of the defects, the manifests it seems are not being recorded on my end on any day so its literally gonna become a problem in about a week with the same trajectory .. will update soon.

[smarts-gaming]

I had to exclude Royal Mail because stuff like this kept happening, or parcels getting lost. Funnily enough never had a single issue with Evri, super convenient. 

[redmoorvinyl]

I have exactly the same problem. The scanning of the manifest prompts each item to show as "Sender has despatched item" on the Royal Mail tracking. But eBay is ignoring that and taking the first scan at the Super Hub as their despatched time, which is clearly impossibe. I'm not taking items direct to the Super Hub, and certainly not at 4am! I'm at 2.5% late despatch as a result.

How do we get eBay to recogise this as a bug?

[classicgarms]

Hi, we are also having the same issue. Has anyone found a solution?

[mac-2567]

Its not a solution but i switched to 24hr ... i have eaten the cost maybe an extra £1000 in costs for nothing.

48hr sits in a bag until the day its being shipped, its not been scanned the day of arrival like 24hr - Im assuming its been left until the next day and only then is it being scanned which gives us a defect. 

[your-outlet-store]

oh no they wont. I have defects with Royal Mail delivery from orders on Saturday that were dispatched as per my policy on Monday. They refuse to remove the defects, even though I have paper proof of postage because they insist on delivery schedule is set to 0 days even though the post office is closed after 1pm on Saturday until Monday. ebay simply won't listen to reason - they blindly and stubbornly refuse to accept RM letters should default to delivery on Monday for weekend orders.  

[your-outlet-store]

Thank you for that explanation.  So depressing and frustrating that sellers get penalised and have to spend hours dealing with inaccurate defect just because ebay and RM's systems don't work and they are supposed to, and on top of that ebay reps refuse to recognise a problem that is widely known about amongst sellers and themselves.  Blind, arrogant and stubborn. 

[suelel1968]

Hi, I always ask for a call back from ebay and ask them ti send me a link so that ii can upload proof of postage. Once you have done that, the defect will be removed. Appreciate that business rules might be different. 

[your-outlet-store]

Tried all that but they were not interested in my POP as they insist that their system recorded late deliveries.  They won't listen to logic just blindly and stubbornly refer their policy and electronic records, that everyone knows, including ebay themselves, can be faulty.  

[elecompuk]

Hi,

This is happening to me the last couple of months. Its gone from 1.5% to 4.5% in 2 months and not one package has been posted late. I lost the top seller category last month. I have a few questions on this.

1. If Ebay can now track ordinary 1st and 2nd class post, why are buyers been given the opportunity to mark delivery as late and have that count against us if Royal Mail have not marked it as late ?

2. This is the opposite of above, why are Royal Mail giving late delivery marks against us when the buyer has not ?

3. If Ebay can track 1st and 2nd class post why are we not being given the benfit of it but just having it used against us ?

4. Why are Ebay piling on late delivery from buyer and or Royal Mail. negative feedback, letting buyers open cases during the estimated delivery period to sellers like me who have been with them for 15 years and still have 99.4% positive feedback after 54k orders ? It's like they are inviting failure.

5. If I just make all my items "mark as dispatched and dont use Ebays delivery system will it take me out of this stupididty and leave just buyers marking late delivery ?

[epcbay]

Hi,

I don't know if anyone is still active on this thread, but I have continually struggled with this same issue for a few years with the false RM defects ... 

From what I've read, if I book my postage outside of Paclink & click & drop instead so the tracking doesn't auto sync with eBay, would this be a way around the problem? If I just mark the item as dispatched instead & maybe message the tracking separately to the buyer, would late defects then only come down to the occasional buyer marking the item as late? Which seems to be zero percent of the time anyway as it's only ever the false defects raised by eBays terrible automated system.

[nutrafituk]

Still an ongoing issue here if asked. We have had so far just a couple of bad days so far, resulting in 2.4% defects. Obviously, all dispatched as scheduled and we did it all just fine but eBay do not care at all. They ignore any evidence or even Royal Mail's statement that they actually failed not us.

Supposedly we need to get it sorted with Royal Mail so 'it won't happen again'... Whatever

[suelel1968]

Often the problem is with RM first scan only happening on the doorstep at the time of delivery. You can see this on the tracking. Ring CS in the morning explain that the first scan was also the last, they will remove the defect. If anything different shows on the tracking, you can ask CS to send you an email with a link in it for you to upload your proof of postage which will proove you met your obligation and they will remove the defect. 

[mygaras]

Just fallen foul of this on our business account. The item in question was dispatched in just over 12 hours from the point of purchase, but we have received a defect for late dispatch/delivery (despite having a two-day dispatch time).

We have requested removal of the defect, but they are adamant that tracking shows that they are correct - dispatch was late. The really annoying thing is that this item wasn't even sent using a tracked service, it's just eBay's automated connection with Click & Drop, dragging the Large Letter item reference number across, thinking it's a tracking number. Grrr!

