-------------------
Using ebay for selling can be
a slow, clunky, bug-ridden experience at the best of times,
but you'd expect it to actually function. Not on the
30th September 2019 you wouldn't! The first thing that
alerted me to a problem was a note from a customer saying that
his transaction had gone through, had appeared in his
purchased items list, but had then disappeared from
ebay.
"That's weird," I remarked.
Looking into paypal, I find the transaction all paid for, with
ebay purchase references and showing the items to send.
There is no evidence in ebay about the sale. So, I send
off the items and alert the customer to this via a site
message. While I'm looking in paypal, I find another
example, exactly the same situation. I send those items
off as well, and send an ebay site message to the
customer. The exact sequence of site messages is
detailed below.
Well, this is no good.
Onto the ebay seller support telephone line we go, and speak
to a selection of people. They talk some nonsense about
payments being "delayed." No. They were not
delayed. Your system has lost the orders and I have the
paypal payments to prove it. The final summary of that
call is, "You shouldn't expect ebay to work all the
time." I remark that in that case, I shouldn't have to
pay for it when it fails in its most basic of functions.
There was no indication as to whether the
problem was ongoing or had been fixed. You
can listen to the telephone call at the next link:
That was bad enough, but the
next day, the two customers were asked to pay again for the
transactions that had gone through and then lost by
ebay. My second customer makes a new order for a
different number of items, so I send the additional items at
my additional post expense and refund the original paypal
payment. I assure the customer that he needs to do
nothing and that everything is in order.
Asking people to pay twice for the same goods is retail
fraud. I make this point in another telephone call to
the ebay seller support line. There are actual
unadulterated ebay lies in this call as well. Ebay blame
paypal for the entire failure, and I point out that this can
not be true, otherwise the unpaid items would have remained in
the unpaid items list. In what must be considered to be
a minor miracle, I am refunded £1.52 in fees and an extra £10
for the three hours spent sorting out the mess.
Woo!
Later, Sherl calls back and asks if my
account has been credited.
Henry: "Well, I'd
assumed so, given that you said that you had done it.
What do you want, some kind of gold star? By the way,
why has Seller Hub been updated and had vital parts of its
functionality removed?"
Sherl: 'Oh, I don't know about that.'
Henry: "Well, there's
not much point talking to you then. I'll call someone
else. Goodbye."
------C1-30-SEP-2019-19:11
Hi
I ordered two transformers today and the purchase appeared in
my purchases list for a while and then disappeared and there
was no confirmation email. Just wondering if the purchase has
appeared at your end or not
Cheers, C1
-----------
-----Henry-30-SEP-2019-20:54
Hi C1,
This is very odd. There's nothing showing from you at
all in ebay, in paid or unpaid orders, yet the valid
transaction is there in paypal, Transaction ID:
xxxxxxxxxxx. I'll pack those tonight and they will
ship tomorrow.
I will also be on the telephone to ebay seller support
about this as well, where they will um, ahh, and call
it, "A one-off glitch." To deal with ebay is to fight
a losing battle at the moment. Thanks for drawing this
to my attention.
Henry.
----------------
-----Henry-30-SEP-2019-22:09
...apparently the whole site is in disarray worldwide,
but you can be assured that there are some ebay seller
support telephone operatives going home with a flea in
their ear tonight :)
---------------
------C1-01-OCT-2019-09:37
Hi Henry,
Many thanks for the messages. I got an email from ebay today
saying I need to resend the payment for the order. If that
concurs with what you think I'll do that.
Cheers
C1
------------
-----Henry-01-OCT-2019-11:26
Hi C1,
You don't need to do anything. Payment was received
and the two items shipped last night. If you could
forward exactly what advice ebay sent to you, that
would be a great favour to me.
Thanks,
Henry.
-------------------
------C1-01-OCT-2019-12:28
Hi Henry - Below is the text of the email I got at 11.51pm
last night. Sounds like they really have lost the plot. All
rather like the saga I'm currently having with BT.
Cheers
C1
>
eBay
You need to resend your payment.
Hi C1,
Sorry, your recent payment for the item(s) below did not go
through.
Please return to eBay to send your payment again.
Please complete payment for the items below:
No image Audio Matching Transformer, C...
Item # 111253602759
Price: £8.23
Pay now
No image Audio Matching Transformer, C...
Item # 111253602759>
-------------------------------------------------------------
------Henry-01-OCT-2019-11:22
Hello C2,
You ordered one of each of these yesterday but due to
a global ebay systems failure, that order was lost
from ebay. However, the paypal payment was received
correctly and I shipped one of each of those pots last
night. I can cancel this order for two of each if you
like. Just tell me what you'd like to do and I will
make sure that you get the parts and that the money
works out correctly. I would be interested to know if
ebay sent you any advice on the matter.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Thanks,
Henry.
----------------
------C2-01-OCT-2019-11:27
Hi Henry,
I really appreciate you letting me know what happened -
what a pain!
If it s possible for you to send just one more of each
then that would be fantastic.
Thanks again and warmest regards,
C2
------------------------
------Henry-01-OCT-2019-11:30
Hi C2,
I'll do that now and refund the original paypal
payment. If you could forward exactly what advice ebay
sent to you it would be a great favour.
Henry.
-----------------
------C2-01-OCT-2019-11:40
Hi Henry,
This is a screenshot of what I received - at
the bottom was a picture of the items with a
'pay now' button next to them.
Hope that helps and thanks again for all your
help with this order!
C2
-------------------
If ebay were just to say that
there had been a terrible foul-up and that a lot of manual
intervention would be needed, I could forgive them. It's
not acceptable to try to cover it up in this way. Making
the situation worse by demanding second payments from retail
customers without checking with the seller first has probably
netted them millions in fees. That's fraud on a global
scale.
General email address checked
daily including spam folders: 