Big Brother Is Watching

Ebay's latest inane wrinkle seems to be some sort of automated screening of messages sent by users to sellers- looking for evidence there are cutting deals outside of ebay.

This evening I bought three items from a seller overseas. I messaged him asking for an invoice with combined shipping. It wouldn't go through because- 'you are attempting to transact business outside of ebay'. I tried changing the wording with no change. Finally I hit upon asking for a 'quote' of the total. Their automated program was hitting on the word 'invoice' as evidence that I was up to nefarious deeds.

It just seems this platform gets more and mroe dysfunctional as time goes by.

This is totally silly of ebay as when seller makes a sale through ebay he can get buyers emaill addy straight through paypal. One wonders what ebay achieve censoring messages luke this?

This is actually a big problem and them trying to stop it is nothing new.

ebay also has a new-fangled shopping cart. I tried for several minutes to see where I could click to ask for an invoice that included combined shipping- I don't think there is one. Sellers who list a lot of buy it now items really need to start enabling shopping cart in their listings. As it worked out he got payment with full shipping for two of the three items I ordered and the third is still showing pending payment. It will all work out in the end but really a needless hassle.

Now I am worried that I am flagged as a potential shady character.

Stamps 1962




I used the shopping cart just a few days ago. Like you I looked for a place to request combined shipping. Lo and behold, the combined shipping was already calculated in my cart. Perhaps the seller didn't set up his cart properly?

Dan

This has been going on for at least 5 years.

Dan- apparently not so. The invoices I got for the two had full shipping on each. I just told him to figure out what I am left owing him now. I carefully avoided that dreaded word 'invoice'.

No I don't think he did set this up carefully enough. If you sell a lot of one-shot buy it now things, you really need to anticipate that. It discourages repeat sales if you don't, who needs the hassle?

Bobby- are you referring to the thing with messages or the combined shipping thing? I have had issues with messages in the past.

Stamps1962- I totally agree with you. I really hate it when you want to buy a few things from the same seller but really want to get the first item "off the market" while you browse through the rest of their offerings. If they don't have their cart set up properly, you can't even buy the item without immediate payment much less request an invoice.

This is the biggest problem I see with immediate payments as mentioned in another thread- you can't shop through a seller's listings to find more items to combine. Who's loss is that???

I was referring to the messages.

As an FYI, I sell and all my listings offer combined shipping discounts. Recently however, regardless of purchases via the "shopping cart" or individual, ebay did NOT provide discounts for any items. In addition, since the split up of ebay & PayPal, there is no longer communication advising ebay of any refunded portion as in the past. If a buyer deserved the discount and I refunded the difference, the full fees were applied by ebay irregardless of the refund I issued and it required my calling ebay each purchase to get them to agree to a credit and then in actuality, those credits were not applied and ebay charged my checking account the entire amount due although I called more than 16 times. I'm still waiting to get this issue resolved for my October invoice as well as dealing with the current month's similar issues.

I recommend to all buyers that they DO NOT PAY until they have completed making purchases and request an invoice so they make only (1) PayPal payment. That why, I only incur (1)service fee. I indicate that on each and every listing. I can't police each purchase so if a buyer makes several individual payments, there is no discount.

It's not a Sellers fault when ebay messes up and doesn't apply the discounts when we have set it up correctly in our policies and preferences and to those sellers who opt to require immediate payment, they are doing themselves and their buyers a disservice.

There have been many problems with shopping carts, discounts not being applied by ebay etc. A buyer simply needs to email the seller and simply ask to please combine purchases and we will do the rest. We don't want to see our buyers being over billed or ebay profiting more than they already do.

It's all communication issues and we all know how ebay deals poorly in that area.

Don

If I don't want ebay eavesdropping on my messages to a buyer I give them another email address to use for me. If you do that though do not go the john@msn.com route which ebay will block, but instead give him john at msn dot com. So far ebay has not caught those.

I wonder if there are any jihadi (sp?) cinderellas yet? It won't be ebay interested in that case; it will be the NSA!

I 100% agree with this as countless times buyers pay before I have had a chance to send them a combined invoice. If they pay straight away they pay the postage on every item in which case I refund the difference.

There is no way for a seller to set up the postage in the shopping cart that I know of. Therefor the shopping cart is always going to be wrong. Unfortunately buyers don't know this and still use it to check out and pay for the items.

It also depends what device the buyers pay from I found several buyers complaining about the checkout process on their iphone even after I sent them a combined invoice.

The most annoying thing on ebay these days is those dam boxes that keep popping up on the top right of the screen. They say item ending soon or you have been outbid etc I wish ebay would ditch those and the stupid little ebay bell as well.

Business comes in many forms.

I get emails from people that have a lot of stock that suit what we selling at great prices.

Working the buying through pay pal is good for us at 1st and then........