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Because a few scummers here have cried "fowl" on calling out sellers who either abuse the glitches/holes in ebay's checkout system or simply refuse to help when something goes awry, I thought I would take a moment to outline what I have witnessed and documented so that everyone can have a better, more well-rounded understanding of how the checkout system works, what possibly may be going wrong with it, and why the other party should provide assistance when it happens. I am detecting a strong element around here of distrust and disbelief. Just because it hasn't happened to you doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It just means you have been lucky 
Perhaps if we start a dialogue specifically about the technical problems with poor design on ebay without finger-pointing (except possibly at ebay), that might help alleviate some of the animosity between users here on the RS watch-out threads when someone reports a problem with another user. We can dispel some myths and even document what is going on for those who seem to want to disbelieve, or those who have not experienced these problems so that they may be prepared if/when it does finally happen.
If replying to this thread, please do not quote specific member's names involved in transactions, whether they are RS members or non-RS ebay members, real names or handles. This thread is specifically designed to report & describe glitches and dysfunction of both technical and policy nature, to encourage solutions and illustrate the causes & effects. I don't want this thread to become another master list of users to avoid on ebay (buyer OR seller). So please keep names confidential when responding and describing your experiences or when providing documentation, if possible.
If you have seen similar things to what I describe, but your experience differed slightly your input may be invaluable! So please do describe anything remotely similar. A minor difference in your glitch compared to my glitch could shed some light.
I will start by describing my own experiences and what I have deduced as the root cause of them, debunking a few myths about checkout & payment as I go. I will not address bidding glitches or blocks here. Only what happens once the listing has ended & it's time to pay.
NOTE: Ebay now supports both standard web browser as well as an app designed and promoted by ebay for use on mobile devices. If your mobile device is like mine, you may be able to use either of these on the same device to compare/contrast. What I describe below is basically the same on both systems.
Because ebay allows a user to register a new account from the mobile app, exclusively using ebay on their mobile device, it would be inappropriate to blame any action on a user for using an app in favor of the traditional browser or vice versa, and because a user may exit the app and use their browser instead, I do not draw a distinction between them in my descriptions here.
The process must work properly for either browser or mobile app without requiring the user to go to another device in order for ebay to offer it to the consumer. So please refrain from responding to this thread and blaming people solely for using a mobile device as the root of all evil. It's not. I had problems with ebay checkout going back over 2 years, long before I ever had a smart phone.
That said, I suspect that ebay's inclusion of mobile devices into their system may be adding to glitches in their system recently, but cannot seem to document it at this point. Do you have further insight? Please share, but be nice to mobile users.
THE NORMAL CHECKOUT PROCESS:
After the buyer has won the bid or committed to a buy-it-now purchase, the listing has ended and now appears on the buyer's list of "won" items in myEbay, we should all be able to agree this happens:
Step1: On the item listing page, myebay page, or from the e-mail invoice link, the buyer hits the "pay now" button. The buyer is provided a page on which to confirm the item details, price, shipping, and shipping address.
(I am not addressing the multiple seller payment option here, as it not available to all users and I don't use it, so I can't document it)
Step2: On the order details page, the buyer has an opportunity to change the delivery address, and doing so brings the user back to the previous order details page with any changes that have been made.
Step3: The buyer is prompted to hit another button to continue, which connects them to another page with a paypal interface. The buyer is prompted to log into paypal. After login, on the sebsequent page, the buyer is allowed to choose their payment source, if they have more than one on their paypal account, and hit the "complete payment" button. Doing so brings the buyer back to either the listing page where it says at the top "You have paid for this item" or their myebay page which says "PAID" across the item title or may have a dollar sign icon, depending on their browser style.
Step4: The buyer receives two or three e-mails confirming their order: The first usually comes from ebay and says "Confirmation of your order". The second is your receipt from paypal. Some users may also receive a third e-mail, which comes from paypal, stating that a mobile payment was sent, if using a mobile device.
MYTH: The paypal interface is part of the ebay website.
