Blocked Buyer List / Message Block (v3.0)
When buyers are added to a seller's Blocked Buyer List (BBL), messages from that buyer are blocked and the seller has zero control. Pain point since Summer 2023 when eBay made an unannounced change that is still catching buyers and sellers in bad situations.
If you think you can control this on your buyer management page: you are wrong. That setting is not tied to the BBL. Read the first post of v2.0 (linked above) that explains it before hitting reply. Thanks.
@kyle@ebay - I'm still advocating for change here, going on 3 (looooong) years. Please put control back in sellers' hands! ðŸ™
We want eBay to add a check box on the actual BBL page, above the BBL list, to block communications with people on the BBL. Go ahead and check the box as a default setting, but leave the option to uncheck the setting for sellers that want to keep communications open.
fern*wood
·5 months agoI don't understand why this has been in place for quite some time now, but the box to check (or not) blocking communication is still there. I imagine the majority of sellers have no idea merely blocking the ID is also blocking the communication, since they trust that not checking that box will allow emails.
Makes me wonder why this issue is completely ignored. I have pretty much stopped using the blocked buyer option because of this---maybe that is the ultimate goal.
wastingtime101
OP5 months ago@trip98 @fern*wood - Scroll back up to the OP and read the line that says refer to post 2.0 for the answer.
@ltldpr - Yes you can still see someone's profile page when you block them.
trip98
·5 months agoI was got off guard on this change with my recent INR Tiffany Candy Cane switcheroo and lost my original email thread. Ebay has conflicting wording on the Block Member Page, The new policy is a click in where the original selection for allow/not allow blocked members to contact you is still there on the first link in. I now will put any blocked buyer emails in my message archives before blocking -the message threads seem to be sticking.
.
wastingtime101
OP5 months agoAnother use case @kyle@ebay .
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/What-happens-in-the-unauthorized-use-chargeback/m-p/35554813#M2680503
Seller wanted to block buyer, but felt forced to leave them unblocked to see what messages they sent during the dispute process in case it was needed for the claim.
toomuchstuffagain35
·5 months agoTo address the last post by Kyle on this issue (way back when).
It WAS 'working as intended' for decades with no issues until ebay decided that if you block a buyer that should also block messages, even though the seller had the CHOICE to block or not block messages as well.
We're not asking for something NEW fgs, just that it be put back the way it WAS.
toomuchstuffagain35
·5 months agoThey constantly do this. Just change stuff that was working quite well for the majority of sellers and refuse to even offer a rationale (if there IS one) for the change.
wastingtime101
OP5 months agoInitially, nearly 3 years ago, that's what I was asking for. But I quickly saw the benefits of a separate message block for BBL and for the past couple years I've been asking for something new, which is putting control back in the seller's hands, but keeping the BBL message block separate from the buyer requirements message block. Adding a setting to the BBL list page will be new.
Me personally - I would keep all comms open, but there are def sellers that would prefer to shut out anybody on their BBL but not block messages from buyers hitting one of their buyer requirement restrictions. Having a separate BBL message block setting offers more control than sellers had before.
adamcartwright
·5 months ago@wastingtime101
It seems like a checkbox to leave communications open with recent buyers -- someone who has purchased from you within the past 30 days -- would be easy to accomplish.
wastingtime101
OP5 months agoI would hate that so much. I don't want it limited to whether or not there's a transaction, or whether that transaction is recent.
adamcartwright
·5 months ago@wastingtime101
I guess I have misunderstood what this whole discussion is about, then.
I would like the option of leaving communications open with certain buyers on my BBL so I can continue to provide customer service on past purchases while barring future purchases.
That seems like something easy for a website developer to accomplish.
gurlcat
·5 months ago@wastingtime101 I'm just curious -can you picture any scenarios where someone on your BBL with no current/recent transaction would write you, and it being something you'd want to read? Is it just the idea of the 'unknown unknown' that bothers you?
ltldpr
·5 months agoSomewhat related question.
