Purchase History Items Missing
Summary: camillila reported missing purchases from their eBay history and trouble accessing order details due to an unexpected account being created by eBay. They managed to contact customer service by persistently using the chatbot, despite difficulties and misleading error messages. redmodelt suggested the possibility of guest checkout, while participatrophy asked about the timeline of the issues. camillila expressed frustration over eBay's customer service process and a fraudulent order marked as delivered but addressed elsewhere. They highlighted that the local postmaster identified this as a recurring fraud issue.
My purchases from the last couple of months are missing from my purchase history. If I click on any link for an order in email from eBay, I get an error about not being able to find it. There is no way that I can think to resolve this through eBay's designed-to-offer-nothing help process. [They claim to have Customer Service, but no telephones.
Something I received is not what I ordered. How do I deal with it if I can't see anything about the order on eBay - and they have absolutely no way to contact them?
camillila
OPAug 12, 2026 at 2:53 PMA few months ago, while logged into eBay in one web browser tab, I did a web search in another tab, found the item at eBay, and bought it. It turns out that, without my permission and without informing me, eBay created a new account - with the same password as the account that I created years ago. [I never set a password on this ew account. I was unaware that it existed.] Although the email addresses are different, eBay decided that they're both me. [Did I reveal a phone number?] And, even when I'm logged into the account I created, eBay ties the order to the other account. And, every email notification that I get has an invalid link - using my real eBay account, but with an order ID that's only valid with the account that eBay created.
I did manage to get through to Customer Service - by spewing obscenities at their automated phone system that is only for security issues. [The CS rep. was good - and helpful.] Although eBay documentation everywhere claims that the CS phone number appears in many places, it does not. The rep . said that the only way to get through to CS (Do they show the phone number?) is to type into the ChatBot "I want to talk to a real person." Nowhere do they tell you this secret password. Does everybody who programs for eBay have Asperger's Syndrome (no theory of mind)???
camillila
OPAug 12, 2026 at 3:01 PMOh, and the error that you get when you try to look up an order - that eBay thinks belongs to another account - is misleading. Rather than saying something like "You do not have permission to view that order", it says, "Error finding that order". It implies that there is no such order, when, in fact, the order might well exist, but is not tied to the account you're logged into. Spectacular incompetence.
redmodelt
·Aug 13, 2026 at 5:08 PMSo it logged you into an old account that WAS yours, then eBay didn't create an account it used an existing one. You must still have the password/log-in to the old account, or you could not have bought the item in the first place. Did you look there?
camillila
OP3 weeks ago · EditedHuh? I always logged into the account that I created. eBay, without my permission and without notifying me, create a new account, assigned it the same password as the account that I created, and, even when I was logged into my account, assigned all records since late June to the new account that eBay created. After I managed to get through to Customer Service, the rep. told me about the other account. I can log into either account (with the password that I set on MY account and my account ONLY.]
By the way, the CS rep. told me that, if you type "I want to talk to a real person" in the chatbot, it will give you the customer service phone number. It tries repeatedly to funnel you through what eBay wants to show you, regardless of what you want. I repeatedly typed "I want to talk to a real person" and, eventually, it allowed me to post my phone number, and CS called me.
The last straw happened today.
Something I ordered appears to be fraudulent. USPS tracking says it was delivered. It was not. [I have a PO box, so there's no issue of the package being stolen or something like that.] The local postmaster looked up the tracking number and told me that the item was addressed elsewhere (not me; not my address). AND, that they've been seeing this a lot, and it's fraud. Or course I had to go through all of the eBay to get through to Customer Service. [Gee, eBay dioesn't have an automated path for "An eBay seller committed fraud again, and we don't care. Whaddaya gonna do about it?"] The CS rep., after I explained multiple times, just put in a standard "I didn't receive the item" post. The seller gets days to respond.
I think I'll go replay the Behind the Bastards Podcast about the eBay exec who terrorized bloggers who inadvertently posted something the exec. didn't like.
participatrophy
·3 weeks agoThey do have an automated path for it, sort of. Gotta go into your order details and choose "Return this item" then pick "Missing parts or pieces" or "Not as described" and follow the prompts. Don't choose "Item didn't arrive", you'll be wasting your time with that.
participatrophy
·Aug 11, 2026 at 3:47 PM · EditedAny chance you completed check-out as a guest user (i.e. bought while not signed in to your eBay account) ? And has longer than 30 days passed since you received this order?
redmodelt
·Aug 11, 2026 at 3:45 PMDid you perhaps order as a guest? If you did, you need to log out of eBay and follow the instructions in the email that would have been sent to the email address you would have used.