eBay and The Royal Mail

Good question I have bought some eBay stuff early December and eBay have mailed me directly to see if stuff had turned up.

I would get in contact with eBay I would have thought they would have something in place to mitigate against the strike action, I always use Royal Mail for ebay sales as yet I've not had anything go missing compared to when I used to use Hermes,have you had the funds yet?

I posted things first class in November which have only just been delivered.

The advice I received in the Post Office was that delivery times for first class items are expected to be 3-4 weeks as a maximum and not claim before then.

I would be very cautious about refunding for items not yet delivered on your time scales as the chances are it will turn up soon and you will lose the item, lose the money for the item and lose the ability to claim anything from Royal Mail. Annoying for the buyer but that is the reality of the Royal Mail at the moment.

I would apologise to the buyer and state the expected delivery time is 3-4 weeks (feel free to ask your own Post Office if it reassures). Therefore if the item hasn't arrived in 4 weeks you will refund. Make sure you have a claim in with Royal Mail a few days earlier so if you do decide to refund the buyer then the chances are Royal Mail will refund you.

If the buyer doesn't want the item due to the delay then that is understandable and I would accept a return once the item is delivered- but I wouldn't be rushing to refund any purchases without first having received the value from Royal Mail first (I hope that makes sense!)

We've got about three grands worth of stuff stuck in a Royal Mail warehouse somewhere that's overdue delivery from black Friday. When stuff gets delayed they stick it out of the way and deal with new stuff instead, as it looks better on their metrics - it doesn't matter that your stuff becomes more late. You can explain the issue to customers and hope for goodwill (we automatically refund the shipping cost) but we still get a lot of angry 'isn't my problem' emails. So you refund but can't stop it turning up, then you have the problem of trying to recover goods (at our cost) which relies on people doing the right thing... 50/50 they'll ghost you. And you can't claim from Royal Mail as they did delivered it, eventually. Merry Christmas from the Royal Mail.

The normal stuff is anyones guess but if RM fail to deliver a 48hr item do they refund if they fail to do so on time?

The normal stuff is anyones guess but if RM fail to deliver a 48hr item do they refund if they fail to do so on time?

I doubt it, 24h tracked seems to be taking about a week at the moment.

@ harry - i can tell you what will happen - you'll get screwed. I spoke to ebay customer service and the line they are taking (apart from marginally extending the dates ) is that if the buyer receives the goods after being repaid, then it's up to the seller to ask the buyer nicely to pay. That's it. Can't even leave negative feedback. As a result i've deleted multiple listings and only using special delivery on the higher priced items. Ebay continues to shaft sellers.

I tried to email a complaint, but ebay just bounced it back to me, saying they werent interested.

After writing the above i've decided to end all my listings. don't want to lose hundreds of pounds.

Same here. I’ve ended all mine until everyone can sort their shiv out.

Placed order for tyres on the 12th, arrived on the 19th From SDJ sports on ebay. Label tells me that was tracked 48, coming from Cambridgeshire to Glasgow.

We're down south but the outlaws live in Chester and they've been fretting over everything they sent on 5th Dec because none of it started arriving until literally yesterday, ie 14 days. Apparently their hub has been sitting on thousands of letters and parcels for days and days, so I imagine other hubs have been doing the same, hence there'll be quite some backlog to clear.

Ebay continues to shaft sellers.

Only ones that use RM.

Who must be crackers, when there are other less strikey post movers.

I have about 1k worth of goods with Royal Mail even after requesting from seller not to use Royal Mail not much going on with tracking will by at store Friday and return back to seller wasting my time. All so the seller could save £2 on a shipment.

@boomerlives - like ebay who recommend packlink who use evri. Last 2 times a seller has sent me something via evri - the first never made it past the senders depot and the second the parcel was opened and the goods removed, so i received an empty box. That Evri who make it almost impossible to put in a claim for a lost parcel. Royalmail might be a bit shit ,but it's easy to make a claim for a lost parcel.

Update: The critical one, a kids Christmas present, got through today after being posted 1st class a couple of weeks ago.

Others are still somewhere in the system but they were never promised for Christmas.

One of mine turned up after I got a refund, so I contacted the seller and paid again. Another is out there somewhere, with an estimated delivery date Dec 30th - Jab 9th. Not too bothered as it isn't critical.

The Post Office needs to sort this whilst they still have a business.

I sent an eBay parcel to Germany on 14 November. Still hasn't arrived, I've refunded the buyer his £50 - no doubt it will finally turn up before Royal Mail eventually process my claim and they'll both make out like bandits.

(No grudge against the buyer - I don't think I would refund a seller from my own goodwill if I'd had to wait ~8 weeks or whatever for an item either!).

I learned my lesson and posted a parcel to the USA last week via Fedex. Arrived in six days.

Ah, the Royal Mail Oubliette....thing is, managers get penalised when tracked mail is late - but they don't get more penalised when it's more laterer, and nobody gives a sh!t about first class or signed for items, which just get kicked into a corner or under a table until time allows.

Ex-postie, btw, sacked it off autumn last year because I was so fed up of the chronic mismanagement. Shocking company.

