Useful Components Main Contents Page
Useful
Components Dispatch and Post
Updated 4th January 2021
I
despair. The ebay programming monkeys have screwed
International Postage Rate Tables. Obviously,
sending to AUS is the same price as to the EU. No,
it's not. Obviously sending to the USA is the same
price as to Europe. No, it's not. But the
programming monkey children at ebay think that it
is. If your post to Ireland and EU looks a bit
expensive, it's because ebay is a disfunctional crap
website that is in the process of dieing on its pathetic
sorry arse. Sorry about that. From
experience, I call it "The Nokia Syndrome." Sounds
like a film! Meanwhile, economy overseas postage
reflects an average for rates to all global locations
with good postal services. Thanks for that, ebay
UK general manager Murray Lambell, who is "Responsible
for all ebay UK activities," now that Robert Hatrell has
been promoted to ebay europe V.P. How did that
happen? Screw your sellers, screw your customers,
just climb that greasy pole, eh Robbo?
New Year 2021 thanks also to Suella Braverman who, as
Attorney General in the UK, has ignored my notification
of ebay system failures causing retail fraud on many
repeated occasions. If you want to read about it,
copy and paste at will:)
https://www.interestingelectronics.com/old/henrys_interesting_electronics/customer_service/ebay/ebay_main_page.html
COVID-19
UK
I'm
still
shipping within 24 hours. Royal
Mail
have mostly recovered from their extraordinary 'sticky
bed' syndrome from earlier in the year, though
occasionally it still takes longer than usual to deliver
some items.
I will close down Useful Components immediately if I get
any cold-like symptoms.
________________________________________
I started editing
this page on 3rd October 2020
and gave up the will to
live. If you want to
hear a fairly competent
middle-aged electronics
engineer having an argument
with many, many ebay customer
so-called 'support' telephone
liars, you'll have to
cut and paste the following
links and suffer their
pathetic lies along with
me. I have since
included descriptions from the
main webpage.
Ebay Customer
Service Problems Navigation Page
Ebay Isn't very good when it comes to
customer service for sellers. In fact, they are absolutely
awful. There will be some more pages visible here
soon. For now, here is the sorry story of closing down my
"Interesting Electronics" ebay shop. This is the page that
was placed on the front page of the shop for a couple of weeks
prior to closure. It was updated as the process went along
and is shown here for archive purposes.
https://www.interestingelectronics.com/old/henrys_interesting_electronics/customer_service/ebay/ebay_main_page.html
The
Closing of Ebay Shop Interesting Electronics due to UK VAT
Limit Related Invisible Sales Throttling or Capping Systems.
Patience ended. There's no point
in making life more difficult than it has to be.
https://www.interestingelectronics.com/old/henrys_interesting_electronics/customer_service/ebay/i_e_closure.html
Ebay,
and Invisible Sales Throttling, Caps, Levelling or Limits
Related to UK VAT Thresholds
Figment of a paranoid imagination or
obvious mathematical truth? You decide. I am not
alone.
https://www.interestingelectronics.com/old/henrys_interesting_electronics/customer_service/ebay/ebay_vat_throttle.html
30th
September 2019, Ebay Loses Orders From
The System and Blames Everyone Else
You would think that not losing
orders in an online marketplace system is fairly basic and
essential. No, actually. According to ebay seller
support, you should expect this to happen.
https://www.interestingelectronics.com/old/henrys_interesting_electronics/customer_service/ebay/missing_orders/missing_orders.html
1st
October 2019, Ebay Remove Vital Functionality From Seller
Hub By Way Of An Upgrade
Your new web page design may arguably be
more mobile friendly according to several outdated measures in the
Ladybird book of, "How To, Web Design For Kiddies," but that's not
very helpful if it no longer actually works.
https://www.interestingelectronics.com/old/henrys_interesting_electronics/customer_service/ebay/broken_hub/broken_hub.html
2nd
March 2020, Proof That The Ebay Messaging System Lost a
Vital Message and Their Pathetic Response
I've long suspected that the ebay
messaging system has been losing messages sent to me from
customers and vice-versa, particularly when they are using an
ebay site other than ebay.co.uk. Here's just one example,
and a recording of the telephone call to ebay seller "support,"
which did little to make me happy. Quite the reverse, in
fact.
https://www.interestingelectronics.com/old/henrys_interesting_electronics/customer_service/ebay/missing_messages/ebay_missing_messages.html
7th
April 2020, Ebay's Much Vaunted
Multi-Buy Promotions Fail, Make Me
Guilty of Retail Fraud, and their
Pathetic Response
On
the 7th April a customer alerted me to the
fact that when he had bought four items,
correctly using shopping cart and
everything, that he had been charged the
full price for one item rather than the
multiple purchase reduction price.
