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25-MAR-2020
On 7th April 2020 I was alerted by a very
helpful customer that when he had purchased four items,
the discount for buying four had not been applied.
He wrote...
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Helpful Customer: E-Bay has given a
postage discount but hasn't given a quantity
discount. Listing shows UKL3.28 each for four off.<8/font>
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He is correct. A UK buyer has seen an
advertised price of £3.28, used all the ebay shopping
cart systems correctly, got the postage 'discount,' and
has still been charged £3.45 each.
__________________
Henry: Hello H.C.
I will look into this and give the telephone seller
"support" line some bashing about this, as it amounts to
retail fraud. Right now, all I can do is either cancel the
order and refund, or send it. Or, I could cancel it and send
you a paypal money request for the correct amount. Please
let me know which you'd prefer and thanks for your note.
Henry Walmsley.
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Henry: Hello again,
So, the ebay seller "support" line can give no explanation
for this, other than suggesting that I only put the
multi-buy promotion on after the sale was made, which we
know isn't the case. I've found another instance of this in
today's sales. I suspect that they will blame it on a
'glitch,' when they call back tomorrow. I've made my
displeasure clear and will publish the recording of the
calls here:
(link to my main ebay complaints page)
Meanwhile, please let me know if you want to cancel the
order. It might work correctly if you re-order or I can send
a request via paypal for the correct amount as suggested.
Thanks,
Henry.
___________________
___________________
Helpful Customer:
Thank you for your reply. Please send the items and forget
about the few pence. I just wanted to let you know about
what's going on on your listing.
Kind regards,
H.C.
___________________
What a helpful and nice
customer, considering that he's just been the subject of
(albeit unintentional) retail fraud! I spotted another
instance of this that happened around the same time.
Overseas buyers from UK sellers can't see the multi-buy
discounts. Why this should be in the 21st century I
have no idea, when I've used multi-buy discounts as a UK
buyer from some Chinese / HK sellers for years.
However, that is a question for another time. For now,
why are ebay multi-buy promotions from a UK seller to a UK
buyer who has seen the advertised discount sometimes
mysteriously failing? Let's get on to the Ebay seller
"support" telephone line for an unambiguous and clear
answer, shall we? You can click on the links below for
the recordings. The first one had Very extended hold
times, which have been edited out for your sanity. The
full call time was about 45 minutes.
Ebay Seller Telephone
Support Say That Multi-Buy Discount Promotions are Working
Fine and Accuse Me of Lieing Despite the Facts In Front Of
Their Own Eyes.
I despair at the delay tactics employed by the staff, and
the denial of the obvious. However, I will no longer
accept "Oh, it was just a glitch" as an excuse for making me
guilty of Retail Fraud. Thankyou for repeating the
information that I gave you in the first instance as an
explanation of what has happened. No. Not good
enough.
There was a call back the
following day. Thankyou again, ebay seller support,
for repeating back to me the information that I gave you in
the first instance as an explanation of what has
happened. I was a bit busy at that moment getting out
an urgent parcel, so I didn't quite have the time to
'dig-down,' as they say. Here's the call:
There has been no response
since. Well, I've not finished on this one.
Rob Hattrell, UK VP Ebay. I hope
you're listening to the 'phone calls, Luv.
"Rob Hattrell leads the eBay UK business
and is accountable for all operations in that market. He
is passionate about consumer sellers, small businesses
and the role technology and eBay play in powering
entrepreneurship and creating opportunity. Rob has run
the UK market since 2017."
I've written to you before Rob, and I
didn't get a response. Fancy! I look forward
to your call about how your company makes me guilty of
retail fraud.
17th April
2020: Ermmm...
What's Happening
with Multi-Buy Here
As Well?
I'm glad that Rob Hattrell is so, "...passionate about
the role technology and eBay play in powering
entrepreneurship and creating opportunity,"
because here's another eBay Multi-Buy failure
that results in me committing retail fraud, and
you can reproduce this one consistently.
You can click on the screenshot below for a
bigger image of one of my listings.
So, this is a
variation listing. Variation listings
include slightly different variations of the
same thing, like different size T-shirts.