I'm getting stuff, but things are delayed, tracked 24/48 etc seem to be taking 2 or 3 times over. Regular post e.g. 1st and 2nd class comes in fits and spats and is anyones guess. I'd say just be patient.

boomerlives
Free Member

Ebay continues to shaft sellers.

Only ones that use RM.

Who must be crackers, when there are other less strikey post movers.

Username checks out.

You need to bare in mind that private couriers are also experiencing unprecidented demand due to more people using them due to the RM strikes.

If you don't like it, get in a van and start delivering packages rather than complaining. Minumum wage, wear your own vehicle out for no extra money. Or DPD, company van but 100+ drops per day etc... what are you waiting for?

I got refunded for an Amazon purchase that didn't turn up after 2 weeks of waiting and then the week after it turned up. I contacted the seller and sent it back (as I had already purchased another elsewhere). So stuff does eventually turn up and I wouldn't be refunding based on the scenario others have already commented.

However I have also sold a couple of items on eBay and I sent them Guaranteed by 1PM.  When they didn't turn up until a few days later I submitted a claim to RM. To my utter surprise I got a cheque from RM in the post today!

It's worth highlighting that the CWU offered to cancel this weeks 2-day strike to allow for the bulk of the backlog to be cleared and effectively 4 weeks of no action - during such period the details of an agreement could be ironed out.

The proposal was rejected almost immediately by Royal Mail.

Simon Thompson has no intention of saving Christmas - all he is interested in is running the company into the ground, bleeding it dry, ready to then break it up for maximum exploitation and profit - at the expense of the workers, the customers and the public.

@oceanskipper "I wouldn’t be refunding based on the scenario others have already commented."- this doesn't apply to ebay sales as the seller has no real say in the matter as ebay will refund and then charge it to your account. Once the buyer puts in a claim your chances of stopping the repayment are marginal at best.

Ive waited over a month for a delivery that is a massive tale of woe...

yesterday the Postie signed for it himself and stashed it for me.

Me, the postie and the poor guy* on Customer Service** are now bezzies and going out for bevvies for christmas

(well, the postie will be getting a tip, probably not enough to cover any loss of pay through striking)

*Marlon - not Marion
** https://www.absolute-snow.co.uk/
i could have crawled to the shop and back in a lot less time, lesson learned

Once the buyer puts in a claim your chances of stopping the repayment are marginal at best.

Oh - that’s a bit crap then.

If you don’t like it, get in a van and start delivering packages rather than complaining.

If I don't like what exactly?

We don't get post on my road on a Saturday unless it's guaranteed that day. Normal post has to wait until the next working day. Postie drives up in her van and delivers the important stuff and leaves. She doesn't have time, she says.

How will me driving a van fix that? Only RM have let me down on deliveries this year, others have been spot on.

Evri, DPD and UPS have all been really busy over this period. They are making hay while they can. It's likely they will still be in profit when RM is seeking more money to bail them out from the tax payer.

Again.

I sell a fair bit on EBay, mostly shipped via RM - delivery times have been all over the place recently.

The worst was two parcels which were collected from my house on the 28th November and delivered 19th December - luckily the buyers were both patient, the best was collected from me on the 16th December and delivered on the 19th.

It will probably arrive sometime after Christmas, just a case of being patient.

I had a chat with my local postie and he said management were giving different priorities on a daily basis.

@boomerlives It’s likely they will still be in profit when RM is seeking more money to bail them out from the tax payer.

Royalmail was privatised some years ago. the last bailout was some years before the privatisation, though probably when it was state owned , the govt took the profits when they occurred and didn't reinvest them in the enterprise. I thought the strike was due to the difference in opinion as to the profitability of royalmail. The union is talking about record profits and the company is saying it's losing £1 million a day.

i've got no beef with roaylmail or the strikers, my problem is with ebay who couldn't careless about it's sellers. I'm sure all sellers have got horror tales about buyers and the seller can't even leave negative feedback to warn others, all you can do is block the buyer from future purchases which doesn't help when you've been screwed over.

Thanks for the heads-up on this. I had a ton of bike stuff I was planning to list over Christmas but don't think I'll bother until this all blows over.

like ebay who recommend packlink who use evri. Last 2 times a seller has sent me something via evri – the first never made it past the senders depot and the second the parcel was opened and the goods removed, so i received an empty box. That Evri who make it almost impossible to put in a claim for a lost parcel.

I ordered three items last weekend, promised delivery before Christmas, one is a present for my mate. They were all sent via Evri, who’ve shown that they’re delayed somewhere.

BBC Points West tonight had a report about the Evri depot in Swindon swamped with parcels, people trying to contact Evri about items that are anywhere up to three weeks late, and Evri say they’ve no idea where the items are. My main item is being shipped again via DPD, and if/when the original finally turns up to just return it.

Fingers crossed. There is an option to choose a courier, which I hadn’t noticed, but I don’t normally get stuff delivered via Evri, so hadn’t expected any issues.

Stuff is getting through. We have a few that are still in the system though, all for Liverpool and North Wales so assume that they are in the same depot.

Had a very apologetic email for a seller explaining why his parcel to me is late. Have told them that I understand and will wait. Have copied the text so that I can use it myself.