FACT: The paypal interface is actually a connection between ebay & paypal separate websites, even though ebay owns paypal. Paypal is a totally different site and is used on other retail sites in the same way. Anyone who shops Etsy, Amazon, Bonanza, etc, knows this step of the process looks exactly the same on all of them, because it's the paypal website being shown within the retail site, ebay included. It's like a window within a window: a website within a website.
So your payment, even though paid through paypal, is not being processed by ebay. When paypal completes the transaction it sends a confirmation back to the ebay website (or other retail site) telling it payment was remitted.
THEREFORE: We can deduce from this that it may be where/when the problems are occurring. As I have not seen this problem when using paypal on other retail websites, I can deduce from this that the problems lie within ebay's website on their checkout system.
MYTH: The seller always knows when the buyer pays, because it says so on their myEbay or they can see it in their paypal account.
FACT: It has been documented on several occasions that checkout can be completed without the seller's knowledge. I have seen completed checkout all the way through the process, including the confirmation page from ebay that says "You have paid for this item" and the myEbay page on the buyer's account which says in red capitol letters "PAID" across the item title.
Yet the seller does not receive the payment nor any confirmation from ebay about the payment. From my selling days (it has been a couple of years, so it may have changed by now) this might look like a shopping cart icon on the seller's account instead of a dollar sign indicating a payment received, or it simply may have no sign at all. Back in those days when I sold it was normally the result of a buyer choosing a payment method not supported by the seller, but since that time ebay eliminated that function. So this should not be happening now, as most sellers only accept paypal with no other options, and if it is happening on paypal-only listings, that indicates a glitch within the checkout system on that particular item. (system glitch left over from pre-shopping cart days?)
MYTH: If the buyer's payment was not received during checkout there is nothing for the seller to do, and the buyer has to make payment through ebay checkout a second time.
FACT: Ebay's checkout system does not always allow a buyer to go through checkout more than once without the seller's action, if it registered on the seller's account (such as the shopping-cart scenario described above).
A seller who gets a shopping cart icon in their myEbay sold items without receiving a payment must send a new invoice to the buyer in order to open up the checkout system again. Unfortunately, ebay will allow the seller in most cases to open an unpaid item dispute without providing the consumer a new invoice, and therefore when the buyer has no way to remit the payment on the ebay site for having already tried it unsuccessfully, they are left in a catch22 scenario: payment authorization sent, not processed by ebay, but demanded by seller, and no payment options available. This is one way that some users (both buyers and sellers) are abusing this loophole in the system.
I have also witnessed a few cases where the 'PAID' status of the item disappeared off the buyer's account in a period of about 24-48 hours for unknown reasons. In looking at banking history, it appears as if an authorization hold is being placed on the account of the buyer by paypal, but the subsequent step of claiming the funds from the transaction from paypal is not processed, causing the item to revert to unpaid and the funds in the buyer's account to be released and not transferred to the seller after a 24-48 hour window (would that be paypal or ebay problem?).
There are no notices or error messages from either paypal or ebay when this occurs. It may well appear to the buyer as a completed payment, as during this time the buyer's account says "PAID", yet the seller's account says nothing, and if the buyer attempts to pay again is blocked by ebay from doing so. In some cases ebay has sent a "Confirmation of your order" e-mail which is never accompanied by any e-mail notification from paypal that would contain a receipt.
It can get quite confusing.
MYTH: The buyer knows they didn't pay when the seller doesn't get the money.
FACT: As stated previously, it is entirely possible for a buyer's account to say "PAID" and on the item page at the top to say "You have paid for this item" after the buyer completes checkout, authorizing the payment, even though the seller does not receive the money. In my cases I was even able to see my creditcard balance increase, making me believe the payment had gone through, only to find it decrease again 2 days later as the authorization hold evaporated and the item reverted to unpaid. In some cases a buyer may be able to try checkout again if the "PAID" status also evaporates off the account, and in some cases they may be blocked by ebay from doing so, requiring the seller to reset the transaction by sending a new invoice.
