I think I am getting set up. Your thoughts are appreciated!

[walkingupwards]

So I mainly sell cheap items with an average price between 10-20$. There are times where I ship hundreds of packs a day and other days where I ship 10-50 packs.


I never buy stamps with tracking unless the total value of the order is above 30$. I dealt with cases of "item not received" before and they used to happen every once in a while. During last weekend I had around 500 sales in total and today 9 customers have contacted me claiming they didn't receive their purchases.


I have never in my life got so many people filing such claims in one single day! I decided to look into this and found out that all of the 9 buyers live within a radius of 50 miles. All have names that belong to a certain ethnicity in Germany.

All of these 9 purchases were made between 11-13 of Sep. During the same time period, I shipped a couple of orders with tracking and they show delivered.


I have a strong gut feeling that they know each other. Their messages shared similar spelling mistakes too!!


I am not worried about them being a bunch of losers looking for a freeload, I am worried they're after getting me banned off eBay




What do you think? Do claims of "item not received" pose an existential threat to an eBay account?



I am thinking about getting with eBay on the phone and talking to them about this...


What are your thoughts on this?

[Steveo036940]

9 INR cases in a single day is excessive and Ebay probanly will review your shipping practices. What it means for your account is anybody's guess. You'll need to wait and see.

[agent006140]

COULD THEY BE JUST THE SAME PERSON WITH 9 EBAY IDs?
You can get their phone number which will tell you they are 9 buyers?
You can also call the local post office and ask if there is any problem or the 1-800-usps number and ask if there is problem in the area

[Kajunrook]

LOL if you shipped USPS you would have not received all the time even if sent with tracking. 4 last week, I put in an inquiry and received back "poor baby" we cannot find your packages, not mailed same day or same post office.

[phaz0rz]

Yes it's a threat to your account, upwards. You need to get those cases cleared up ASAP.

When I used to ship without tracking I would write off this type of scam as the cost of doing business (without tracking). I would save $150/day on postage but I'd usually have to send $40-50 in refunds for "lost" orders every week.

[james_112233]

Refund all 9 transactions, block the IDs. Report the buyers.

Somebody is trying to get you banned. Only you know your business well enough to know whether this is competition playing tricks on you.

[nickopedia]

Refund, block, and report.

That's really all you can do at this point.

[walkingupwards]

I closed all cases immediately and refunded the buyers. I am mainly worried about the rate of "item not received" under service-statistics.


We can't report buyers for filing false "item not received" claims on eBay.de anymore unless we have a tracking number to upload (which was not the case before).


Anyway, I think the storm has started to fade away and the next two days will tell for sure.

[phaz0rz]

In my experience as long as you clear up any cases that arise quickly by yourself and without eBay's intervention, there's no harm done to your account. It's only a defect in your dashboard if the buyer gets eBay involved to settle the case. Unless things are different on the German platform.

[walkingupwards]

Originally Posted by phaz0rz

In my experience as long as you clear up any cases that arise quickly by yourself and without eBay's intervention, there's no harm done to your account. It's only a defect in your dashboard if the buyer gets eBay involved to settle the case. Unless things are different on the German platform.

It's the same on eBay.de as well. When I go to service-status on eBay.de, there is something called "service statistics" which includes your rate of "item not received" cases. The rate is divided by four levels (little - average - high - very high). I was ranked high multiple times before and the outcome of it was that I had to pay higher fees if I decide to list items on eBay international sites (i.e: US, UK & Canada).


My main worry was the sudden and abrupt increase in "item not received" ratio, which would then trigger a manual review of the account and possibly a suspension?

[walkingupwards]

Update:


My doubts turned out wrong. Nobody was trying to pull a scam on me. The f**cking mail company got problems in their mail hub and that caused delays. I found this out by going personally to their center and talking to someone.

Luckily I got away this time without customers filing cases left and right. I wrote everyone of my 200 customers and explained the situation. Most of them were o.k with it and didn't complain, only a handful filed claims and were unhappy about the whole thing.


This whole thing was like an earthquake to my peace of mind, it came suddenly out of the blue!


It is insane how the mail company could have toasted the f**k out of my account!

[quest]

Deutsche Post fails quite regularly from 2018..

[agent006140]

My mail man just came and told me the MAIN SORT FACILITY in the city,the roof completely collapsed,this is a major hub,most of our mail go to them and onward to other states .

[SaiJin]

The problem is also with the buyers. Customers nowadays can be demanding and entitled.

Pair that with 0 communications skills AND how eBay treats an email just asking about an item not yet received into a "Request is open" aka "your buyer just filed a case against you" certainly don't help.

But at least I'm glad you are not being targeted