Here is a shortened version of correspondence between myself and eBay support, showing a complete fail on the part of eBay when dealing with a straightforward bug report:
Me: Hi, I was trying to submit an offer to a seller. When clicking on the "Review offer" button, I'm getting a message "Sorry, this item cannot be shipped to <your country>.You are unable to bid on or buy this item because: The seller has specified that this item cannot be shipped to addresses in <your country>"
However the seller did specify that this item can be shipped to <my country>.
So clearly there is a technical issue here.
I have received similar errors when attempting to bid on other items. So this is not a problem with this specific listing.
eBay: I can see here that <your country> has been included in the lists of excluded postage locations. This is the reason why you encountered an error.
Me: If the seller excluded <my country> then why does <my country> show up in the list of countries that the seller ships to? Is it possible for a country to be simultaneously included and excluded? Sorry but this makes approximately 0 sense and if that is indeed the case, rather than an error in your systems then this is a bug that needs to be addressed. Please see the attached screenshot of this specific listing.
eBay: I found out that the seller indeed excluded your shipping location in his listing. The reason you cannot find this on the “Shipping and Payments” tab is because the seller is using the Global Shipping Program to ship the items internationally.
The program should be able to ship the item to your location however since your seller excluded your location when he created this listing, it overrides the program and you will be able to see the error upon checkout.
You can communicate with the seller and you can request to include your country for the postage locations. But they need to opt out to Global Shipping Program.
Me: The problem is ***not*** that I can not buy from this seller. The problem is that *** incorrect information is being presented ***. I am attaching the screenshot for the second time now, <...> *** the system is displaying incorrect information ***.
Please answer the following questions:
1) Is it Ok that eBay presents me incorrect information, making me believe that the seller *will* ship to <my country> when it fact, they *won't*, and eBay's system *has the the knowledge* that they won't?
2) Is it Ok to mislead me into trying to bid on an item that the seller expressly *does not want* to ship to my country?
3) Is it Ok to make me *waste a lot of time* blindly trying out listings that claim they are applicable for shipping to my country, when in fact, most of them are not?
4) If this is not Ok then why is the problem not being elevated to the technical department?
eBay: I can see that the concerns expressed in this contact have already been successfully addressed on the previous e-mails we sent you. <...> While we will read further emails from you about this matter, we may not reply if the issue is the same.
Me: How does your reply answer the main question, which is:
1) Is it Ok that eBay presents me incorrect information, making me believe that the seller *will* ship to <my country> when it fact, they *won't*, and eBay's system *has the the knowledge* that they won't?
eBay: I have renewed your concern from the very start for me to understand what really your concern is. Now, I found out that you cannot successfully buy this item even your seller did not restrict your country. <...> I can indeed see here that your country is not restricted when in fact, the seller will ship the item into your location.
I can see here that the reason why you have been unable to buy the item is because of a filter we've recently put in place to assist with customs rules and regulations. This filter is designed to block you from purchasing certain items that you would not be allowed to buy, because the items that are being blocked have some sort of customs or import regulations associated with them that would ban them from being imported into your country.
This includes items that are declared as " not working/ Does not power on/Faulty power supply" in condition.
Neither the seller nor eBay has any control over this restriction when you purchased items internationally. This is why I humbly suggest you to visit your local custom about Faulty/Not working items via Global Shipping Program or GSP.
Me: in the last exchange, eBay representative effectively acknowledged that there are 2 bugs with the eBay system:
1) The system shows the item as being applicable for shipping to my country, while it has the knowledge that in fact, it isn't.
2) The system presents a misleading error message, saying "The seller has specified that this item cannot be shipped to addresses in <my country>". Where in fact, the seller expressly allowed the item to be shipped. A different reason is preventing me from bidding but this reason is not being expressed by the system.
Why my report is not being considered a bug report and not escalated to the technical team?
eBay: The item can be shipped to your country since it is one of the countries where the seller ships the item. I would just like to clarify that this is not a bug.
Me: How do you consolidate the following statement:
" I can indeed see here that your country is not restricted when in fact, the seller will ship the item into your location"
with the error that is being displayed by the system, which is
"The seller has specified that this item cannot be shipped to addresses in <my country>"
?
It seems obvious that incorrect information is being displayed. How can you claim that the information being represented by the system is incorrect and simultaneously claim that there is no bug? When software represents to the user incorrect information, this is a bug by definition, unless the software was specifically designed to lie to the user. This is beyond logic.
eBay: They will definitely ship the item to your location at the same time, it will still go through our Global Shipping Program. Global Shipping Program itself blocked you on purchasing the said item.
It may have been because of some unsuccessful transaction or delaying shipment on shipping the item to your location.
<no answer why they won't acknowledge the bug>
