Simple Delivery compensation for items not covered by the carriers

[ruby*ryan]

kat@ebay has just updated a question I asked yesterday on the weekly chat.

https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Chat-with-the-eBay-Community/Weekly-Chat-with-the-eBay-Community-Tea...

I asked about the items that you can send via Evri/RM that don't have compensation for loss/damage - vinyl records, china, glass etc.

Kat's reply

Hi @ruby*ryan ,

I'm following up on yesterday's query on Simple Delivery and non compensated items with other carriers.

This is to confirm that eBay provides full protection/compensation for any item that is listed as Simple Delivery, once the label is used and the item is in the carrier network. eBay protection/compensation overrides what the carriers will compensate.

Thank you,

Kat

Excellent news! Thank you so much kat@ebay 

[lucy_farmer]

Wow... blimey!

That sounds brill 👍

 And it's a total reversal of an answer Kat@ebay gave on the subject about 2 months ago. .....

So, by reading this new answer ; listed as S,.D., and the label is used,  and the item posted, then stuff is covered.

Right, so following on from the 'test case: worried' thread....

If the item is definitely not going to be covered (see ebay's *own* exclusions list re gold coins etc... not the evri list) we can expect excluded things that are listed as S.D. (because there's no option) *not* to be given an S.D. label ...... ?

In other words check very carefully that it's not a bog-standard 'tracked 48' label.

Then Kat is telling the truth, albeit a bit evasive....

[ruby*ryan]

I think once an item is listed with SD, you get an SD label. The buyer was a bit confused on that thread as to whether he had used SD or not.

There was another thread yesterday, where someone, learning that SD was mandatory for private sellers from April, assumed that they were sending via SD - they weren't it was 'regular' postage.  So I think that is what is causing the confusion. I have seen many other posts where SD is blamed for something, but when you check the item wasn't sent SD.

[lucy_farmer]

'The buyer was a bit confused on that thread as to whether he had used SD or not.'

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The seller on that thread was not confused about whether or not he had *listed* under S.D. and when you went and looked at his sold/completed items, they were , indeed, *listed* as S.D.

He was given no option; he was on mandatory S.D. (you could tell the listings were S.D. by the postage costs. They weren't listed with bog-standard costs)

 What the confusion was about was the type of label that had been printed off when the item sold.

As he'd listed under S.D., he assumed the label would be S.D. .....the label turned out to be bog-standard tracked 48.

He didn't check it because;

a. he didn't know he should have done.

and b. it's all so new nobody really knows what to expect and what it supposed to look like...

It looked like the computer system had recognised the item was 'excluded' and therefore excluded it from S.D. without any input from the seller.

Or letting him know.

[johnwash1]

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@lucy_farmer wrote:

Wow... blimey!

That sounds brill 👍

 And it's a total reversal of an answer Kat@ebay gave on the subject about 2 months ago. .....

So, by reading this new answer ; listed as S,.D., and the label is used,  and the item posted, then stuff is covered.

Right, so following on from the 'test case: worried' thread....

If the item is definitely not going to be covered (see ebay's *own* exclusions list re gold coins etc... not the evri list) we can expect excluded things that are listed as S.D. (because there's no option) *not* to be given an S.D. label ...... ?

In other words check very carefully that it's not a bog-standard 'tracked 48' label.

Then Kat is telling the truth, albeit a bit evasive....

---

No, Kat is telling what she believes is the truth.  And I don't doubt her sincerity.  But unless she posts a link to an unambiguous policy, I'll wait and see.

You could try asking her for a link on this afternoon's chat session.  I don't have the courage.

[sml192]

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@lucy_farmer wrote:

'The buyer was a bit confused on that thread as to whether he had used SD or not.'

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The seller on that thread was not confused about whether or not he had *listed* under S.D. and when you went and looked at his sold/completed items, they were , indeed, *listed* as S.D.

He was given no option; he was on mandatory S.D. (you could tell the listings were S.D. by the postage costs. They weren't listed with bog-standard costs)

---

We don't actually know for certain that it was listed with Simple Delivery.  It was a multi-quantity listing so, unfortunately, the completed listing only reflects the status of the listing at the time it was ended. 

