'Simple Delivery' failed, now a test case - worried

[richardb196]

Private Seller here, I sold a gold sovereign for £590 on ebay and was forced to use "Simple Delivery" as you all know. Both ebay and RM tracking show it as delivered, RM say they left it in a safe place and uploaded a photo. Seller says package has gone "missing" and he will raise a case with ebay!

I see some help pages on ebay saying I am covered for the loss but another page says gold is in the excluded list for 'Simple Delivery' even though they do not offer any other postal service.

Who is going to end up eating the loss I wonder?

Cheers

Rich

[department28]

'Also, a gold coin in almost any reasonable form of package would fit through a letterbox, so why would it be lift in a 'safe place'?'

@lucy_farmer  'That is also a mystery. Unless the letterbox was, for some strange reason, inaccessible or blocked?'

Yes - this is rather odd. The RM photo of the 2 smaller items left outside look like they would have easily gone through an 'average' letterbox, so there has to be some explanation as to why the postie didn't do this.

Perhaps the OP could take a look at the outside of the buyer's property on Google Maps Street View? Might be lucky & get a view of the door area. Wonder what that item is in the bottom left corner of the photo? Looks kind of like a folded bit of coat/jacket sleeve, or something?!

[valueaddedresource]

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@technthread wrote:

If it was a multi quantity listing, the sold filter that we can look at wont pick up every sale date. I’m guessing it was the listing with 3 sold.

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@technthread good call! There used to be a link on the item page to sales history but eBay removed it long ago, though luckily it still exists if you know the URL.

For those who don't know, if you bookmark this link and plug in any item number after the = , you'll still be able to access the sales history - and in this case it does show a sale on May 26.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/bin/purchaseHistory?item=135866405519

[4_bathrooms]

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@department28 wrote:

Wonder what that item is in the bottom left corner of the photo? Looks kind of like a folded bit of coat/jacket sleeve, or something?!

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It looks like the bottom of a close board gate to me. If I had to guess I would say it is the gate to the buyer's back garden. The picture is too well lit to be inside a shed/outbuilding so the wall on the right is likely a boundary wall in the buyer's back garden. 

Obviously this would mean the buyer had left their back gate unlocked/unlatched in order for the postie to leave the items where they did. However, it makes little difference now as the buyer has been refunded by eBay so the OP's only means of recourse is via eBay and the Ombudsman. 

[sunflowers4me59]

I've been trying to think of your I.d. to tag you but couldn't think of it. I knew it had resource in it! I thought you could probably help. I tried googling you but didn't help.

[department28]

'It looks like the bottom of a close board gate to me. If I had to guess I would say it is the gate to the buyer's back garden. The picture is too well lit to be inside a shed/outbuilding so the wall on the right is likely a boundary wall in the buyer's back garden.' 

Yes, you're right - bottom corner of a side gate. It's like one of those 'taken from an unusual angle' photos...

It does look like the parcels were left 'round the side', not at the front of the property. Still doesn't explain what was wrong with the letterbox for the small packets. Only the postie and/or the buyer know the answer to that one...

[pinkrabbitprinces82]

that's easier said than done, ebay have no customer servcie e-mail address, they ave a stupid chat box that only lets you type 250 letters at one time. however I did record the last ebay conversation i had last year for proof encase I needed it, they say they record our conversations so i do the same with our digital camera n matter what company it is. why company's can't provide a simple e-mail address these days i don't know, it's getting harder and harder as they want you to either telephone or use a stupid chat bot!

[pinkrabbitprinces82]

your only covered up to £750 for simple delivery.

[lucy_farmer]

'your only covered up to £750 for simple delivery.'

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If the seller's coin was worth more than £750 he wouldn't have been forced into S.D.

As it is, the coin sold for £590  which *should* have been covered by the S.D. he was shoved into. But it turns out it wasn't.

That is the whole point of this thread.

[gjalp]

Try typing ‘agent’ or ‘talk to an agent’, that usually works for me.

[sml192]

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@richardb196 wrote:

The 'missing' coin was sold on May 26th, I am looking at the order details now.

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Thanks, I can see now that it was a multi quantity listing and that one sold on the 26th May (the one that went missing) and then two more on the 29th May.  It would be useful to know what postage method was used for the two sold on the 29th May as they were on the same listing.  My suspicion is that the listing may have been inadvertently set up with Custom Postage, without you actually realising at the time, and then automatically switched to Simple Delivery by eBay sometime between the 26th and 29th May, hence why the listing is now showing as Simple Delivery.

Also, if you check the order details it should tell you how much the buyer paid for the postage, in each instance, which would confirm whether the listing had Simple Delivery or Custom Postage on it at the time of purchase and also whether the label for the one sold on the 26th May was somehow switched from Simple Delivery to Custom Postage post sale as some of the other posters seem to be suggesting. 

[w79805]

customerhelp_uk@ebay.com

[4_bathrooms]

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@sml192 wrote:

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@richardb196 wrote:

The 'missing' coin was sold on May 26th, I am looking at the order details now.

