Ebay Is Getting Weird Again

I'll go for a few months with no ebay problems and then I'll get hit with a bunch. I'm not talking about bidder problems or non-payments, I'm mean problems with ebay itself. In the last 2 weeks I've had 3.

1. A bidder in France won 2 auction items and after 2 weeks didn't pay, so I opened an Unpaid Item Case and a few days later closed it an got my fees back, no problem. I have my preferences set to block bidders with 2 or more Unpaids in the last 6 months so I figured that was the end of it, but the next week the same bidder won 2 more of my auctions. ebay had no explanation and said it was a "glitch".

2. An International bidder asked me if he could pay with a Money Order. I received it and marked him as paid but ebay refused to let me print a shipping label. I called ebay but they were no help, so I experimented a little with some other Unpaid Bidders and it looks like I can print a shipping label for items that are Unpaid but as soon as they are marked paid I can't. It makes no sense!

3. I was trying to sell a Persia collection and listed it in the ebay categories WW Collections and Middle East:Iran. A bidder from Sweden reported that he could not bid on it because it was from an embargoed country, why does ebay have categories that they don't allow, are they trying to entrap us?

Has anybody else had similar problems lately?

Not sure. Check your spelling maybe? I make mistakes all the time myself.



Maybe print a packing slip from G-mail. I do. If, that is, you have your preferences set to send you emails from ebay.



Countries themselves have their own rules for allowing shippments into themselves from another country. Some countries are different than others. Not your problem really, that's the bidder's. Could check their own country's rules for allowances and embargoes.

I haven't been selling lately though so haven't really encountered problems with buying from Canada or USA or Great Britain.

You can also print a shipping label directly on USPS.com. The price is the same as doing it through ebay, but you'll just have to manually upload the tracking number, if you so choose. Sometimes I'll print labels this way for the sole reason that I'll use my PayPal debit card to pay for it so get 1% cash back on the shipping. It's not that much money, but I look at it as getting some of my ebay fees back! I also pay my ebay fees with my PayPal card and get the 1% back on that as well.

1. If you have a non-paying bidder, add them to your block list by userid. That will keep them from bidding in the future.

2. You can always write the mailing address by hand and use stamps. It can be quicker than trying to fiddle with technical issues and the buyer will probably appreciate having stamps rather than a label.

3. ebay has blocked the sale of stamps from a few countries: Iran, Cuba and North Korea. I don't know why ebay has a category for Iran since they don't have one for Cuba. Some folks have used Persia as a way to get around the block, but other systems in ebay may still block it.

KR, I might be wrong..but I think if you are a US seller you can sell Iran/Persia stamps to US buyers but not foreign buyers. Maybe someone else can confirm that. That would explain why ebay has the category but is blocking an international sale.

Thanks for the replies. We ended up filling out the custom forms and taking it to the PO 8 miles away. What ebay could have done for me in 2 minutes took over 2 hours.

My non payer from France now has 4 non payment strikes and is on my blocked bidder list. The thing that amazes me about this guy is that he has over 2500 feedback, anyway he's gone and good riddance!

MikeQ apparently you are correct and ebay allows us to sell Iran within US. That's pretty enlightened for ebay. I wish they'd do that for Cuba, I have several nice Cuba collections in a drawer waiting for SG to improve Bidstart.

ebay must have reallowed Iran to be listed as it was previously blocked. TurboLister previously would reject listings for Iran. Sudan is allowed again as well.