Can't check out; caught in CAPTCHA loop for three days

[balladscholar]

I am having the problem that another user described here:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Ask-a-Mentor/Can-t-pay-for-Item-repeated-CAPTCHA-Security-Measure-Chec...

QUOTE:

"I keep getting CAPTCHA verification screens when I try to Checkout and oay for an item I won.

The payment screen appears for a second, flashes off, blinks slowly between the checkout page and a security footnote.

I have gone through dozens of CAPTCHA verification processes to no avail. Every time I go to pay for the jeans I won, I am thrust into the CAPTCHA loop again.

PLEASE HELP!!!"

UNQUOTE

So, obviously, this is not a unique problem.

For three days now, I have been unable to pay for an item for which I made a successful offer. I have tried numerous times at numerous times of day, cleared browsers, changed browsers, etc., etc., etc., the whole gamut of obvious "solutions" that are typically proffered in these cases. I am not a tech newbie, I am not an idiot,  and the problem is most certainly not on my end.

I would like to complete the transaction, pay the seller, and get my item.

Please fix the problem ASAP. Thank you.

[eburtonlab]

What does the error message say?

Do you get a different error when checking out using the eBay app when not using local WiFi?

Are you able to check out on ebay.ca instead of ebay.com?

[redmodelt]

We are not eBay employees, so we can't fix it, only offer suggestions that might help. 

[oldfrog252-6]

I ran into the "picture selection" device. It had a large lion and a small bicycle for the "match this" photo.

There were no bicycles in the selections, so I picked all of the lions.

eBay's robot told me my browser isn't good enough for them.

Why would Google Chrome not qualify as a viable browser.

I've informed eBay if they don't fix the problem and then contact me to 

to tell me it's been fixed, I'll just close my account and go somewhere else.

There are enough things wrong with eBay that the last thing they should do is block sales.

Other things that need work are, 1 slow shipping by the seller. 2 using shipping partners that drive the item around for weeks before taking it to the Post Office. 3 sellers that won't give a full refund when the item can be returned as defective or wrong item.

[oldfrog252-6]

Do what I did, contact the seller and tell them they've lost a sale, and they can thank eBay for that. 

I'm also keeping an eye on my PayPal account to make sure that if the charge appears on my bill

I can cancel it or dispute it until hell freezes over.

[eburtonlab]

eBay's robot told me my browser isn't good enough for them.

Why would Google Chrome not qualify as a viable browser.

What version of Chrome are you using? The latest version?

https://www.whatismybrowser.com/

Try another browser to see if that works better for you.

[annadryl]

Are you using a VPN?

[oldfrog252-6]

I've looked at updating my browser, that's Google Chrome, and found that with Windows 11 on my PC,

Google Chrome is updated every time I log off. It's an automatic function. I'm not going to change browsers

just because some tech people at eBay are incompetent.

[eburtonlab]

I'm not going to change browsers

You don't have to "change" browsers just to try a different browser. You can have more than one browser installed at the same time. You can keep using Chrome.

Trying another browser can help to determine if the problem is limited to your original browser or not. It takes a few seconds to download Firefox, sign in to eBay and try checking out to see if that works or not. If that works, then you can look at changing settings in Chrome or clearing cache or manually erasing eBay cookies. If you have the same problem in Firefox, then fiddling with Chrome settings will likely not help you, and you will have to look at other things like your network settings.

[oldfrog252-6]

Good advice, thanks.  I cleared the cookies (did it a week ago too) and bought a shirt, no sign of the Captcha device. I worked with engineers for 5 decades, each new one wants to reinvent the wheel. In this case the wheel (Captcha) was square. I'm all for online security, but they should test it on their mom's computer first.

👍🤠👍

[eburtonlab]

You are very welcome. Possibly eBay has changed something, or changed something again since the last time you erased your eBay cookies, and that is why erasing your eBay cookies again helped.

Unfortunately, every time eBay updates something, or every time a cookie is updated when someone visits a page, there is a possibility of conflicting information causing a problem. Most of the time the old data is simply overwritten and the new data takes its place seamlessly, but sometimes that does not happen and problems occur until the old, conflicting data is finally overwritten. Manually erasing eBay cookies can speed this process up when problems occur.

The fact that something works fine on a thousand computers may not be much consolation if you are using computer number one thousand and one and you find yourself having a problem.