28-SEP-2020
Ebay Systems Fail To Apply A Simple Overseas
Postage Rate Correctly, I get Blamed For it, and
Effectively Called A Liar
On Friday 25th September 2020
I sold two iron powder toroidal coil forms to a nice customer
in Portugal. They are rather heavy so the overseas
shipping charges are quite high. Every additional item
has to incur an additional shipping charge to account for the
extra weight. Here's what you see (or should see) in the
postage rates tab if you set your location to Portugal.
That's straightforward enough. For two items the
postage charge to Portugal should be £5.98 + £1.98 =
£7.96. It's always been like that on this listing for
the reasons already stated. You will have to believe
me when I say that I have not altered that since the
customer made this purchase:
What's this? The nice customer has bought two items
and only been charged £5.98 postage. The ebay website
can't add-up. This is an error, and an expensive one
for me.
I say that, "You'll have to believe me," because when I saw
this error I went into the listing in edit mode to check the
postage rates. Everything was set-up as expected with
the £1.98 for each addition item. Then I made a
critical mistake. Rather than hitting 'cancel' I hit
'save.' The system then records that I have edited the
listing, despite not actually having made any actual
changes. Silly me. Anyway, onto the ebay seller
support line to report a critical error in application of
international postage rates. Note, that there are no
multi-buy promotion discounts visible for Portugal and there
are none shown on the sale. It would be nice if there
were, but that's another thing that just doesn't work on
ebay. You can click on the link to listen to the call.
26-SEP-2020 Call to Ebay Seller Support Asking Why
International Postage Has Failed To Add-Up Correctly for
More Than One Item.
Call Summary:
1) I get cut off as soon as the first call operator
realises what is going on, that being an incoming valid
complaint that they must have heard a thousand times
already.
2) I get put through to the specialist at pretending
to be the village idiot, who people will normally lose
patience with after thirty minutes of obfuscation. I
am made of sterner stuff.
3) Having approached the problem from the very
beginning and nailed down every possible eventuality, I get
a sideways accusation of not being direct. Yes,
quite. Gotcha.
4) The problem is kind-of recognised and I am assured
that someone in the mystery specialist department will deal
with it. Scooby-Doo perhaps.
5) I am promised a call back within 24 hours.
Well that's Sunday, my day off, which I'm not particularly
happy about, but fine.
27-SEP-2020 Call Back
from Ebay Seller Support Who Say That I Changed The
Postage Rates After The Customer Made The Purchase
Call Summary:
1) Endless ebay blabber-mode.
2) I am told that there is no problem and that I
changed the international postage charge rates after the
customer from Portugal bought the items.
3) I say that I did not, and while the listing was
indeed edited, I did not change the relevant section of
international postage charges, and consider that to be an
accusation of deception.
4) An extraordinary episode of ebay blabber mode that
means just nothing.
5) I am promised a call back within an hour which did
not occur.
It might be nice to be believed, for £800 a month.
You'd imagine that ebay might like to know that there is yet
another failure in their website. No, it's all my
fault! Regular viewers of these pages might like to
recall that, "You changed the listing afterwards," was the first
excuse for the multi-buy promotion failures first documented
by me on 7th April 2020. This was subsequently
accepted as a website software failure and ignored for the
next six months, and to the current date.
Well, we will see what happens. I will have to wait
for another international postage rate, 'adding one number
to another' failure, and then be more careful with the
checking, eh?
General email address checked daily including spam
folders: 
Navigate
Up