As a workaround, because it’s now pre-Christmas peak selling period (though you wouldn’t believe it from the number of sales achieved) I’ve removed the subtitle from the listings that were queued.

I’ve also had another marketing email from eBay SG with yet another offer for SE Asian sellers – this time listing on the USA site – offer “free” P&P and get 30% off FVFs. The same email echoes the 20-cents insertion on Oz with 10% off FVFs for Auctions and BINs, but there’s no mention of the free subtitle offer.

I’m wondering now if they’ve decided to cancel the free subtitle promotion for Oz and dot com?

Gaz

Clicking into the system from my “home” site of eBay Singapore, the CS rep took a look at the issue and couldn’t see why the listing received the insertion fee discount, but not the free subtitle. She recommended I leave it with her for escalation, pay the fees in the meantime, and then claim them back afterwards – anyone who knows me will know how well that idea was received.

My response was “I have been an eBay user too long to believe that is what will happen – past experience has shown me that eBay will renege on your statement, and after making the payment, I will be told to prove I was told the fees would be removed – besides, if I am entitled to the free subtitle, why should I pay for it in the hope of a later refund? I think this may have to be reported to the Australian ACCC – the government body that blocked compulsory PayPal in Australia.”

She then decided it should be escalated and offered to transfer me (a case of “if you can’t stand the heat …”?). I was transferred to a senior CS rep who also could not find a reason for the billing and who then transferred me to the billing escalation team, for whom I had to wait almost an hour to get a rep allocated to my call. Their conclusion was “you need to contact Billing Department for ebay.sg, as they will be able to tell you the reason for the charge” – as this was the third eBay rep involved, I reminded them the chat had initiated on the SG site and they told me to contact the Gold PS team in the morning as they did not work overnight.

I reminded them of the 13 hour time difference between Thailand and the US west coast, at which point they offered to transfer me to the Bronze PS team, exasperated, I accepted. The rep at the Bronze PS team did finally take ownership of the issue but not until they admitted being stumped by the mixed billing (for the two promotions) and they tendered that it may have been because I’d only offered free shipping for AU, and input a charge for the US, when it was a joint site promotion.

Predictably my response was that “The listing was loaded onto Australia – the promo in that context is for free shipping to Australia – the US charge should not affect it. Besides, US and AU are opposite sides of the planet – how can any sane business person expect sellers to ship free to opposite ends of the world at the same price?”

They countered with, “I am going to need to escalate this issue on, and find the correct answer for you. I will have the specialist who handles this contacted tomorrow. Would it be ok, if I follow up with you by email with my findings?”

While she was typing that, I added, “OK – if the cause is that both AU & US need free shipping, then the promotion creator needs put against a wall and shot – it is commercially impossible to do that without massively increasing the product start prices.” – that proved to be a “whoosh” and went straight over her head.

I agreed for her to escalate it and email me tomorrow.

Amongst the many exchanges during the 3-hour live chat today, it did occur to me that this was a programmer’s error. Either the promo eligibility for the free subtitle element has been input wrongly, or Australia forgot to switch it on for sellers in eligible countries, or the host countries for those sellers forgot to switch it on. Four different eBay staff members, in four different departments, and on two different continents, could see no reason for the subtitle being billed (beyond reaching for the reason of both the US and AU had to be offered free shipping). This in itself is indicative that there is an issue with the programming, and given eBay’s history of glitches this year, it also seems the most plausible.

Once the Bronze PS rep gets back to me (maybe tomorrow) … I’ll be back and update. In the meantime, I have hundreds of listings waiting to upload, which either have to be delayed (losing me money), or have the subtitles removed to avoid what I expect to be dug-in heels insisting the free shipping must be simultaneously applied to continents on opposite sides of the planet.

For people who dream up ideas like that, here in Thailand, we use the term “empty coconuts” – they look normal on the outside, but inside are completely vacuous. It also makes me think that MBA stands for “My Brain’s Absent”.

Now to get back to migrating inventory to my websites.

Gaz