Now I have not been tracking this for very long, but what I have noticed in the last case where this happened, the seller received my payment twice and refunded me both times (out of a total checkout attempt and payment authorization of 6 times). I received 3 "Confirmation of your order" e-mails from ebay but no payment receipts from paypal. When the seller manually refunded two payments, only then did I receive a paypal receipt of refund money.
If this happens to you, you may want to follow your e-mail receipts carefully. If you are receiving notices from ebay that say "Confirmation of you order" that are not accompanied by e-receipts from paypal, it may indicate a faulty checkout on that item.
ERROR MESSAGES AND SIGNS OF TROUBLE:
1. SELLER'S END: The buyer seems to be taking a long time to pay, so you contact them to ask why or they contact you to ask why they have not received it, and they reply that they already paid. Yet you check and cannot find the payment.
The worst thing you can do is to write back with a bad attitude telling the other party they are lying or scamming, etc. Double check your account, confirm it, send a new invoice, informing the buyer cordially that you did not receive the payment, and ask them to please check out again. If it persists numerous times, your buyer may well give up and ask to be let out of it, and in that case you should probably oblige. Don't blame your buyer for ebay issues or delivery issues. It only leads to animosity and fights.
A bid is not a lotto ticket, and it's bad business to treat it as such. You are not entitled to the money just because the auction ended with a bidder. You still have service standards and warranty of merchantability by law. The buyer has to want the item, and must continue to want the item more than the $ even after they receive it and you have their money. A little humility goes a long way when selling.
2. BUYER'S END: Most often you know you have a problem when you get an error message telling you so. Ebay error messages often have the ebay name somewhere on them, either in the text of the error message or at the header of a popup bubble. The popup bubbles on ebay's mobile app are shaped differently than the average phone error message bubbles, so you know they are part of ebay's system and not your equipment. But don't be afraid to tell the seller you are experiencing trouble and to ask for help. That is the seller's job. A seller's job does not stop once the bid is won or once the item is delivered. On the other hand, it's equally bad form for a buyer to simply ignore their transaction for long periods of time when something goes wrong. Keep communication open, document everything, and be precise when responding to ask for help.
Here is a reference list of error messages that I have encountered, how frequently, whether or not I got around them, and when they appeared:
"Network Error. Please try again." This error message may pop up at any point during the checkout process, between any of the steps listed above in the typical checkout description. It is the most common error message I have seen and usually not a big deal. I was able to proceed to the next action in spite of them in most cases. Sometimes the message will remain on screen as I continue to the next step of the checkout. Weird, I know, but it doesn't seem to effect anything, most of the time. A few times, it blocked me from proceeding through checkout and shot me back to the previous page. I have logged out of ebay and logged back in to get rid of this error message when it was preventing me from doing something. I am uncertain if that fixed the problem or not, as I typically saw it pop up again later for certain transactions. However, I do not think it led to any unpaid items or non-delivery and seems to be a simple nuisance.
"Quantity Invalid. Someone else is already attempting to order this item" during step1 or step2 of checkout as noted above. Most common for buy-now transactions, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense does it? You're getting this error message after you have already hit the buy-now and committed to purchase the piece. You are in fact getting an error message preventing you from checking out for the item for the reason that you are the one in the midst of checkout for that item. Go ahead: LAUGH! I find it rather raucous myself. :grin:
You can't check out for this item right now because you are checking out for this item right now!!! lol
I got around this error message by asking the seller to cancel my bid and replacing it later. After having purchased the item the second time, I waited a few more days before checking out, and it allowed me to complete the purchase on the second attempt.
"Payment cannot be completed at this time, because you are buying from a country where the payment type is not supported" I am paraphrasing the most on this one, as it was quite some time ago the last I saw it, and was able to get around it by logging out and logging back into ebay. It seems that ebay cannot maintain the information on where the user is located. It happens during step1 as described above when hitting the pay now button. With this error message, the "pay now" button usually says "Payment options" instead, which is your first clue something is wrong. This happens even when the buyer and seller are located in the same country. Ebay has denied the existence of this error message, but I have seen it on several occasions, and almost always with users who are both located in the US, making it all the more mysterious (and humorous). If it happens to you, recommend log out and log back in before completing checkout. This got rid of the bug in my case, and I completed checkout on a subsequent pass.