Some unscrupulous sellers will try to fiddle
this system by having a list of different size
T-shirts for £9.95, and then another variation
for a stick-on badge for 99pee in an attempt to
get to the top of a list of items listed by
lowest price first. Naughty! This is
forbidden by the rules. However, it's
explicitly allowed to have the XXXL T-shirt at a
different price than the XS one. Equally
well, in this example we have a series of
different capacitance values from the same range
of capacitors. The bigger ones are more
expensive. Fine. That's all clean
and above-board. When you select the
appropriate capacitance on the drop-down box,
the prices change and you also see the correct
prices on the Buy 1, Buy 2, and Buy 3 multi-buy
buttons. Hang on though, below that it
says, "4 or more for £3.75 each."
"Oh that sounds like
a bargain," says the customer, bungs four into
their basket and hits checkout and pay.
Not realising that in fact, that particular part
of multi-buy does not change price when you
select your desired capacitance value, and
continues to show you the price for four of a
different variation. Useless! No,
worse than useless. Because that's a
retail pricing offer that is subsequently
changed without warning, it's fraud. In
this particular case the price for four looks
unusually low and most customers will notice,
and check the price in shopping cart. But
that need not be true in all cases.
It's
yet another ebay
programming
monkey failure
which no-one
cares about, because
guess what? If the customer is
over-charged, that's more fees for Ebay in the
very short term, while I have to deal with the
annoyed customers and issue costly
refunds. I'll call this one
in on the telephone next week to
see if the reaction is anything
greater than the usual
slopey-shouldered shrug, and 45
minutes of pretending not to
understand the problem. I
find it remarkable though.
Supermarkets have ended up in
court with similar problems
where the price marked on the
shelf was different to that
charged at the checkout.
The analogy is direct, so I hope
that you've got your best suit
and tie ready Rob Hattrell, VP
eBay UK, because if I end up in
the dock, you're going to be
right there next to me.
Henry: "What, Rob; You
didn't know about it?"
But I've posted links to this
page as comments on the ebay
Facebook page, and I'll be on
the telephone to eBay seller
support about it next
week. Don't
worry, I'll mention your name in person for the tape,
and say that it's an urgent legal issue about eBay
trading practices.
Update 26-MAY-2020:
As if it were possible, it's even worse than that.
The much vaunted "Ebay Multi-Buy discounts" not only
frequently fail to apply correctly, not only show
misleading prices, but also sometimes apply when they
should not! Ebay claim that during the current
virus issues, they can't find a way to employ call
centre staff in such a way that they can work from home,
which we know from previous experience that they
can. So instead we are forced to use the text chat
system. The level of deliberately obtuse
misunderstanding in order to try to avoid addressing the
point that I've experienced here is very annoying, but
one must be dogged and carry on explaining the
situation, as if to a child. Here is a transcript
which proves that multi-buy discount has been applied
incorrectly to two completely separate transactions from
the same person:
Welcome to eBay Live Help. My name is Raja. I would be happy to help you today. Please stay connected while I review your query.
Hello Henry,
Hi
I can see that you are concern about a discount applied incorrectly, am I correct?
Yes that's right.
Order no. 21-05041-93702
May I know it you want to alter the discount offer or is there anything else I could do for you with this?
Can you see that order in paid and dispatched items?
Ah! the item has been sold already, no worries, Please share the buyer id and I will assist you further :)
johnny_#####
Thank you for sharing this with me, i can see that the item is showing in sold section.
Right. And how many were sold?
on transaction id 21-05041-93702
The item "Solder Lug Connection 16mm Log Potentiometer" has been sold for two times to - "johnny_#####"
On tranasaction id 21-05041-93702 there is one item sold.
Henry I would like to share that every transaction Id remain different for transaction on site.
Well, on the single transaction that you can see are seperate sales there was one item sold then.
ALso, May I know what exact resolution you are seeking for so that I can have a better understanding in order to resolve this quick and efficiently up to your satisfaction?
Yes. There are two single transactions there.. The customer has bought one item on each. A discount has been applied incorrectly. £2.87 has been charged rather than £2.96. This is not a new problem.
Thank you for sharing this with me Henry, please allow me a moment to check every detail with you so that I can clear this for you.
Henry, as I have check this for you and found that there are two discounts, which are item price discount and postage discount as well, may I know which one of them you think applied incorrectly?
