eBay Is Blocking Buyers in Error

by: Philip Cohen

Just curious; how does a seller know that they have had a sale "blocked"?

Regardless, eBay has had an ongoing problem with "Saved Search" emails for a couple of months now; that won't be helping anyone's sales nor eBay ...

Still, I'm sure that Johnny Ho has already got his personal lifeboat well and truly provisioned for the approaching foundering ...

The eBay executive suite—where the incompetent mingle with the disingenuous, the malevolent and the outright criminal, and the just plain stupid … http://bit.ly/11F2eas  

by: XebayX

I would also like to know how I can tell, short of being contacted by the buyer, if transactions have been blocked. I had a stretch over the weekend, 73 hours without a single sale, which has never happened to me in over 10 years (knock on wood). I suspect something was going on but haven't positively identified the issue. I am very concerned that my buyers will see themselves as being permanently blocked, never to be seen again. Disastrous.
Please let us know as I would like to contact any buyers who were blocked.

by: IDKwhoIare

Hey,
@XebayX
Go to this link for descriptions of info in list and directions on what to do to get there:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/contextual/buyer-requirements
-activity-log.html

by: IDKwhoIare

PS: Stupid old outdated eBay instructions are on that link.  Here is where it really is.  However, reading their verbage on the first link I sent is interesting...

Go to where it says ''HI (your name) on top left side & click.  On drop down menu choose Accounts Settings. On left menu choose Site Preferences. Go down page to Buyer Requirements and click on the ''Show'' (to the right on the same line) to expand. You will see Buyer Requirements Activity Log Link at the botton of the expansion.

by: comet

I have not checked the log yet but I once DID have a buyer who allegedly was excluded from bidding on one of my items due to them having "violated"  my Requirements;  I have these set at the strictest settings;  this WAS noted in the log and they were blocked.  So--the system DID work--in that case for my protection.

Blocking bidders at will tho---quite a different horse.  

I do feel for the Brit sellers tho-in some ways they have it even worse than those of us in the US  as they have different commerce rules in country that US sellers don't have to deal with --and I suspect that ebay uses them as guinea pigs for their cruel and inhuman policies.

ebay is a very harsh mistress.  

by: Just Plain Irritated

Last week someone messaged me here in the US, kept saying they were trying to buy from me, but couldn't.

I checked my settings and block list and saw no reason. Then I called eBay who also said they saw no reason.

I wonder...........

by: Rexford

Has eBay taken to blocking their own US seller customers?  Surely I jest, but I'm guessing the Chinese are not experiencing these issues.

by: ajeweler

I had this happen in the past I no longer use ebay (and am stress free)

I just read the thread and found it to be funny ebay allen (employee states the following


Re: EBAY (ALAN??) SORT THIS OUT PLEASE!
.





Options
















R>
















....
in reply to lawpackpublishinglimited

on ‎16-06-2015 11:15 AM



We don't penalise sellers for contacting buyers, I'm not sure why you think that we do?



Thanks,
Alan



yea right they don't penalize however they will defect you
note ebay employee spelling of penalize (gives one a idea of whom works there

by: RCL

After one of eBay's many undisclosed tweaks to the user preferences page, any one who had bought from me within a certain length of days was not allowed to buy from me! I'm sure this was unrelated, but I only knew because these WERE repeat customers who knew HOW to contact me easily to question it. eBay was NOT particularly helpful in helping me understand that the option existed, nevermind that somehow it had been opted FOR without my input. I hate the way eBay unilaterally  unfavorably impacts our salees AND good will. They really do control too much without our input.

by: JohnGermaine

XebayX went 73 hours with no sales???  Sheesh, I went 7 days this month!! That was a new one for me! It's usually 4 at most. I don't know what is up for sure, but I have other seller friends who report lousy sales as well. Hoping this divorce actually changes things for the better. Making us invisible doesn't seem like a good idea for us or them. If no one can see it - no one can buy it, and the buyers make the reason for being there!!

by: Philip Cohen

The smaller eBay sellers are likely still getting little exposure because Johnny Ho and the rest of his cretinous directors and executives are still hoping to get Wal-Mart to come on board—Ho, Ho, Ho ...

The ugly reality of eBay’s demonstrable, calculated, facilitation of endemic shill bidding wire fraud on consumers on its auctions marketplace … http://bit.ly/11F2eas

by: dans parts

I had one guy complain that he wasn't allowed to bid on a couple items a week ago.  Course, that's because he was on my BBL for being a previous idiot a couple years ago.

When checking that log IDK showed the path to in a previous comment in this thread, that guy does not show up there as blocked, so that list is exclusively for those blocked by our Buyer Requirements.  I had 4 people on that Log list (for 6 different auctions) stretching back to April (60 days), and all are on there for too many Unpaid Strikes.

And, of course, the potential buyers' ID's are nothing but an asterisk, so there's no way to get hold of them, to try to work out an alternative (relist with them on the exempt list, immediate payment only, or - heaven forbid! sell direct!).  Which renders this a totally useless ''tool'' offered by eBay.

The only thing it is good for is eBay's puffery - ''See, we're doing good things to protect you, just as you asked us to do with your Buyer Requirements.''

Not putting any more change in my pocket.

As to sales, I must have been visible a couple weeks ago with my auctions.  Whole bunches of my auctions had view totals ranging in the 50-60-70 and up range, with quite a few items on double digits numbers of Watch Lists.  This compares to the normal 10-15 views and 1-2-3 Watch Lists most weeks.  

And, those numbers did produce.  The sold items had more bids on them than I've seen in literally YEARS of auctions.  I haven't had auctions where I've sold 10+ auctions in one night's sales that had at least 3 or more bidders on each of them, since the destruction of 2008.

And I did virtually nothing different to my merchandise mix to skew results.

The downside was that of the sales I got, 70% were to California, plus one each to Nevada, Arizona, Utah and Washington - accounting for 75-80% of all items sold.  Virtually nothing to NY-NJ-MA-PA where my historical records of sales (gathered over 35+ years including pre-eBay) tells me that 75% of my normal US customers reside.  And that says nothing about International, which is normally 25-30% of all totals.

Which pretty much proves the roller coaster ride of visibility.

It was nice to have sales for a change (I'm back in the dungeon now), but think how much more I could have had if I'd been visible in ALL parts of the country!  And Internationally.

by: harkinfan

With almost 1,200 listings, I went six days without a sale. After reading this, I removed everyone from my block bidder's list and changed all my settings so that there are no exclusions (non-paying bidders, violation breakers, people without PayPal, etc).
This morning I woke up to 3 sales.

by: Massachusets Howler

I LOVE IT when the email me and ask- why am I blocked, all incredulous?

They know what they did- they are just SURPRISED that we noticed what they were doing- LOL- LOL.

Mass Howler

PS: Liar buyer- go steal from a big box- they might not notice with all our old sales.

by: andanotherthing

I've just checked my ebay account (UK). Thankfully, only one blocked offer/sale, blocked because Buyers address was in country I don't deliver to. No it wasn't, it was a UK address! It was over 6 weeks ago, so goodness knows how long this problem has been going on.