There were 3 coins sold in total on that particular listing.  The first, sold on 26th May, was the one that went missing which we now know from the label report provided was not sent using Simple Delivery.  There were then 2 more sold on the 29th May but we don't know how those were actually sent.  The completed listing may show as Simple Delivery but the listing also shows an edit to the 'Postage terms' on the 29th May, shortly after which the listing was ended, so there is, therefore, no way of knowing for certain what the listing originally showed.

The listing was a copy of a previous listing for the same coins.  The coins in that listing were sent using Simple Delivery (the completed listing and the label report provided for the last coin sold on that listing confirms this) hence why the seller, therefore, assumed that Simple Delivery had also been applied to the new listing. 

[sml192]

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@johnwash1 wrote:

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@lucy_farmer wrote:

Wow... blimey!

That sounds brill 👍

 And it's a total reversal of an answer Kat@ebay gave on the subject about 2 months ago. .....

So, by reading this new answer ; listed as S,.D., and the label is used,  and the item posted, then stuff is covered.

Right, so following on from the 'test case: worried' thread....

If the item is definitely not going to be covered (see ebay's *own* exclusions list re gold coins etc... not the evri list) we can expect excluded things that are listed as S.D. (because there's no option) *not* to be given an S.D. label ...... ?

In other words check very carefully that it's not a bog-standard 'tracked 48' label.

Then Kat is telling the truth, albeit a bit evasive....

---

No, Kat is telling what she believes is the truth.  And I don't doubt her sincerity.  But unless she posts a link to an unambiguous policy, I'll wait and see.

You could try asking her for a link on this afternoon's chat session.  I don't have the courage.

---

Kat is conveying what has been confirmed to her by her colleagues in the team responsible for Simple Delivery not just what she believes to be the truth. 

It would certainly be helpful if this was made clearer in the Simple Delivery terms ('eBay Delivery Terms and Conditioms') and the Simple Delivery help pages.  kat@ebay Would you be able to feed this request back to the relevant team please?

The live chat session was yesterday. 

[kat@ebay]

Hi @sml192 ,

Thank you for the post. Yes my reply was confirmation from our shipping team in relation to Simple Delivery.  I will share the feedback in regards to the terms and conditions on the help pages.

Thank you,

Kat

[sml192]

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kat@ebay wrote:

Hi @sml192 ,

Thank you for the post. Yes my reply was confirmation from our shipping team in relation to Simple Delivery.  I will share the feedback in regards to the terms and conditions on the help pages.

Thank you,

Kat

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Many thanks for doing that Kat. 

[johnwash1]

@sml192 

"Kat is conveying what has been confirmed to her by her colleagues in the team responsible for Simple Delivery not just what she believes to be the truth. "

Just what she believes to be the truth because her colleagues told her.  Try using that in a court of law and a KC would make mincemeat of it.  Sellers can only rely on what is unequivocally published by ebay, not he said she said.

[Edit to add] I've now seen Kat's reply which appeared while I was writing this.  I hope the help pages will confirm  everything that people need, without leaving any ambiguity.

"The live chat session was yesterday. "

Yes, mea culpa.  Likewise don't believe me if I try to tell you what day of the week it is.  I'm not a reliable witness.

[valueaddedresource]

Just to back @johnwash1  up on this - lest we forget that Marco recently spent 2 weeks and multiple posts very confidently telling us that links to other eBay pages were no longer allowed in listings (because that was supposedly what he had been told by whoever he consulted on the matter) only to come back later and revise his responses to say the exact opposite.

https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Seller-Central/Links-In-Listings-Weekly-Chat-Follow-Up/m-p/7867082#M... 

I appreciate Kat's response and that she is doing her best to convey the information which has been provided to her, but certainly do not begrudge anyone who says they won't believe it until they see it reflected on the actual help and policy pages.

[dls-online]

Agreed, I've taken a screenshot of Kat's confirmation which I've now saved into a "just in case" folder on my hard drive. Should there be any issues, then I will have that to hand.

Personally, I don't trust ebay one bit these days. For the past 6-8 months they've been incredibly deceptive and exhibited incredibly immoral behaviour. Their cheap marketing ploys to try to fool the less aware (Seller Fees > BPF) have just created havoc and increased costs for items. Simple Delivery has been a catastrophe. But to rub salt in the wound, they try to fool people by literally putting "simple" in the title! How flipping stupid do they think we are?!