No postage discount was applied. The item price has been discounted incorrectly . These are two separate transactions.
The item price on each transaction should have been £2.96.
Let me share what has happened here.
I can see that you have created multi buy discount, as per which for two items the price would be £2.87 each. So now buyer has purchased two items for which the original price was £2.96 each however, as per the multi buy discount system applied £0.09 item discount and hence the final price is £2.87 each.
No. Not on two separate transaction it should not.
And you can clearly See with Your Eyes that there are two searate transactions, so why even say that?
Yes, I can see that there are two separate transaction and I totally agree with you however, I will have to check this from the other end, which I am already up to and I will surely clear this as well for you :)
It's happened before on a single transaction. Do you want me to drag that one up for you?
Henry, I can see that you are absolutely correct as the discount should not be applicable to single transactions and hence I am escalating this to get a clarification. Please be assured as we will reach back to you within 24-73 hours via email with a clarification on this, will that be okay?
Yes, thankyou.
You're welcome Henry.
Goodbye for now, then.
I am sorry that you have to face this and please take care and stay safe :)
It was my pleasure assisting you today. Thank you for contacting eBay. Have a wonderful time ahead!
Chat ended by vila_restor
Now, I can't offer discounts on separate
transactions because of the once-per-transaction paypal
fee, even if they do happen shortly after each other
from the same user. As also mentioned in the
transcript, this has happened once before, on a single
transaction for one item. So what became of the
promised response within three days? The above
conversation was ten days ago. Nothing will
happen, Rob Hattrell, VP of Ebay UK. That's not an
Ebay promise, that's a Henry Walmsley promise based on
my everyday experience of eBay lies.
27-MAY-2020:
Oh, I do apologise. Oddly, the very
next morning after the last post on this website I
received an ebay site message. Actually, no I
didn't! It was a Direct Email from
customerhelp_uk@ebay.com . It reads thus:
Once again we have to suffer the age old, long practiced ebay seller "support" technique of pretending to not understand the actual issue, and diverting attention away to something else which was not the original problem. In this case, nothing whatsoever to do with me. Fortunately, It won't work with me, because I'm not an idiot. "With regard to credit for unsold items," Raja S, (once again hiding behind a pseudonym.) That's complete nonsense totally unrelated to the clearly stated original problem.
Follow up regarding Multi Buy Discount issue SR# 1-261391692697
Hello Henry,
This is a follow up from eBay customer support with regard to the credit for the unsold items.
We apologize for the long wait as we are still looking into this matter. I’m sorry for the inconvenience it has caused to you.
We are working closely with the relevant team to seek a resolution for your query. Please do not worry, we will be taking full ownership of your query until we can get a resolution and would monitor your account to ensure that you are not experiencing any other issues.
We cannot state the stipulated time, however you would be contacted sooner as we get any update from our technical team.
Thank you and have a blessed day!
Kind Regards,
Raja S.
eBay Customer Support
[THREAD ID: 1-3C2XV4WR]
Nice Customer:
"Hi, thanks for the refund - didn’t realise I’d
been overcharged. I did see the discount box when
I chose to buy two of the pots.
Cheers. N.C."
______________________________________
Once again, clear price
misrepresentation retail fraud. So, off we
go again to the ebay telephone seller 'support'
telephone line of lies. You can hear the
entire phone call with just the hold music edited
out here:
17-FEB-2021 Ebay
Seller Support Call to Report More Retail Fraud
Caused by the eBay Website.
The video for this
call is already on YouTube, though
you'll have to sit through the
hold music on that version while I
learn how to edit videos.
YouTube
Video of The Latest Ebay Retail
Fraud Incident and the
Subsequent Telephone Call to the
Ebay Seller Support Phone Line
Of Lies
Local
Video Copy mbf_vr60_17022021.wmv
Call Summary:
1) Just the usual
denials, lies, and hot potato drops writ extremely
large on this particular occasion.
2) I refund the customer during the call.
3) Absolutely no resolution of the issue.
4) I complain, invoke Murray Lambell General
Manager of eBay UK, who is responsible for all
ebay UK activities including retail fraud.
5) I am told to write to the Dublin dustbin
ebay
complaints address, as if we're living in the
19th century. I suggest delivering it by
horse and cart.