"Ebay's payment module is not available for this item at this time" This error message is the WORST that you can encounter, and the one that ebay seems most interested in covering up. It happens during step1 above, so the buyer is never given an opportunity to confirm the order or process the payment. The seller will not have any knowledge or warning of it. I only had this error message happen with one seller, it persisted and prevented me from checking out. I never received my order as a result and was given unpaid item strikes as a result of it. Ebay denies the existence of this error message. If you get this error message, PLEASE document it if possible. This is the most abusive one I know of.
I believe there are a couple more, but these are the primary ones I know, have notated, and remember clearly.
ABUSE BY EBAY USERS
Unfortunately there are some ebay members who cannot see past the end of their own noses, and they feel that since it's ebay they don't have to provide customer service or they don't have to follow up on a transaction. Why should they? Ebay has customer service, and after all, ebay designed the site, not the seller or the buyer. These are the people who say they are "only a seller" or "only a buyer" and refuse to lift a finger when a problem is reported. But what do you do when ebay fails in its service standards? or passes the buck back onto the other party? Just leave the other person stranded?
The bottom line is that it takes both users to overcome these problems, and what we have seen from ebay support in many cases is a lack of service, an extreme difficulty in getting help (it once took me 2 1/2 months to get a response), or a cover-up of glitches they don't want the public to know about. Lies, denial, and blaming the user for their own glitches: that's typical ebay customer service for you.
When I have had these problems myself, in most cases it was overcome simply by informing the other party and seeking an alternative. Sometimes the alternative was payment outside the ebay site (usually with paypal direct payment/invoicing), or involved resetting checkout so that I could simply try again, or in a couple of occasions involved cancelling when no other option presented itself, and most times involved a simple, courteous, helpful attitude, communication, cooperation and patience. That is what is missing from the people who ended up being called out in watch-out threads here on RS.
The few watch-outs I have felt necessary in posting here were NOT solely for checkout or delivery problems (nor do I recommend calling out a seller solely on site glitches or failure of carrier to deliver), but rather for users who abused the defective checkout system for their own interests at the expense of the other party. Let's be clear about that here. It takes much more than just a faulty checkout system for any user to end up in a watch-out thread.
It's clear that some sellers are attempting to use these deficiencies in the checkout system to back out of transactions without using the appropriate cancellation request provided by ebay, to avoid reporting of user to ebay for policy violation or consumer fraud, or to simply harass the other party for needing assistance, out of a feeling of having to exert oneself more than anticipated. There also seems to be a feeling among these users of immunity from having to provide help of any kind to the other party, because they are using the third-party system of ebay to buy or sell. That's not right.
2 years ago, as a seller, it led to a buyer claiming money back from me that I had never received to begin with. Most recently it resulted in non-delivery of items I did pay for, and a subsequent healthy dose of fictitious unpaid item strikes. Is this really necessary?
Those people around here who asking "what do you expect them to do?" and "you expect them to call ebay and fix it" the answer is resoundingly YES. If I have to call in, why don't they? And after I did call in and ask for help and didn't get anywhere, why didn't they pick up and help me from there? and why are you telling me it is solely for me to do when I have just told you how I already bent over backward doing something from my end?
I guess the point is
It's a 2-way street. You can't just sit there and say one party can sit on its hands, and it's entirely the other party's "problem". That's nonsense. It's equally the "problem" of both parties, so be aware of the pitfalls I have described above, be respectful of the other party, and get off your "hands" and do something about it when called upon.
It IS your responsibility, even if the problem happened on ebay on their software or website, even if it happened during an action the other person tried to complete. You have an ethical business obligation to assist in fixing it. How can you just sit there and throw up your hands, saying it's the other person's "Problem" when the other person has already exhausted all avenues, and you are the one with the power to resolve it?