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My suspicion is that the listing may have been inadvertently set up with Custom Postage, without you actually realising at the time, and then automatically switched to Simple Delivery by eBay sometime between the 26th and 29th May, hence why the listing is now showing as Simple Delivery.

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Interesting. According to the listing's revision history the postage terms were changed on 29th May at 19.14 BST.

[brillo211]

It's not covered because it's GOLD and that is specifically listed as a prohibited or restricted item (under valuables).

[brillo211]

So why do they specifically exclude: "

• Valuables, such as jewellery, watches, and precious metals, including, but not limited to, jewels, watches, gems, precious metals, real pearls, silver, gold" ?

[vinylscot]

This has been posted many times before on this thread. You haven't just stumbled onto something new. And it's not really relevant to the matter at hand any more anyway.

Although the precise series of events is still disputed, mainly because they are so unclear, rather than any intention to mislead on either side, the real issue at point NOW is why eBay did not inform the seller, at any point during this process, that the shipping would not be done under Simple Delivery.

There was no indication when he created and submitted the listing, which was a multi-quantity listing which had prior sales. There was no indication when the item sold. As Simple Delivery was fairly new at the time, and still subject to almost daily changes, it's understandable that the seller remained under the impression that he was selling with Simple Delivery in place, as nobody had ever told him he wasn't.

If eBay's AI is sophisticated enough to estimate the size and weight of items, for shipping purposes, it must be able to recognise certain aspects of these items. It should therefore be capable of identifying whether an item can be sent with SD, before that item is listed. And it's only common sense that the seller should be notified when he attempted to list something under SD, when SD would not apply.

As with so much involving SD and other recent developments, eBay's implementation has been inconsistent, illogical, and generally awful. While many posters over-dramatise situations for effect, this poster is spot-on. This is very much a test case, and eBay is not dealing with it well.

They should refund this seller now, and work to ensure that this situation can not arise again in the future, as it certainly should never have arisen at all. They need to make their Ts and Cs around SD much, much clearer, and put measures into place to ensure compliance during the listing process. If there is a problem with a listing, that should be highlighted BEFORE the listing goes live, and if nay subsequent changes need to be made, the seller MUST be kept informed.

[honeymonster007]

The more I read that the more vague it gets. What do they mean by *but not limited too*?

Think that valuables should more defined and set in stone

[lucy_farmer]

'The more I read that the more vague it gets. What do they mean by *but not limited too*?'

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It's an a*se covering exercise that means they can refuse to cover anything they decide.....☹️

@vinylscot  you've summarised the current problem pretty well.

They do indeed need to make T's and C's around S.D. a lot clearer, but I'm pessimistic that will happen.

Making the truth about what actually happens with 'excluded' items, may scare off a lot of sellers and therefore hit their bottom line.  Ebay may have calculated that losing the few poor souls who get hit by this, is less of a loss than losing those who would no longer sell at all....?

[theelench]

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@honeymonster007 wrote:

The more I read that the more vague it gets. What do they mean by *but not limited too*?

Think that valuables should more defined and set in stone

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It means they can write something really vague, like "In some circumstances *but not limited to* lightening strikes or hurricanes we will not compensate you." 

Missing out the 101 more likely events that they also don't pay out on (unless the're carefully hidden away somewhere like P. 162, para. 9 of the T&Cs which specifies a few more generalities and a link to "See Full List" which leads nowhere because it's being continuously revised to include every claim that's been made so far.

[lucy_farmer]

'They need to make their Ts and Cs around SD much, much clearer, and put measures into place to ensure compliance during the listing process.'

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My reason for pessimism is about this happening, is the push for mandatory S.D.

If it becomes explicit that an enormous amount of categories and items will be uninsured, once posted with S.D., ebay will lose a huge number of sellers.

So they will *have* to offer custom postage/ alternatives.

Which would be the end of mandatory S.D. 

The huge number of items on the Evri exclusion list, would take out a large percentage of ebay's listings, if sellers *knew* they'd be uninsured.

Everything from a pair of silver earrings to a gold sovereign. From a tablet to a china tea-set. From a glass vase to a camera. A make-up mirror to a vinyl record......

Ebay might have concluded that doing it surreptitiously,  and therefore only losing the few who fall into the trap ('cos what seller would come back after that treatment??) loses them less than scaring off many more.

(As most  sales do actually go as expected. Most  buyers are honest 🤞 and most sellers will never know how close to losing out they have been....)

AND they can stick to their beloved idea of forcing ALL private sellers into mandatory S.D.

It's unethical, yes. But it's somewhere  in the T's and C's so it's probably legal........☹️

[mabel.meadows]

A couple of days ago I tried to do a simple revision on one of my listings only to find it was automatically changed to Simple Delivery. Prior to that I had the option to use "switch to advanced options" which has now disappeared. I'm wondering if something similar has happened to richardb196's listing - did the change in the 'qty available' trigger the enforced change to SD maybe?