Are we able to see the account page/feedback page at all if we block them?
wastingtime101
OP6 months agoKyle was already tagged directly on this use case:
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/What-is-going-on-with-these-buyers-straight-up-lying-to-get-a/m-p/35507298#M2670594
Buyer files abusive not as described claim on an as-described product and seller understandably BBLed them. Communication would be helpful here to educate the buyer on the different products made by that company to prevent them from repeating their abusive behavior with the next seller(s); help the buyer search for the exact product they want.
albertabrightalberta
·6 months agoDoes anyone know how to know how many IDs are on your BBL without having to go through and count them?
If you reach the limit (5K), will you get an error message letting you know?
iamalwaysright
·6 months agoI haven’t done it before but I’d probably copy and paste the whole list into some sort of word program with a word count function. That should work since all names are separated by commas. It’d be nice if ebay provided this number for us huh. I mean they should know the number otherwise how would they know when to stop the list at 5,000?
100fishhooks
·6 months agoThe buyers I have added to my blocked buyers list are one I NEVER want to hear from again!
gurlcat
·6 months ago@100fishhooks Just about everybody probably feels the same way, about all the buyers whose stories are over for us. Really the problem is usually only a matter of a few days in limbo, when we've decided we absolutely don't want a buyer to purchase any more of our items, but some process is still underway (like a return) so we might need to know what they're saying, if they message us.
Extreme example: I once had a guy making threats to come to my house. I obviously didn't enjoy reading his vile messages, but purely for safety reasons I would be a fool to blind myself to any evidence I may need to provide to law enforcement.
telegraph_mercantile
·6 months agoThis makes me wonder what happens if you remove a buyer from the BBL. Would you receive the backlog of any messages they sent while they were on the BBL?
If so, this might be a tactic to use until eBay fixes this:
1. When you decide you don’t want a buyer to buy anything else from you, put the buyer on the BBL.
2. Wait a day, remove the buyer from the BBL, read and potentially respond to any messages, and put them back on the BBL.
3. Repeat step 2.
They’ll only be able to buy from you during the few minutes you spend reading and responding to their day-old messages.
stainlessenginecovers
·6 months ago@telegraph_mercantile You do not; therefore this won't work.
gurlcat
·6 months ago@telegraph_mercantile Sorry but nope, un-blocking the buyer does not make their previously blocked messages upload retroactively. I asked about this a couple years ago when I first learned of the problem.
wastingtime101
OP6 months agoWhat happens when Buyer is on Seller's Blocked Buyer List and messages are sent?
sin-n-dex
·6 months agoNot to put a monkey wrench into your theory...
I had a buyer that I needed to first, cancel his transaction, then message him to tell him I cancelled it and why (because he keeps creating new accounts with new names and different addresses to circumvent my block), and I BBL'd him immediately after sending the message. (I had the BBL screen up in one window and saved it after hitting sent). I did receive a response from this "buyer", he said he didn't know what I was talking about and asked me to ship the item (which I'd already cancelled). Did not hear anything from this buyer again after that, and no bad FB either.
I was right on the money, he filed a slew of chargebacks on everyone he bought from with that account the very next day. Someone who saw my FB in his profile (automatic when paying) messaged me to tell me he had three chargebacks on separately ordered items from this guy.
I got asked once "if it's different accounts, different names and different addresses, how do I know it's really him?" My answer "because most scammers aren't very smart."
C.
sin-n-dex
·6 months agoYou do not receive any messages that were sent to you while blocked.
@lacemaker3 and I tested this already.
C.
wastingtime101
OP6 months agoAnother use case:
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Blocked-Buyer-List-Message-Block-question/m-p/35487840#M2666010
bennotbill
·7 months agoI see this thread has made it to ecommercebytes. Whether that helps or is the kiss of death who knows.
ecommercebytes
wastingtime101
OP6 months agoThanks @bennotbill . Ina also covered this in 2024 about 5 mo after it changed, as did Liz in 2023.
Ecommercebytes | Jan 2024 - Buyers 'Ghosting' Sellers May be eBay's Fault
Value Added Resource | Sept 2023 - eBay Changes Blocked Buyer List Messaging
tobaccocardyahoo
·7 months agoI think that the concept of working through a dispute in process is a foreign concept to the Ebay staff.
Although I can see how sellers wind up in this situation, my goal is to resolve any dispute quickly, wasting as little time and experiencing as little emotional strain as possible.
