eBay displayed a coupon in listings as part of a promotion it’s running, but some buyers said they were unable to use it. One reader sent a screenshot of a listing showing the coupon that offered 15% off.
The reader said the coupon had showed up in several different listings, all from different sellers. At one point, she found a BIN listing she wanted to buy that showed the coupon offer – “I copied the code, attempted to make the purchase and got an error message that the code was not valid. I then went ahead and purchased at the full BIN price – everything appearing perfectly normally.”
Because the code didn’t work, she asked the seller about the coupon out of curiosity; he replied he knew nothing about it and had never offered any coupons on eBay.
The screenshot showed the code was PKMN25, which rang a bell – eBay ran a recent promotion celebrating Pokemon collectibles. The coupon is advertised as good on eligible items purchased between February 18 and March 4th. It’s described as being limited to the following categories: Collectibles (1), Action Figures (246), Diecast Toy Vehicles (222), Building Toys (183446), Collectible Card Games Accessories (2536).
But the Terms and Conditions also say it’s valid only on eBay.com and “for purchases which can be delivered to Mexico.”
On Monday (February 24), a seller asked about the code in a post on the eBay discussion boards because one of their buyers had asked for a credit after they were unable to use the code on one of their purchases – another instance of buyers blaming sellers when things go wrong.
This instance may be an eBay glitch but I run coupons on a regular basis and have found 90% of my problems are user issues. eBay will run a coupon for 15% off on tech. I get a rant from a buyer that they cannot use that coupon on my merchandise… well, I sell stamp collectibles. No worries, I always have a live coupon code for my store so I gave him the discount.
Others don’t understand that my coupon says “when buying 2 or more items”. They are trying it on a single item, or are trying to apply it onto an item I sent to them as Sell Similar which already has a discount!