Be kind. Be helpful. Be flexible. Do what you are able to do. Is that so difficult?
Perhaps if we start a dialogue specifically about the technical problems with poor design on ebay without finger-pointing (except possibly at ebay), that might help alleviate some of the animosity between users here on the RS watch-out threads when someone reports a problem with another user. We can dispel some myths and even document what is going on for those who seem to want to disbelieve, or those who have not experienced these problems so that they may be prepared if/when it does finally happen.
If replying to this thread, please do not quote specific member's names involved in transactions, whether they are RS members or non-RS ebay members, real names or handles. This thread is specifically designed to report & describe glitches and dysfunction of both technical and policy nature, to encourage solutions and illustrate the causes & effects. I don't want this thread to become another master list of users to avoid on ebay (buyer OR seller). So please keep names confidential when responding and describing your experiences or when providing documentation, if possible.
If you have seen similar things to what I describe, but your experience differed slightly your input may be invaluable! So please do describe anything remotely similar. A minor difference in your glitch compared to my glitch could shed some light.
I will start by describing my own experiences and what I have deduced as the root cause of them, debunking a few myths about checkout & payment as I go. I will not address bidding glitches or blocks here. Only what happens once the listing has ended & it's time to pay.
NOTE: Ebay now supports both standard web browser as well as an app designed and promoted by ebay for use on mobile devices. If your mobile device is like mine, you may be able to use either of these on the same device to compare/contrast. What I describe below is basically the same on both systems.
Because ebay allows a user to register a new account from the mobile app, exclusively using ebay on their mobile device, it would be inappropriate to blame any action on a user for using an app in favor of the traditional browser or vice versa, and because a user may exit the app and use their browser instead, I do not draw a distinction between them in my descriptions here.
The process must work properly for either browser or mobile app without requiring the user to go to another device in order for ebay to offer it to the consumer. So please refrain from responding to this thread and blaming people solely for using a mobile device as the root of all evil. It's not. I had problems with ebay checkout going back over 2 years, long before I ever had a smart phone.
That said, I suspect that ebay's inclusion of mobile devices into their system may be adding to glitches in their system recently, but cannot seem to document it at this point. Do you have further insight? Please share, but be nice to mobile users.
THE NORMAL CHECKOUT PROCESS:
After the buyer has won the bid or committed to a buy-it-now purchase, the listing has ended and now appears on the buyer's list of "won" items in myEbay, we should all be able to agree this happens:
Step1: On the item listing page, myebay page, or from the e-mail invoice link, the buyer hits the "pay now" button. The buyer is provided a page on which to confirm the item details, price, shipping, and shipping address.
(I am not addressing the multiple seller payment option here, as it not available to all users and I don't use it, so I can't document it)
Step2: On the order details page, the buyer has an opportunity to change the delivery address, and doing so brings the user back to the previous order details page with any changes that have been made.
Step3: The buyer is prompted to hit another button to continue, which connects them to another page with a paypal interface. The buyer is prompted to log into paypal. After login, on the sebsequent page, the buyer is allowed to choose their payment source, if they have more than one on their paypal account, and hit the "complete payment" button. Doing so brings the buyer back to either the listing page where it says at the top "You have paid for this item" or their myebay page which says "PAID" across the item title or may have a dollar sign icon, depending on their browser style.
Step4: The buyer receives two or three e-mails confirming their order: The first usually comes from ebay and says "Confirmation of your order". The second is your receipt from paypal. Some users may also receive a third e-mail, which comes from paypal, stating that a mobile payment was sent, if using a mobile device.
MYTH: The paypal interface is part of the ebay website.
FACT: The paypal interface is actually a connection between ebay & paypal separate websites, even though ebay owns paypal. Paypal is a totally different site and is used on other retail sites in the same way. Anyone who shops Etsy, Amazon, Bonanza, etc, knows this step of the process looks exactly the same on all of them, because it's the paypal website being shown within the retail site, ebay included. It's like a window within a window: a website within a website.
