eBay still auto-canceled an order even though I turned off auto-cancel.

[lucky!boy]

I know eBay, even after decades of existence, can be a little rough around the edges, but even this took me aback.

A (repeat) buyer won an auction, and when we contacted each other, he said he saw another item I was selling that he was interested in and could he wait until that auction is over and so if he wins it as well he can get it all combined. I had no problem with any of that. The overlap for the default auto-cancel policy was 4 days, so this only meant an extra 4-5 days beyond that so he could (if he did in fact win the second auction) pay everything off.

So again, I checked my seller settings (after he had already won the first auction) and I saw that the auto-cancel was set to the minimum - four days. I thought - I'll set it to ten days, or 20 or 30 days? Then I thought - I'll just turn the whole thing off and turn it back on when this unique situation is over and done with. And I did just that. (I just checked again now - and the settings still show that I have auto-cancel turned off)

(Note: I'm not high-volume, basically dealing with 2-3 transactions per week - no big deal for me to handle any late payers (not that it's a thing for me anyway) manually)

Of course the issue is that yesterday, on the four day elapsed timetable, the order was automatically canceled!

Now I'm waiting for eBay customer support to go live so I can reach out to them. I'm going to ask that they 'reverse' the cancellation - I assume they can do that? Anyone confirm either yay or nay?

I'm requesting it specifically because the buyer when he initially reached out to me was asking about the second auction and was nervous he'd get a 'strike' for a canceled order. I promised him I wouldn't cancel and so that shouldn't happen. Now it did and I feel bad.

I know I have other ways to rectify this so the buyer gets his goods, but I'm really focusing on the tech stuff behind the scenes - not honoring the change of settings, etc. Is it because I changed it *after* the order was won? Should I have instead left it alone and manually entered in the buyer whitelist this person's username? 

Anyway thanks for any thoughts on the matter.

[dbfolks166mt]

     I am going to guess that it was because the auction had ended with the 4 day auto-cancel set so when you changed the number of days in your seller settings it was applied to the active listings not the sold one. This may be a question you need to ask tech support. 

[lucky!boy · Accepted solution]

I got off the phone with tech and they stated definitively that if you turn off auto-cancel, it only applies to *future* listings. And just to put it out to the universe - I'm looking at the settings page, and *no where* does it relay that small bit of important info: "Any changes applied here will only affect future listings." That's all it would take to make it crystal clear.

Ugh.

[lucky!boy]

Oh and they also confirmed that since I called to 'excuse the cancelation' - they made a note in the order and now the BUYER has to call them to request the unpaid-strike be removed and it will be, without hesitation. Why my word isn't enough to remove it is beyond me. Like I said, I find eBay, even after the decades of service and of course billions in revenue, still is rough around the edges when it comes to a cohesive experience. Why is a question for the ages.