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Letters to the Editor
Your emails to EcommerceBytes
For consideration, send your email to ina@auctionbytes.com with "Letters to the Editor Blog" in the subject line! Remember to include your name as you would like it to appear in the blog. |
| February 08, 2012 |
 PayPal Holds Percent of Seller's Funds on Rolling Basis |
By: Ina Steiner
Wed Feb 8 2012
12:14:52 |
Dear Ina,
I received the following e-mail from PayPal today:
Dear XXXX:
PayPal reviewed your account and your use of the PayPal Website and determined that we need to apply a reserve on the account starting February 7, 2012. Reserves are funds that belong to you, but are set aside to ensure your account can cover transaction liabilities.
Your reserve will be set at 7% of the processed amount for each transaction, to be held for a 180 day rolling period beginning on the above date. For example, 7% of the payments you received are held for each transaction and will be released on day 181, 7% of your payments are held on the second day and will be released on day 182, and so on. You will be notified if your reserve settings are adjusted in the future. Additionally, Minimum Reserve has been to jumpstart the Reserve.
The decision regarding your reserves setting was based on the review of the risk exposure inherent to your account. A risk review is the evaluation of several factors related to an account, which include but are not limited to transactional activity, customer disputes, type of business, and delivery and customer satisfaction time frames.
Reference User Agreement Article No. 10.5
Further information on reserves can be found on our website Help Center at:
https://www.paypal.com//help.
Sincerely,
XXXX
So after receiving this e-mail, I called the representative, who basically told me the following things:
- Paypal would be holding 7% of my payments received for 180 days from the day they were received, for the next 180 days. They would also be immediately putting a hold on the $3300 or so that was currently in my Paypal account.
- The reason for the "reserve" was because of the amount of chargebacks received and refunds issued.
In the past year, I have had 21 chargebacks filed against my company, or somewhere between 1-2% of transactions. Pretty much all of them were either for unauthorized payments, or were for INRs/SNADs that were found in my favor.
I asked the rep what I could do to prevent chargebacks, and he said, "Watch for a pattern in the locations that chargebacks occur. For example, if you see a lot of chargebacks in San Jose, don't ship to San Jose. You can also use Google Maps to see whether it's an actual residence that you're shipping to." I later called Paypal and eBay again and asked what I could do to prevent chargebacks, and they told me that there's nothing you can do.
I also asked him why refunds were a criterion, since that's simply part of my return policy most of the time. He refused to directly answer this question.
In other words, PayPal will be holding 7% of my payments received for the next year just because they feel like it, and happened to give me some BS reasons for it. I am a top-rated seller with 10,000+ 99.8% feedback. This could happen to anyone out there.
Please omit my name if you post this in the "letters to the Editor" column.
Kind Regards.
Note from the Editor: We ran a similar letter from a seller in 2009 (her's was a 15% rolling reserve) and wrote about the issue in EcommerceBytes that same year. PayPal said at the time that it required reserves for fewer than 1 percent of sellers, we've just asked for an update to that figure.
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Reading EcommerceBytes Letters Blog: PayPal Holds Percent of Seller's Funds on Rolling Basis |
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| February 07, 2012 |
| eBay Prohibits Links to Facebook and Twitter |
By: Ina Steiner
Tue Feb 7 2012
10:13:02 |
Dear Ina,
In light of your headline story "eBay Offers Sellers Advice on Social Media Selling" (link to article), you may want to mention linking to any social media sight from an ebay listing is explicitly prohibited by their links policy.
Per this page in the category of "Not Allowed," - "Links to social media sites (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.)."
I also find it consistent with their behavior of laying land mines for small sellers their "Social Media Selling" page they conveniently fail to mention this policy.
As always keep up the good work, and please omit my name if you post this in the "letters to the Editor" column.
Kind Regards.
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Reading EcommerceBytes Letters Blog: eBay Prohibits Links to Facebook and Twitter |
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Comments (6) | Permalink
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| February 05, 2012 |
| eBay Seller Charged by PayPal Recurring Billing for Unused Servic |
By: Ina Steiner
Sun Feb 5 2012
19:36:01 |
Dear Ina,
It's tax season, so I was looking at some inactive eBay accounts and noticed they were still being billed for services not being used.
There was no notice of any activity on these accounts provided to my email over a 6 month period. I was surprised these accounts had any activity on them and since the amounts were relatively small I did not notice Paypal debits each month. Additionally, the list of providers that have permission to debit your Paypal account is relatively difficult to locate.
There is nothing worse than paying for service not intended/wanted due to automation and the failure of automation to fairly and consistently inform customers of what transactions are happening as they happen.
Please share this with your readers to help them stay on top of the details. The message also goes out to eBay that they must improve their messaging because the failure to provide sufficient notice of invoicing is a lawsuit waiting to happen.
Thanks.
PS: If you go into the applications section of "MyeBay" and initiate any of those tools, there is no confirmation of billing provided via email or via eBay MyMessages or via Paypal notifications. If you go into the Paypal Profile "preapproved payments" you can see who has recurring billing authority, and you can revoke it there.
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Reading EcommerceBytes Letters Blog: eBay Seller Charged by PayPal Recurring Billing for Unused Servic |
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Comments (8) | Permalink
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| February 02, 2012 |
| Seller Says eBay Has Compassionate Side |
By: Ina Steiner
Thu Feb 2 2012
21:02:51 |
Dear Ina,
I recently received an order back from the store owned by of one of my best clients who died in a snorkeling accident...a really sad occurrence from someone I've had wonderful dealings with for about 15 years.
He had placed bids while on vacation and I had charged and mailed his wins before being notified of his death.