That said, the messages associated with the MBG process are sent by Ebay and answered to Ebay so the need is primarily associated with seller-buyer efforts to resolve a dispute without Ebay intervention. The is some inconsistency associated with attempting to reach a mutually acceptable solution with a buyer you intend to block. If the buyer is justifiably blockable, the chances of a good faith effort to resolve the dispute succeeding is low.
I do not object to the proposed "fix", but do not really advocate for it either.
hartungcards
·7 months agoThe proposed "fix" is to give sellers the option to send/receive messages to/from blocked buyers. How can you not "advocate" for sellers having that option?
tobaccocardyahoo
·7 months agoEASY. There should not be a need if one has a rational customer service policy.
As I said, I do not oppose it.
hartungcards
·7 months agoWell...I like to think I have "a rational customer service policy," but that doesn't mean I shouldn't have the option to communicate with buyers on my BBL if necessary.
thecollectionbuyer
·6 months agoMy only negative is from a blocked buyer who thinks I "ghosted" her. Thanks ebay!
wastingtime101
OP6 months agoUnfortunately this is not the first time we've seen buyers leave negs thinking the seller ignored them @thecollectionbuyer . Thanks for sharing.
FYI @kyle@ebay
thecollectionbuyer
·6 months agoI noticed today that this issue was highlighted by ebay's nemesis, Ina Stiener in her e-commerce newsletter. She credits you with keeping this issue front and center. Nice job! By the way, eBay for business on Facebook denies this happens.
gurlcat
·7 months ago@tobaccocardyahoo OMG just read @sin-n-dex 's post right on this page, msg 3^. -Perfect example! What's so "EASY" about her situation there? In what way does she lack a "rational customer service policy"? She's looking at potentially three negatives from this clearly unstable buyer, and don't forget: as of September we lost the ability to have negatives erased for having completed returns.
tobaccocardyahoo
·7 months ago@gurlcat
I would have refunded the $15 without return and blocked the buyer immediately.
The buyer is a menace, and I am willing to pay for his immediate removal from my world. Not only does that eliminate future risk, if the buyer is evil and unstable, he can chalk up a win and feel he does not have to leave a neg.
A wise woman once told me, "many problems in this life can be dealt with by throwing money at them". One can even save money by doing so. Antidepressant drugs are in expensive tier of my health plan.
sin-n-dex
·7 months agoMy buyer is pretty friendly, I'm actually going to explain it to him nicely (now that I've had a day to cool off and talk to my partner about the situation). I expect he didn't get how eBay works with defects and returns and didn't mean to cause trouble. However I wish I could just block him from buying until this is sorted out.
BTW, the buyer messaged me today, going to go and read it and respond (since he's not blocked, I can still read his messages). I think sellers should have a choice on whether or not to block messages from BBL buyers. eBay shouldn't dictate that.
C.
gurlcat
·7 months ago@sin-n-dex Well now I need to know what he said today.
sin-n-dex
·7 months agoHe said he sent back the coins and sent me a receipt.
I replied to thank him for that and I'd refund when I get them back. Then I explained that sellers get defects for returns (not sure if that's exactly right, but I'm feeling a little off tonight). I decided to accept he might be indecisive and want to do returns, but I don't want the return requests building up (it's in my other account that sells much fewer items). I gave him direction on how to do returns by sending stuff back and just letting me know. He's new to eBay and is treating me like a regular online store that ships and takes returns when people change their minds.
I knew I could handle this, but yesterday I was steamed so I didn't want to say anything yet. I talked to my partner (the Sin of the Sin-n-Dex, I'm Dex), and explained the situation, and Sin said to try and find a compromise so I would not get defects but he would feel comfortable doing a return if he wanted to. Sin told me to accept not everyone will live up to my standards as customers and to be flexible.
C.
sin-n-dex
·7 months agoHe replied since my last posting.
He apologized for having caused trouble, told me he didn't know that sellers had performance records for returns (even remorse ones). I think it will be OK, I'll take the returns, if I stop getting dings from this guy if he's not decisive.
