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In every issue, readers soundoff about issues important to them. From feedback to payment services, from increased fees to posting policies, AuctionBytes Soundoff gives you a chance to air your views.
Editor's Note: I received a letter yesterday (Saturday morning) from an eBay seller who said PayPal's explanation of the new Dispute Resolution process is misleading and despite having taken care of every customer dispute, her account was shut down. I've included part of this seller's email below. I am checking with PayPal to hear what they have to say, but it's important enough that sellers who accept PayPal should read this email for themselves to try to avoid a similar situation with their account.
Ina,
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With the new Dispute Resolution we were lead to believe that disputes were simply that; disputes (not claims). When you view a new PayPal dispute there is now a button to the right most column that says view. If you click on that button (the only option you have) it shows the dialog from the customer and has a form box that the seller can fill in and respond. After reading your article about this change, I was under the impression that this new method allowed buyers and sellers 20 days to work out these disputes before they "escalate to a claim" like on eBay (although I think eBay is longer). Nothing could be further from the truth. These are all "claims" from the first day according to a conversation with PayPal this morning after our PayPal account was placed on "Limited Access".
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Today our PayPal account was locked. I quickly reviewed our 23 outstanding disputes and every single one of them had either refund information with PayPal refund transaction ID listed or had tracking information with delivery confirmation.
I quickly call PayPal to find out why our account was locked and was told that because we never "escalated" those disputes to claims then PayPal never looked at all the information we provided in those notes that would have quickly closed the claims.
I asked why does PayPal look at these disputes as claims when they've never been "escalated" to claims but us or the buyer. She told me that all disputes are "claims" and in order for those disputes to be resolved they need to be "escalated" to a claim which is one of two other options sellers have rather than just responding. Basically, a seller is wasting his time until he "escalates" the claim to a claim (if that makes any sense).
Out of our 23 open claims, 15 were refunded weeks ago and 7 had delivery confirmation provided. Our account was locked without a single open claim in our mind as we'd responded to every dispute with refund information or delivery information but because we never "escalated" the claims then PayPal never reviewed them and after we accumulated 23 of them, they locked our account.
I think you should investigate why PayPal tells sellers they're disputes for 20 days but counts them as claims from the first day. Why if they're claims, they aren't looking at the notes for tracking information and refund information. Why if you refund the buyer from the original payment transaction the claim isn't immediately closed (we have 15 of these still open with refunds dating back to May 19).
Why sellers aren't informed that in order to close these claims they need to "escalate the claim to a claim" (their words not mine) before any PayPal resolution person will look at these.
If you're going to offer the buyer a refund it needs to be done from the claim and not from the original payment transaction or the claim won't be closed and you'll need to escalate the claim to provide refund ID information and then wait for someone at PayPal to review the refund.
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I'm afraid that other sellers read your article, just like I did, and think they are dealing with a dispute and corresponding back and forth with the buyer and providing refund or tracking information without escalating the claim so it can get closed. Until the claim is escalated, it will NEVER get closed, no matter what you type in response.
So please get the word out that sellers need to "escalate" these claims as soon as possible and not let them sit with notes going back and forth to the buyers because they are jeopardizing their PayPal account as long as these sit open as PayPal is counting all of these as open claims against your account....
I've told everyone I know to quit wasting time with the chit-chat back and forth to buyers and just escalate immediately and then you're given the options the old PayPal system had to issue a refund or provide tracking information and then the claim is sent for review and closed. Waiting out the 20 day period only jeopardizes your PP account because you're allowing these claims to remain open and pile up.
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Re: "Anecdotal Sales Slowdown Leads to Concerns over eBay Express"
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m05/i25/s01
Ina,
Sales are terrible. I've been selling for 7 years and I have never ever seen it this slow. I used to list 30 - 40 items a week - I am now listing about 7 and half of those don't sell.
H.
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Re: "Anecdotal Sales Slowdown Leads to Concerns over eBay Express"
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m05/i25/s01
Ina,
Thank you for the article. Again, nothing but nebulous plans from eBay. Ina, there is absolutely nothing anecdotal about it. I will be happy to provide you with my traffic reports, and it is blatantly obvious when SIS was turned on, then off. My page views doubled from 8000 to 16,000 the first day of SIS. The day they turned it off they fell, not quite as dramatically, as some people had items bookmarked, but the same fall over a 3-day period.
Best Regards,
Tom
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Hi Ina,
I was just wondering why you never speak of the many, many eBay sellers that have lost their powerseller status, sales, and businesses because of this eBay Express and the maneuvering around of the store searches. In the last 3 months, I have completely lost my business. I have sold one item out of my store this month. I have lost my powerseller status. I am about to close the whole thing what is left this week. All I have actually been doing is supporting the staff on eBay with my fees. I have been selling on eBay for 5 years and this is a first for me. It is apparent where eBay is heading and who they are trying to get rid of. It's hard to even afford the auction fees as most of these buyers what everything for nothing. Just thought I would add my 2 cents worth! Thanks for listening.
Pat
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Re: "Yahoo to Partner with eBay, Will Integrate PayPal Payment Service"
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m05/i25/s03
Ina,
It occurs to me that ebay is prostituting ads that sellers are paying a listing fee for - to generate additional revenue without subsidizing the seller in any way from the income generated by said yahoo ad. Additionally, say someone searches for an item and it comes up to show one of my items, and they click on it, but an ad on top attracts them - they are drawn away from my ad.
My new crusade for 2006 may be, ebay should subsidize listings that yahoo ads are placed on, because we are paying for the "real estate" to begin with. Should make an interesting topic for discussion.
Richard
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