His order was for $2300.00 (about 50 items)...and when I told eBay what happened, and that they could verify this occurrence by searching on-line , without even looking at any on-line obituaries, they quickly canceled his bids and refunded $151.00 in final value fees.
So they can be compassionate when warranted.
Best wishes as always...thanks for the great service that you provide
ebay id = yesterdaygirls
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Reading EcommerceBytes Letters Blog: Seller Says eBay Has Compassionate Side |
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Comments (4) | Permalink
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| February 01, 2012 |
| eBay Anonymous DSR Ratings Punish Good Sellers |
By: Ina Steiner
Wed Feb 1 2012
12:14:15 |
Dear Ina,
Seems that more Ebay sellers, than ever before, are finding themselves ranked as Below-Standard. This low ranking carries with it a number of Ebay "punishment". The seller's listing receive lower visibility, their paypal funds - from Ebay sales - are placed on "Hold" until the buyer has received their item, and then for another three days, giving the buyer time to change his/her mind about the item. Of course, the Below-Standard seller also loses their Power-Seller and TRS status - and their 20% FVF credit.
So, what suddenly causes a great seller to become a Below-Standard seller? The DSR scoring system. Matters not that sellers, such as myself, have 100% glowing feedback, and are in policy compliance...only those DSR scores (going back a YEAR for the small seller)
After having a spotless record with Ebay for eleven years, I was quite shocked to find that I'm now ranked "Below-Standard" and suffering all of the repercussions.
Ebay constantly tells us "Below-Standard" sellers that we need to improve, and then offer suggestions on how to do that. Ebay doesn't seem to realize that one of the biggest flaws of this "system"...is that these low-ratings are left anonymously - so we have NO idea as to WHO left them, and for WHAT item.
WHAT did we do wrong? How can we improve? When we sell an item and the buyer expresses their satisfaction of the item through feedback and messages...and THEN maliciously decides to DING us on the DSRs...We don't know WHO they are? We don't know WHAT item they dinged us on?
Many of them will leave super feedback just so we will not suspect them when they start dinging our DSRs...
The beautiful feedback means nothing to a seller as far as our business is concerned...Ebay doesn't give two hoots about our feedback. they ONLY rate us with those anonymously given DSR scores.
I affirm that I am NOT a Below-Standard seller - no matter what Ebay says. Do I need to improve? No, I don't. After 11 years I have learned how to be a very good seller. I know what's expected of me in all aspects of selling and I give my customers the very best I can give. I ship quickly (normally same day or next day) I communicate from the day of the sale up until the item is received. I leave feedback upon receiving payment. I pack carefully with the best packing supplies, and I charge only actual shipping (refunding the buyer the difference if I mis-calculate on weight). I am proud of the way I handle my business.
The DSR system does NOT reflect how we conduct our business.
Thanks for listening,
Betty
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Reading EcommerceBytes Letters Blog: eBay Anonymous DSR Ratings Punish Good Sellers |
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Comments (34) | Permalink
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| January 31, 2012 |
| Is eBay Refunding Seller Fees for Cancelled Orders? |
By: Ina Steiner
Tue Jan 31 2012
20:09:39 |
Dear Ina,
I have had to cancel a couple transactions lately. One large transaction with especially large eBay fees. However I don't seem to see credits or refunds on my eBay bills. How are credits processed on these cancelled orders?
I called eBay and spent 25 minutes on hold and never talked to anybody after calling them 3 times.
eBay's billing and fee structure is so complicated do I really need to hire a CPA or bookkeeper monthly to review all this info to be sure I am not getting screwed on the fees (I probably am and we all probably are).
My sales are getting to be less and less. I do the credit cancel transaction and my eBay bill does not appear to go lower but only go higher.
Any suggestions or what is happening with other long time eBay sellers on this??
L.
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Reading EcommerceBytes Letters Blog: Is eBay Refunding Seller Fees for Cancelled Orders? |
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Comments (8) | Permalink
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| January 29, 2012 |
| eBay Can't Combine Shipping for Multi-Item Purchases |
By: Ina Steiner
Sun Jan 29 2012
21:26:12 |
Dear Ina,
I've been selling on eBay for over 5 years. I've talked to eBay reps many times about combined shipping problems with no results.
The issue is I have is, I sell products ranging from 8 ounces to 28 pounds. So for search reasons, I have the cheapest shipping option for 1st choice, and I have USPS priority and UPS ground in every listing as a choice.
IE for an 8 ounce item I have USPS first class as the first choice, UPS ground second choice, and USPS priority as 3rd choice.
For A 28 pound item, I have UPS ground 1st choice, USPS priority as second choice.
The problem is, If a buyer purchases an 8 oz item they choose USPS first class, if the same buyer purchases a product with UPS as the first choice, eBay will not combine the shipping and the buyer makes 2 separate payments. Because the buyer choose 2 different shipping options. This is a problem, as I advertise combined shipping discounts.
eBay is basically strong arming every seller to offer free shipping, which I would agree to, but 20% of my buyers purchase several different items from my store. With free shipping I cannot offer any discounts like pay full price for highest price item and receive a certain percent, or dollar amount off each additional item. If eBay did this, and had a link on the search pages - see seller discounts - it would be a great feature.
I'm amazed that a Nasdaq 100 company cannot have a shopping cart to combine shipping when my website's $300 shopping cart works fine.
I've talked to eBay many times, all I get is great idea with no results, can you look into this for me.
Best Regards,
Mike
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Reading EcommerceBytes Letters Blog: eBay Can't Combine Shipping for Multi-Item Purchases |
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Comments (11) | Permalink
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