Anyway it played out exactly as Sin predicted. He's my guardian angel for customer service and has helped me keep my 100% rating when things don't go well with a buyer.
C.
toomuchstuffagain35
·7 months agoThing is, this 'fix' isn't asking for something NEW. We're asking for it to be put BACK to the way it was before ebay decided "Oh no, the sellers don't need that option".
hartungcards
·7 months agoActually, I don't think eBay "decided" anything. We're just asking for it to be put BACK to the way it was before Larry and Curly had nothing better to do while Moe was on vacation. It was Moe who decided to tell them to "keep busy" until he got back.
hartungcards
·7 months ago@kyle@ebay
This is a problem for sellers as outlined by several posters above, but it is also a problem for buyers who have been blocked by a seller. Once blocked, they then have no way to contact the seller in order to ask if they might consider unblocking them. Blocked buyers, while sometimes a necessity, are never good for anyone's business -- including eBay's.
jonathanbrightlight
·7 months agoI don't even care if buyers have the ability to petition to be unblocked necessarily, but right now they don't even know they're blocked when they send a message. It just looks like they're sending messages to a seller and being ignored. That makes the issue worse, not better. @kyle@ebay
hartungcards
·7 months ago@kyle@ebay
That's exactly right, and did anyone mention that sometimes you'd like to block a buyer temporarily while there's a dispute of some kind in progess, but would still want to communicate with them and unblock them when the issue is resolved? Obviously you can unblock a buyer at any time, but this becomes more unlikely if all communication is cut off during the dispute, making any resolution even less likely.
albertabrightalberta
·7 months agoSometimes I'm of the belief that those in power to make changes are not necessarily buyers and sellers on the site and are unaware of how some of the changes they make impact members.
gurlcat
·7 months ago@albertabrightalberta Just sometimes? Were you being a wee bit facetious there? 😆
Also you reminded me of one of the best movies ever:
toomuchstuffagain35
·7 months agoI agree. It was working JUST FINE the old way where a seller could CHOOSE whether to still receive communications from a buyer on their BBL or not.
I still don't understand the rationale behind ebay's changing it.
wastingtime101
OP7 months ago@kyle@ebay said at the time, "This was changed due to overwhelming feedback over the years that blocking a buyer and then needing an extra step to block their messages was redundant."
eBay took control away from professional sellers because of some whiners that can't deal with customers in a business where customer service is paramount and dealing with difficult people comes with the territory.
Those sellers were too upset they had to check a separate box to block messages, a one time setting adjustment, after adding buyers to their BBL. Oh, the humanity!
While I do admit it's nice to not see so many sellers complaining about buyers being able to message after they were blocked, eBay handled this change in the worst way by taking the choice out of sellers' hands.
What eBay could have done was what I suggested in the OP: created a separate message block for the BBL (not tied to buyer requirements), blocked by default, with the option to uncheck.
It's not rocket science; it's common sense.
iamalwaysright
·6 months agoI wonder if that “overwhelming feedback†also told eBay that we shouldn’t notify these BBL buyers at all that their messages didn’t get thru to their seller.
fern*wood
·6 months agoI've pretty much stopped using the blocked bidder feature due to this, but maybe that's their goal. They don't seem to want to fix this and maybe they don't like the fact that blocks are used so would like to eliminate this option altogether. Even before this, I seldom blocked because I knew they could just open another ID and probably get by with doing so, plus knowing they were blocked makes this situation even worse.
gurlcat
·6 months ago@fern*wood Normally I wouldn't have too much doubt about a suspicion like that, but here's where it falls apart: the fact that we can block ALL buyers (with no previous sales to nor interactions with) just based on their previous behaviors, site-wide, for up to the past year -as in sales they requested to cancel and/or failed to pay for.
I don't know about you, but my BBL contains maybe a few hundred usernames, and I wouldn't be surprised if a large portion of those aren't even active buyers anymore. I believe the maximum is 5,000 names. Meanwhile if I set my auto-block preference to the strictest setting of 2 transaction failures in the past 12 months .... no telling how many tens(?) ... hundreds(?) .... of thousands of buyers I can block, despite them never having done anything to me personally.