So your payment, even though paid through paypal, is not being processed by ebay. When paypal completes the transaction it sends a confirmation back to the ebay website (or other retail site) telling it payment was remitted.
THEREFORE: We can deduce from this that it may be where/when the problems are occurring. As I have not seen this problem when using paypal on other retail websites, I can deduce from this that the problems lie within ebay's website on their checkout system.
MYTH: The seller always knows when the buyer pays, because it says so on their myEbay or they can see it in their paypal account.
FACT: It has been documented on several occasions that checkout can be completed without the seller's knowledge. I have seen completed checkout all the way through the process, including the confirmation page from ebay that says "You have paid for this item" and the myEbay page on the buyer's account which says in red capitol letters "PAID" across the item title.
Yet the seller does not receive the payment nor any confirmation from ebay about the payment. From my selling days (it has been a couple of years, so it may have changed by now) this might look like a shopping cart icon on the seller's account instead of a dollar sign indicating a payment received, or it simply may have no sign at all. Back in those days when I sold it was normally the result of a buyer choosing a payment method not supported by the seller, but since that time ebay eliminated that function. So this should not be happening now, as most sellers only accept paypal with no other options, and if it is happening on paypal-only listings, that indicates a glitch within the checkout system on that particular item. (system glitch left over from pre-shopping cart days?)
MYTH: If the buyer's payment was not received during checkout there is nothing for the seller to do, and the buyer has to make payment through ebay checkout a second time.
FACT: Ebay's checkout system does not always allow a buyer to go through checkout more than once without the seller's action, if it registered on the seller's account (such as the shopping-cart scenario described above).
A seller who gets a shopping cart icon in their myEbay sold items without receiving a payment must send a new invoice to the buyer in order to open up the checkout system again. Unfortunately, ebay will allow the seller in most cases to open an unpaid item dispute without providing the consumer a new invoice, and therefore when the buyer has no way to remit the payment on the ebay site for having already tried it unsuccessfully, they are left in a catch22 scenario: payment authorization sent, not processed by ebay, but demanded by seller, and no payment options available. This is one way that some users (both buyers and sellers) are abusing this loophole in the system.
I have also witnessed a few cases where the 'PAID' status of the item disappeared off the buyer's account in a period of about 24-48 hours for unknown reasons. In looking at banking history, it appears as if an authorization hold is being placed on the account of the buyer by paypal, but the subsequent step of claiming the funds from the transaction from paypal is not processed, causing the item to revert to unpaid and the funds in the buyer's account to be released and not transferred to the seller after a 24-48 hour window (would that be paypal or ebay problem?).
There are no notices or error messages from either paypal or ebay when this occurs. It may well appear to the buyer as a completed payment, as during this time the buyer's account says "PAID", yet the seller's account says nothing, and if the buyer attempts to pay again is blocked by ebay from doing so. In some cases ebay has sent a "Confirmation of your order" e-mail which is never accompanied by any e-mail notification from paypal that would contain a receipt.
It can get quite confusing.
MYTH: The buyer knows they didn't pay when the seller doesn't get the money.
FACT: As stated previously, it is entirely possible for a buyer's account to say "PAID" and on the item page at the top to say "You have paid for this item" after the buyer completes checkout, authorizing the payment, even though the seller does not receive the money. In my cases I was even able to see my creditcard balance increase, making me believe the payment had gone through, only to find it decrease again 2 days later as the authorization hold evaporated and the item reverted to unpaid. In some cases a buyer may be able to try checkout again if the "PAID" status also evaporates off the account, and in some cases they may be blocked by ebay from doing so, requiring the seller to reset the transaction by sending a new invoice.
Now I have not been tracking this for very long, but what I have noticed in the last case where this happened, the seller received my payment twice and refunded me both times (out of a total checkout attempt and payment authorization of 6 times). I received 3 "Confirmation of your order" e-mails from ebay but no payment receipts from paypal. When the seller manually refunded two payments, only then did I receive a paypal receipt of refund money.