I believe Kat is trying to do her best (bless her), but unfortunately she's wadding through the filth of a decaying platform that's committing corporate suicide, largely because of a dysfunctional moral compass.

Ebay should have concentrated on continuing to build trust for buyers and sellers to feel confident in using the platform, rather than chucking away all the established trust people had in ebay, to instead experiment with devious ploys to try to squeeze more revenue out of the unsuspecting. Nasty, nasty leadership.

[valueaddedresource]

@dls-online  and anyone else - here's an archived version of that answer in the weekly chat saved to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, just in case it becomes necessary. 😉

https://web.archive.org/web/20250626212117/https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Chat-with-the-eBay-Commun...

[johnwash1]

@dls-online  @valueaddedresource 

Thanks for all that.  I tried the Wayback copy, it worked fine of course.  But then I clicked on the link within it, expect either it wouldn't be archived or it would.  And that if it wasn't already, this would get Wayback to save that too.

The help page came up, then a few seconds later it was overridden by ebay wanting me to log in.  Very curious.  The trouble with modern web pages is that they have lots of javascript etc, a snapshot might not always be a snapshot.

My tentative conclusion is that it's good that both of you have copies in different ways.  They each may have advantages.

[dls-online]

Cheers JohnWash. Mad that it's come to this though, isn't it?! I've been on ebay for 22 years now. Never have I felt the need to screenshot anything for protection before. I can barely believe trust in the platform has been almost eradicated in just the space of just 6 months.

Surely, ebay have to understand that having long-standing, previously very loyal users, now feeling that they need to take such actions, isn't a good position to be in?! On a buying and selling platform, establishing trust is surely the most important objective for the hopeful longevity of the platform as a whole.

There's got to be a u-turn in this madness at some point. But what will it take to have them realise these experimental ventures is not working out? Will they leave it too late and have lost too many users and too much trust to salvage what's left? Honestly, I think ebay will be around for a long time yet. But I also think their business will be hit hard from the repercussions of these badly thought out experiments.

[lucy_farmer]

'Will they leave it too late and have lost too many users and too much trust.....'

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I think ebay may be gambling on replacing the distrustful 'old guard' with new younger users who won't know how it was before. Therefore that will be 'normal' for them.

(Unfortunately most younger people don't use ebay; they think it's for us fogeys.)

  Ebay must be banking on attracting more fresh users than losing old ones. Whether this strategy works or not is anybody's guess!

[ruby*ryan]

I would think for every member that it doesn't work for there will plenty that it does work for, or who can adjust to work with it.

I switched to it before I was forced into it, gradually, slowly, learning on the way. I have found it suits me, I have Evri & RM selected (Evri drop off is just a few doors down the road). The 'recommended' option is usually the correct weight/size, sometimes over (so I just change it to the correct one) and a few times under. When it's under I just make sure I have used the recommended option - buyer gets a postage bargain, and I probably get a quicker sale!

The last time I had a SD combined the total postage cost was way more generous than it had previously been, and was a little less than it would have cost me to post.

I do still get the option to opt out of SD on items under £10, but have stopped selling the items I used to send with a 1.55 stamp and now list a load of them in a lot, which seems to work better for me.

@dls-online  I started to screenshot stuff on here way back when James was the 'Pink' (community staffer), early 2000s, due to a major announcement getting a quick, sneaky, unannounced change.

I recently deleted loads of SD help/announcements screenshots - but still have a few kept!

[johnwash1]

@dls-online   I feel exactly the same, but I doubt there'll be any U-turn until results are in and seen to be dire, followed by heads rolling at the top, followed by a new bunch of vultures at the top who can say they're putting everything right.  A bit like politicians do.

@lucy_farmer   I think you're right about the gamble of attracting new users.  Did I see somewhere recently that ebay are thinking about some joint project with FB?  I imagine if that happens they'll get eaten alive at the  negotiating table.

[lucy_farmer]

'Did I see somewhere recently that ebay are thinking about some joint project with FB?  '

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Blimey They certainly won't be attracting young people with farcebook..... young people see it as 'the old person's Social' !

[sml192]

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@johnwash1 wrote:

@lucy_farmer   I think you're right about the gamble of attracting new users.  Did I see somewhere recently that ebay are thinking about some joint project with FB?  I imagine if that happens they'll get eaten alive at the  negotiating table.

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They have partnered with Facebook in the US but nothing in the UK yet.