That's retail fraud! Here is the
ebay response so far. I've since
added many more instances of systematic
Multi-Buy Promotion failures, and some
analysis.
https://www.interestingelectronics.com/old/henrys_interesting_electronics/customer_service/ebay/multi_buy_fail/multi_buy_fail.html
28-SEP-2020,
Ebay Systems Fail To Apply A
Simple Overseas Postage Rate
Correctly, I get Blamed For it,
and Effectively Called A Liar.
Oh dear. It's the multi-buy
promotions failure excuses all over
again. "You changed the listing
after the customer placed the
order." No, I did not!
"Yes sir, you did." No, I
didn't!
https://www.interestingelectronics.com/old/henrys_interesting_electronics/customer_service/ebay/overseas_post/overseas_post.html
https://www.interestingelectronics.com/old/henrys_interesting_electronics/customer_service/ebay/seller_away/seller_away.html
Thanks then, Robert Hattrell, VP of
ebay UK, who is mentioned in many of those
later telephone calls and who is "...
responsible for all ebay UK activities."
This includes fraudulent retail price
misrepresentation on a regular and ongoing
basis, of which you were first notified eight
months ago on 7th April 2020.
This is yet another really awful software 'frig' to add
some data to Royal Mail 2D barcode labels when printed via
the ridiculously time-consuming ebay system. I can
only assume that some people actually use it, meanwhile the
rest of us who print address labels by a proper method have
to manually remove ebay computer garbage from the
text. Something is seriously wrong at
Ebay Politburo Central. Have we sacked everyone who used
to understand the system properly and employed some cheap
company to kludge every software change demanded by the
marketing department for a whopping bonus? Surely not!
https://www.interestingelectronics.com/old/henrys_interesting_electronics/customer_service/ebay/address_garbage/address_garbage.html
__________________________________________________
Brexit. So Good, it's on Both
Information Pages
(Arrrghh!)
It
appears that due to the impending UK EU exit, CN22
customs stickers now need to be applied to all packets,
and indeed I am now doing that. The efficient
Germans were particularly prompt in applying this new
rule very strictly, one might think about two months
prior to it actually being required. Unfortunately
this resulted in three packets being sent back and one
lost. Sorry for the inconvenience on those.
Packets to Germany and other EU countries are now
arriving as usual.
I've been happily sending packets to Australia, the USA, and many
other non-EU countries for years now. Australia
have instituted a new system of tax pre-payment for
ebay which appears to work, and all the other non-EU
countries seem to have some value limit before you
will get stung for internal VAT/sales tax when your
packet lands. This varies but tends to be about
$12 and items are marked by me as is appropriate to
their intrinsic value. Whatever the UK Brexit
disaster of self-imposed trade sanctions brings, I'm
open for business to anywhere that I can successfully
post to.
General Dispatch and post.
Packaging
All packets containing small items are standard letterbox size,
so you should never have to go and collect your packet from the
sorting office unless you have requested a signed-for
delivery. The packets are not waterproof, but waterproof
thermally printed stickers are used for the address. The
boxes are made from recycled cardboard, and very small items are
sent in padded envelopes with additional protection.
Larger orders might be in a larger packet. Your address
will appear exactly as you type it in your ebay address fields,
so it needs to be correct to avoid delays. You don't need to
write or select 'default' in empty fields; It confuses the
postpeople and their systems.
UK Mail
Dispatch Time, UK Mail
During Monday to Thursday items paid for before 13:00 are usually
packed and marked as sent by the evening of the same day, but will
always be packed and marked as sent within one working day of
payment unless the shop notices or item descriptions state
otherwise. You should receive an automatic email note when
the item is marked as sent, but I've found that these frequently
get blocked or ebay systems fail to send them. If a UK item
is marked as sent, it has definitely been packed, it is in the
post bag and it will always be posted within 24 hours.
Postal Charges, UK Mail
Within the UK you will only ever be charged one postage charge,
and that starts at a low fixed amount for 2nd class post for
everything. You can add any number of the same or different
items with no additional postage charge. You need to use the shopping basket
on ebay.co.uk and pay for them altogether for this to work.
You
can buy the entire shop and get it shipped for the one standard
post charge.