So if eBay is okay with us doing that, I can't see why they'd want to phase out the BBL capability, the one that surely results in fewer sales losses for the company, and the one that sellers are probably(?) more profoundly wedded to. I could be wrong, but I suspect if you asked sellers to give up one or the other feature, very few would choose to release all the KNOWN culprits (including unforgettable monsters) from their 'jail.' 😆 And surely eBay knows that.
a_c_green
·6 months agoJust to add a bit to this point above: if their accounts are still open, regardless of being idle, they will remain on your BBL. If their accounts are no longer active (i.e. either they got nuked/NARUd or simply closed out their account manually), their old IDs will be removed from your BBL the next time you make any change to it (to add or remove someone).
When you make alterations to your BBL, every ID on it is freshly evaluated, and dead ones are removed. Somewhat confusingly, this occurs in the form of one or more error messages that do not really explain what happened. (Some folks here have thought that it was a failure to add their new changes, but it's not.) When you refresh your screen, your new changes will be in place but the dead ones will be gone.
If you take a close look at your BBL before making changes to it, you will probably see one or more account names of the form (for example) "ugvftw2cr1m@deleted," which is (or was) their internal eBay ID, the real identifier behind whatever user ID they'd been using. When you next update your BBL, those @deleted entries will go away.
gurlcat
·6 months ago@a_c_green Ah cool, thanks for the info! I just checked and I had a couple of these @deleted's. Also it's good that they do that, otherwise we could reach our limit with lots of the names not even needing blocked anymore.
wastingtime101
OP6 months agoYeah, I've been explaining that one for a while. A year ago I put screenshots to it.
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Blocked-buyer-list-can-t-be-updated/m-p/34870689#M2509387
gurlcat
·7 months agoJeez when you put it like that, it's such a tiny 'ask' how can they possibly justify denying us of it?
kyle@ebay is there an actual reason they've rejected this plea we've been making all this time? Do we not have a right to at least know why? Considering all the reprogramming they are doing every time we turn around -just within the past month: the new promotion attribution rollout, and whatever's going on with Country of Origin ..... yet we still don't have a simple Fisher Price switch for allowing blocked buyers to message us if we want to allow them to? Come ON man.
kyle@ebay
Hey @gurlcat I agree it seems like it should be a "Fisher Price switch" (love that way of phrasing it, by the way!-I'm stealing that!)
To answer your question, we simply don't have any information we can share on that. But I remain hopeful that we can get what we all agree would be a sensible change made.
toomuchstuffagain35
·7 months agoNow and then there's an issue we're working through with a buyer but we need to still be able to block them from buying any more until stuff is sorted out (if then).
hartungcards
·7 months ago@kyle@ebay
"But I remain hopeful that we can get what we all agree would be a sensible change made."
I don't understand this. If "we all agree" that this would be a "sensible change," then what seems to be the hold up? Which department doesn't seem to think that this would be a "sensible change," and how can they have no information that they can share on this?
ltldpr
·7 months agoProbably a, now, non-existent department replaced by an overpriced computer program. It's probably just artificial idiocy and the blues probably get the same nonsensical bleep responses or just ignored, like we all get. I don't think humans are flying the plane anymore. It's just board members collecting big bleeping paychecks and a dynamic computer program designed to be continually changing even if it's changing just for the sake of changing (sold as "learning").
iamalwaysright
·6 months ago??? So Skynet has taken over eBay?
gone.c-33
·7 months ago“Our marketing people drew up different storylines for the different persona involved and between a goal of consideration and one of conversion, they determined that it was better to keep messages from blocked users blocked even though they haven’t consulted any real
use-cases but we can’t tell users that so we’ll just say we hope we can all agree a sensible change can be made and hope this placates them.â€
I hate that I’ve learned enough marketing buzzwords in the last year to write this up. But I think it’s spot on.
