Bug - Great Moments in Customer Service

[cbx6]

Here is my effort to make an Ebay rep understand a system problem.  It ended when they cut off the chat. 

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Jefferson has joined the conversation

Hello, welcome to eBay - my name is Jefferson. Please allow me a few moments to review your details.
Jefferson

I see you opened this account 25 years ago, thank you for your loyalty.
Jefferson

Hi, David. I hope you are doing great. If I got you right, you are contacting us regarding on requesting an invoice for a damaged item, is that correct?
Jefferson

Hi, . I see that you are typing, kindly please respond to let me know that we are still connected?
Jefferson

No - no damage. I won an item in UK that has no US shipping listed, after confirming seller would send to US. Now I go to pay, and screen says...
that I should "Request Total" with shipping. There is a button, so I click on it, request total, then instead of sending the request I get an error message that seller does not offer combined shipping.

Thank you for explaining what happened. No worries I am more than happy to assist you on checking how we can have this resolved.
Jefferson

MAy I know if you have contact the seller regarding on what happened, David?
Jefferson

I used "Contact Seller" to ask him for the total. Not sure if he will be able to send an invoice.

Thank you for contacting them to let them know what the issue you are getting.
Jefferson

Actually they do have an option for them to send you an invoice as they have it on their selling account.
Jefferson

Does it allow for adjusting shipping for overseas? Also, why does the Request Total screen not work?

If the seller responded and don't know how to do it on their end, please let them know that they have to contact us to assist them on how to send an invoice for you to successfully pay the item that you've won.
Jefferson

May I have the item number for me to check if I get the same view here on my end?
Jefferson

13469766xxxx

Is this the item that you are pertaining to" xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
Jefferson

Yes. Request Total gives an erroneous error "The seller doesn't offer combined postage discounts." even though that was not being asked.

Also "The seller has disallowed combined payments and postage discounts. Please proceed to checkout to complete your purchase.", which is not possible because overseas postage has not been listed.

May I know if what is the error message that you are getting?
Jefferson

See above

As I checked here that it works when I have click on the request total option, David.
Jefferson

HAve you try to log out and log in to check if you get the same result?
Jefferson

The button works, takes me to a screen titled "Request total from seller" with a box to add a message. That screen has a "Submit Request" button. Clicking that gives the errors above.

Got it. If that the case as I mentioned earlier. You have to contact the seller and let them know what happened when requesting a request total, for them to have it fixed the error that you are getting.
Jefferson

If the seller responded and don't know how to do it on their end, please let them know that they have to contact us to assist them on how to send an invoice for you to successfully pay the item.
Jefferson

I did that, and hopefully they will be able to send an invoice. But do you agree there is a system error here? Will it be fixed?

Actually the error that you are getting is due to the setting that seller preferred to set up on their end.
Jefferson

THat is the reason why the system is not letting you through is because it didn't met the information required by the seller.
Jefferson

No - because they didn't set up US postage, when I click on Checkout Ebay takes me to the Request Total screen. That makes sense. But then it doesn't work, so will not allow me to request the total. That is a bug.

Actually that is not a bug. The system giving you this error is because the preferred information sets by the seller is not included on their end.
Jefferson

What information?

For this to be fixed we have to contact the seller to get this done.
Jefferson

The screen exists for the purpose of contacting the seller - but it gives an error, and does not work.

I hope that this clarified your concern, please wait for the respond of the seller to have this fixed. Thank you for being the best part of eBay. Have a great day!
Jefferson

2:05 pm

Jefferson has left the conversation

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Is there any way to communicate a system issue to someone capable of understanding it?

[comics-scifi-collectibles]

@cbx6  If the seller is not offering shipping to the US they usually can't add international  shipping with an invoice.  They need to cancel the sale and relist it for you as a buy it now WITH shipping to the US on the listing.  

Contacting CS again about this won't solve the issue.   It has to be the seller that sends an invoice ( which they are not doing)  or relists as I mentioned.     CS can't do this for the seller.  

[cbx6]

Thanks for the reply.  The seller was able to send an invoice, so the transaction is OK. 

What's not OK is Ebay's process for this:

 - Sent me a message stating I won the auction, with a link to pay.

 - Clicking the link took me to a payment page stating I could not pay, because the seller had not listed shipping cost to USA.  The page instructed me to click a link to "Request Total from Seller".

 - That link brought up a page titled "Request Total from Seller", with a message box to add text.

 - Clicking the 'Send Message" button did not send the message - instead it showed an error, saying the seller did not allow shipping discounts for multiple items.

 - This error message is a bug.  There was no request for a shipping discount, just a request for the total with shipping to USA.  I was using that page because Ebay directed me to it.

All well and good; software bugs happen.  But after I tried very hard to make the problem clear to the Ebay rep (see transcript), he was still unable to grasp it.  Not very bright; all he needed to do was generate a bug report.  And then he terminated the chat without a resolution (hung up).

[comics-scifi-collectibles]

@cbx6. Glad the seller was able to send the invoice,  that doesn't always work if there's no international shipping. 

As for the bug, the system does glitch and send the wrong error message sometimes.   Not much will be done about the glitch until a larger number of buyers are affected, even if you could have reported it. 

[khetzel]

It does remind me of something happened a few years ago to me when I couldn't get into my email at work. (Large company)

I called the help desk, opened a ticket, went back and forth for a few days until they closed the ticket.  I still couldn't get into my email.

I had to open another ticket and reference the first one.  I asked how could they have closed the ticket?

"Oh, we emailed you the instructions how to solve the problem you are having." 🤯