The irony is, the customer's feedback stated: "Fast delivery"

You couldn't make it up!! 

Am thinking of going back to using stamps for all items sent Letter and Large Letter.

[tinksemporium]

It seems you are not alone on this one. Even though I am a seller I still buy stuff both for business and on a personal level and RM has been rampant on this the past month. I think part of it is due to staff illness and staffing and the rest pure laziness. My most recent purchase from a very very reliable seller I buy from was 3 days past their latest date by and I normally get it early. I asked my postie and he said illness and low staff levels are the problem and that for my area, I live rural, if regular postie is on leave and the relief postie is out ill then RM just leave the post for my village until regular postie is back which can be a 2 week period that includes letters, parcels and even some paper bills that still float about. 

I tried telling eBay customer support same thing and they do not understand the plain English I use. If they still won't listen ask them to contact me and I will back you up on this matter. It is why I don't ship RM or Evri. If DPD can't deliver what I send due to location I then send via UPS at no extra charge to customer

[silicon-press]

Just had this exact issue happen to me. I only picked up on it as I noticed by defect had jumped to 2.41%. Looked at the report and the 'tracking' and all showed delivery two or three days after the first scan, so I've been flagged as late sending when I have post office receipts showing that I posted on the day that I said I did, but of course there isn't anywhere to send this proof.

I tried to appeal the defects but of course their automated system just accepted the Royal Mail tracking.

I am getting seriously fed up with all the minor niggles in life that are stacking up, none of which are my fault so cannot rectify.

[suelel1968]

@silicon-press hi, the problem with the automated system is that you can't upload the POP. If you call CS and tell them you would like to get the defect removed and can they send you a link to upload your POP to, it can be sorted quite easily. Usually best to call in the morning.

[vflexyzmodding]

Hello,

I am having the same issue and most recently has become worse. 

I have been using RM for 11+ years. I have a click and drop account and a collection point at my premises. The driver only scans the manifest and collection barcode. All parcels are then taken to the sorting depot. In most cases they are not scanned in time resulting in late deliveries and then late defects. Another issue I am experiencing is customers getting the impression I have not dispatched their parcel. My word isn’t enough when tracking doesn’t show updates. As a result, I get buyers leaving negative feedback and in some cases I have them searching my business on Google and leaving reviews on multiple accounts.

I have not been able to resolve anything with RM so I have been simply removing all late defects every month. I find weekends are the best to remove them.  I also attempt to remove negatives which doesn’t work. (Good luck removing late defects if you are with the concierge service)

Most recently RM have not been making the initial scan (the usual) but are now not scanning it all but are delivering it. I have had several customers state the item has been delivered which is good news of course but when I check tracking it doesn’t show delivery or even the first scan. It begs the question with customers who are claiming to have not received there item because tracking doesn’t say they have but in fact they have. How much money I have spent resending parcel out when tracking isn’t showing updates.

RM claims is a waste of time. When you have huge volumes of parcels going missing and not scanning and then having to provide proof for each one and then wait 30+ days for a resolution is not it. 

I am looking at other courier options including EVRI. I understand they also have delivering issues but atleast they’ll scan it straight away and I’ll stopped being called a liar over ebay.

[epcbay]

I've started using Evri now as a result. They, like all couriers have their issues, but scanning is spot on every time & their on time delivery success is something like 99% compared to rm's 70% (on 1st class, they get fined millions a year for the quality of their service) ... the savings for me are literally thousands a year as well, more than offsets any issues. I think if RM started up as a courier business now with their terrible work ethic and generally *bleep* service in every respect, they'd last about a month. I'm never using them again, done away with my business account with them.

[wolfcycles]

Hi All,

I've had a few sellers message me for an update since I submitted the original post.

On the whole nothing has changed with eBay still counting the defects based off RM's late scans. Our work around is requesting an eBay callback. Usually the callback will come from Ireland and the eBay staff are fairly switched on and intuitive rather than purely following policy and defying logic. We explain the situation to them fully and often they will understand that it is not possible to dispatch an item to a regional hub at 4am. Around 1 in 3 of the calls are successful in getting 5 defects removed at a time (apparently the maximum the can do in one call). Once a month, usually a few days before the 20th evaluation we have a member of staff spend the full day doing call backs and this is sufficient to get the percentage drop of defects back below top rated seller threshold. Obviously the labour cost of this is £100-£150 per month but maintains approx a £600 per month saving for us in top rate seller fee discounts so is more than justifiable.

Granted its a complete waste of time and should not be happening but for now is the best work around we have.  Some of the eBay staff we have called several times now, know it is us and understand the procedure of removing the defects so it streamlines it a bit. Hopefully if more of us sellers keep doing this and significant quantities of eBay staff are spending hours removing these defects for us all, you would hope it would feedback up there chain until someone with influence takes note of it.

Thanks, Alex