UK Post Method and Late Packets
Economy post within the UK is sent by second class Royal
Mail. "Standard" post within the UK is sent by first class
Royal Mail. These are more than 99% reliable and packets
generally arrive in good time. I don't recommend 1st class
signed-for, as this system is despised by the postpeople who
often have to write out a card and carry the item back to the
sorting office if there is no answer at the delivery
address. In my experience this actually increases the
probability of your packet being lost.
If your UK packet has not arrived within 10 working days
of it being marked as sent, I will always resend it or refund your
money at your choice. This is my responsibility under
consumer law and there is no reason to purchase extra
insurance. On these rare occasions you will never lose out,
but you may have to wait a little.
If you need something the next working day Monday to Thursday,
then before 13:00 on the previous day, I may well be able to send
it next day special delivery by special arrangement. This
will cost you £10, but it isn't an option on the listings due to
me being unable to guarantee availability. The best way is
to send a site message before buying to see if I'll be able to
reach a Post Office by the collection deadline that afternoon.
Economy International
Airmail
"Economy" International mail is now sent by Royal Mail
Standard Airmail. It is sent at the same time as all UK
packets.
________________________________
Everything
below this line is a bit out-of-date, because in the light
of the information at the top of the page, who cares?
Certainly not Robert Hattrell, VP of ebay UK who "...is
responsible for all ebay UK activities."
Postal Charges, Economy International
Airmail
Many countries I can ship to at his was fixed recently
however, and this finally allows me to send packets to
Italy and some other countries with lossy postal
services. If the economy international post price
comes up as £12.95 in the postage rates tab, you're in a
country with a lossy postal service and unfortunately,
it's the only option available. A tracked, signed,
or tracked and signed service will be used. It's
expensive for small single items, but don't forget it's a
flat rate for any quantity of anything from the shop
provided that you pay for everything together using
shopping cart.
"Economy International Post," that being standard airmail
via DPD-LaPoste to most other EU countries, Australia, the
USA, New Zealand and many others remains a sensible price
for any amount of anything, and is about 98%
reliable. You'll always get a refund if it doesn't
arrive in 31 days but it's usually there within 14 working
days. Ebay Central Politburo Command in their
infinite wisdom give some excessively long delivery times
to AUS, NZ and some other countries for economy
airmail. Generally, it is better than their
estimates, but bear in mind that it's variable.
Economy International Airmail
Post Method and Late Packets
All economy international airmail now ships by DPD-Geopost / La
Poste International Priority Airmail. This service is an
untracked airmail service which has proved to be very
reliable. Your packet should arrive via the standard
national post carrier in your country. The stated delivery
time is ten business days, but please be aware that it will be
much longer than this for about 10% of packets. This is
the same for all standard airmail carriers. I don't know
why this should be, and I assume that there are random samples
taken for security checking for which there is a queue of
varying length depending on the season and security alert state.
All packets will now be marked with a CN22 customs sticker
indicating the contents and the approximate value.
Depending on your country, sales tax-like charges might be
incurred for higher value items. Most countries operate a
system where there is no charge below a certain value, and many
small items will pass below this value unhindered. If
there is a charge, you will always be notified by some system
operated by the national post carrier, and the packet will not
be lost because of this.
If your packet has not arrived after 20 working days in the EU
or 25 working days in the rest of the world, I will always
re-send it or refund at your choice. This is my
responsibility under consumer law and there is no reason to
purchase extra insurance. On these rare occasions you will
never lose out, but you may have to wait a little.
I may not be able to send at all to some countries, but I am
generally willing to give it a try if it is actually possible.
International Tracked Airmail Service
"Royal Mail Tracked" is available to almost all countries and
claims a 3 to 5 working day transit time. This is fully
tracked only within the UK. The service claims some degree
of expedited passage through customs but this is not
guaranteed. I may not be able to send at all to some
countries, but I am generally willing to give it a try if it is
actually possible.
Dispatch
by Courier Service
I only use courier services such as DHL by special
arrangement. Be prepared to pay an extraordinary amount,
in the region of £50 GBP for any item. I have done this
recently. The estimate is accurate, and it will take me 24
hours to arrange a pickup. Delivery is guaranteed within
four days on DHL.
The New eBay Shop Format
The new ebay shop format does not allow any useful custom pages
like these. I tried it and they disappeared. I will
be forced to transfer over at some stage, meanwhile, you and
eBay UK VP Rob Hattrell might enjoy listening to some of my many
telephone arguments with eBay so-called seller 'Support,' over
the various failures of his pathetic toy-town website. You
can listen to them here:
https://www.interestingelectronics.com/old/henrys_interesting_electronics/customer_service/ebay/ebay_main_page.html
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