If this happens to you, you may want to follow your e-mail receipts carefully. If you are receiving notices from ebay that say "Confirmation of you order" that are not accompanied by e-receipts from paypal, it may indicate a faulty checkout on that item.
ERROR MESSAGES AND SIGNS OF TROUBLE:
1. SELLER'S END: The buyer seems to be taking a long time to pay, so you contact them to ask why or they contact you to ask why they have not received it, and they reply that they already paid. Yet you check and cannot find the payment.
The worst thing you can do is to write back with a bad attitude telling the other party they are lying or scamming, etc. Double check your account, confirm it, send a new invoice, informing the buyer cordially that you did not receive the payment, and ask them to please check out again. If it persists numerous times, your buyer may well give up and ask to be let out of it, and in that case you should probably oblige. Don't blame your buyer for ebay issues or delivery issues. It only leads to animosity and fights.
A bid is not a lotto ticket, and it's bad business to treat it as such. You are not entitled to the money just because the auction ended with a bidder. You still have service standards and warranty of merchantability by law. The buyer has to want the item, and must continue to want the item more than the $ even after they receive it and you have their money. A little humility goes a long way when selling.
2. BUYER'S END: Most often you know you have a problem when you get an error message telling you so. Ebay error messages often have the ebay name somewhere on them, either in the text of the error message or at the header of a popup bubble. The popup bubbles on ebay's mobile app are shaped differently than the average phone error message bubbles, so you know they are part of ebay's system and not your equipment. But don't be afraid to tell the seller you are experiencing trouble and to ask for help. That is the seller's job. A seller's job does not stop once the bid is won or once the item is delivered. On the other hand, it's equally bad form for a buyer to simply ignore their transaction for long periods of time when something goes wrong. Keep communication open, document everything, and be precise when responding to ask for help.
Here is a reference list of error messages that I have encountered, how frequently, whether or not I got around them, and when they appeared:
"Network Error. Please try again." This error message may pop up at any point during the checkout process, between any of the steps listed above in the typical checkout description. It is the most common error message I have seen and usually not a big deal. I was able to proceed to the next action in spite of them in most cases. Sometimes the message will remain on screen as I continue to the next step of the checkout. Weird, I know, but it doesn't seem to effect anything, most of the time. A few times, it blocked me from proceeding through checkout and shot me back to the previous page. I have logged out of ebay and logged back in to get rid of this error message when it was preventing me from doing something. I am uncertain if that fixed the problem or not, as I typically saw it pop up again later for certain transactions. However, I do not think it led to any unpaid items or non-delivery and seems to be a simple nuisance.
"Quantity Invalid. Someone else is already attempting to order this item" during step1 or step2 of checkout as noted above. Most common for buy-now transactions, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense does it? You're getting this error message after you have already hit the buy-now and committed to purchase the piece. You are in fact getting an error message preventing you from checking out for the item for the reason that you are the one in the midst of checkout for that item. Go ahead: LAUGH! I find it rather raucous myself. :grin:
You can't check out for this item right now because you are checking out for this item right now!!! lol
I got around this error message by asking the seller to cancel my bid and replacing it later. After having purchased the item the second time, I waited a few more days before checking out, and it allowed me to complete the purchase on the second attempt.
"Payment cannot be completed at this time, because you are buying from a country where the payment type is not supported" I am paraphrasing the most on this one, as it was quite some time ago the last I saw it, and was able to get around it by logging out and logging back into ebay. It seems that ebay cannot maintain the information on where the user is located. It happens during step1 as described above when hitting the pay now button. With this error message, the "pay now" button usually says "Payment options" instead, which is your first clue something is wrong. This happens even when the buyer and seller are located in the same country. Ebay has denied the existence of this error message, but I have seen it on several occasions, and almost always with users who are both located in the US, making it all the more mysterious (and humorous). If it happens to you, recommend log out and log back in before completing checkout. This got rid of the bug in my case, and I completed checkout on a subsequent pass.