Let me go wash my hands and eyes with bleach now…
hartungcards
·7 months agoIt's also possible that the marketing people just decided that this change was necessary due to an annual increase in system activity experienced during this period, which has caused processing delays.
gone.c-33
·7 months agoGoes without saying!
iamalwaysright
·6 months agoAaaaand there it is! Was waiting for that.
wastingtime101
OP7 months agoI can make an educated guess it's about this not being a priority for eBay and resources being allocated to other changes that will make sellers' lives harder. ðŸ˜
eBay may agree this is a needed change, but it's low on their list. At least that's what I took from Kyle's post - that eBay is receptive to making the change, but it could take us a while to move this up in priority. That's why it's (in my opinion) important to keep advocating for this. If we all stop talking about it eBay will lower the priority status instead of raising it, thinking users no longer care about it. I'm hoping the priority has continued to climb with the efforts of those who have tirelessly advocated for this.
So yeah, people can report threads as old and get them locked despite the topic not actually being old with all info still as relevant today as it was when this started. I'll just keep creating new posts about it.
hartungcards
·7 months ago"At least that's what I took from Kyle's post - that eBay is receptive to making the change, but it could take us a while to move this up in priority."
Or in other words, making this change does nothing to increase eBay's revenue stream. It's just another "sensible change" that only benefits the inmates.
wastingtime101
OP7 months agoYes, but, as @jonathanbrightlight brought up earlier in this discussion and several of us have brought up in past discussions:
This is not just harmful to sellers; it's also harmful to buyers and that's something eBay does care about. Because of that we may be able to push the change through.
hartungcards
·7 months ago"Because of that we may be able to push the change through."
It's just too bad we can't take this one to "the back office" directly. That's where stuff supposedly gets taken care of.
a_c_green
·7 months agoMy educated guess (which applies to not only this topic but a number of others over the years) is that a lot of the coding alterations, whether they are new functionality or revisions to existing code, are done by contract programmers, who are recruited for the task but are not necessarily available for bug fixes or other alterations later on.
Anything needing to be done requires locating someone who wants the job and understands the job. This does not necessarily mean "someone who understands eBay." This would explain why so many revisions leave everyone scratching their heads, and why so many are dumped into Production with no announcement and no documentation. Peer review, debugging and release testing are not done, leading to unexpected results such as what we see whenever something new comes along, takes everyone by surprise, and causes one or more unintended consequences. This is just the latest example.
iamalwaysright
·6 months agoCan you at least confirm that the information on this issue simply exists within the departments in eBay? It’s just that you can’t share the progress on it, correct? Are the appropriate departments that have influence on this issue even aware of this concern, or is this topic getting swept under the rug before it reached them because of maybe not enough sellers have filed a complaint about it?
Can you at least comment about that concern?
sin-n-dex
·7 months agoThanks for advocating. On my other account I have one I want to add to the BBL to stop him from buying (after what he did to me today), but there are returns involved and he's sending messages that I want to be reading.
A guy buys 4 coins on 3 occasions (cheap stuff, like $5 coins). He's changed his mind and wants to send three of them back (and did three return requests for which eBay has provided him with three shipping labels to send each coin back). I did ask him to combine them in one package, hopefully I don't end up being charged for the other two labels (this is a buyer in Canada, so it's Canada Post).
He tells me not to worry he will buy more coins from me, as though buying more coins makes up for changing his mind and filing INAD on three out of four items and making me pay for three labels. I really don't want him to buy more coins. But if I stop him from buying I won't read his messages and I want to read the messages so I can tell him why he's blocked from buying if he tries to buy again. If he feels ignored, he might neg me, through no fault of my own. I did nothing wrong, and they were cheap coins, if I wasted $20 on stuff and didn't want it anymore I wouldn't bother returning it. I described them as "circulated" and showed pictures. As far as I'm concerned they were as described.
C.
wastingtime101
OP7 months agoGuys, if you see use cases please post links here and @ tag Kyle so he can get them reported.
Here are some recent use cases, Kyle.
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/People-who-cut-the-care-label-and-size-tags-from-their-clothing/m-p/35481056#M2664634
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/How-to-handle-an-eBay-buyer/m-p/35460866#M2660451
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Customer-Buys-After-Reading-the-Word-Flaw/m-p/35477985#M2664011
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Problem-Buyer-amp-Return/m-p/35460489#M2660369
I believe @iamalwaysright and @gurlcat are invested so I'm tagging you here in hopes you'll see this new thread and tag on when you come across sellers and buyers running into problems with this block.