"Ebay's payment module is not available for this item at this time" This error message is the WORST that you can encounter, and the one that ebay seems most interested in covering up. It happens during step1 above, so the buyer is never given an opportunity to confirm the order or process the payment. The seller will not have any knowledge or warning of it. I only had this error message happen with one seller, it persisted and prevented me from checking out. I never received my order as a result and was given unpaid item strikes as a result of it. Ebay denies the existence of this error message. If you get this error message, PLEASE document it if possible. This is the most abusive one I know of.
I believe there are a couple more, but these are the primary ones I know, have notated, and remember clearly.
ABUSE BY EBAY USERS
Unfortunately there are some ebay members who cannot see past the end of their own noses, and they feel that since it's ebay they don't have to provide customer service or they don't have to follow up on a transaction. Why should they? Ebay has customer service, and after all, ebay designed the site, not the seller or the buyer. These are the people who say they are "only a seller" or "only a buyer" and refuse to lift a finger when a problem is reported. But what do you do when ebay fails in its service standards? or passes the buck back onto the other party? Just leave the other person stranded?
The bottom line is that it takes both users to overcome these problems, and what we have seen from ebay support in many cases is a lack of service, an extreme difficulty in getting help (it once took me 2 1/2 months to get a response), or a cover-up of glitches they don't want the public to know about. Lies, denial, and blaming the user for their own glitches: that's typical ebay customer service for you.
When I have had these problems myself, in most cases it was overcome simply by informing the other party and seeking an alternative. Sometimes the alternative was payment outside the ebay site (usually with paypal direct payment/invoicing), or involved resetting checkout so that I could simply try again, or in a couple of occasions involved cancelling when no other option presented itself, and most times involved a simple, courteous, helpful attitude, communication, cooperation and patience. That is what is missing from the people who ended up being called out in watch-out threads here on RS.
The few watch-outs I have felt necessary in posting here were NOT solely for checkout or delivery problems (nor do I recommend calling out a seller solely on site glitches or failure of carrier to deliver), but rather for users who abused the defective checkout system for their own interests at the expense of the other party. Let's be clear about that here. It takes much more than just a faulty checkout system for any user to end up in a watch-out thread.
It's clear that some sellers are attempting to use these deficiencies in the checkout system to back out of transactions without using the appropriate cancellation request provided by ebay, to avoid reporting of user to ebay for policy violation or consumer fraud, or to simply harass the other party for needing assistance, out of a feeling of having to exert oneself more than anticipated. There also seems to be a feeling among these users of immunity from having to provide help of any kind to the other party, because they are using the third-party system of ebay to buy or sell. That's not right.
2 years ago, as a seller, it led to a buyer claiming money back from me that I had never received to begin with. Most recently it resulted in non-delivery of items I did pay for, and a subsequent healthy dose of fictitious unpaid item strikes. Is this really necessary?
Those people around here who asking "what do you expect them to do?" and "you expect them to call ebay and fix it" the answer is resoundingly YES. If I have to call in, why don't they? And after I did call in and ask for help and didn't get anywhere, why didn't they pick up and help me from there? and why are you telling me it is solely for me to do when I have just told you how I already bent over backward doing something from my end?
I guess the point is
It's a 2-way street. You can't just sit there and say one party can sit on its hands, and it's entirely the other party's "problem". That's nonsense. It's equally the "problem" of both parties, so be aware of the pitfalls I have described above, be respectful of the other party, and get off your "hands" and do something about it when called upon.
It IS your responsibility, even if the problem happened on ebay on their software or website, even if it happened during an action the other person tried to complete. You have an ethical business obligation to assist in fixing it. How can you just sit there and throw up your hands, saying it's the other person's "Problem" when the other person has already exhausted all avenues, and you are the one with the power to resolve it?
Be kind. Be helpful. Be flexible. Do what you are able to do. Is that so difficult?
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