There are many on ebay who can't tend to the computer bidding 24/7, and so who have signed up for various auction bidding services (AKA "sniping' services).
I am one of them.
I simply enter bid at the last second for what the item is worth. If I get it, I get it. If I don't, I don't.
After years of using a bidding service, suddenly bids are being rejected - about one in seven of them - with the explanation "Ebay Account Verification Required".
Repeated calls to ebay, each with a referrel to a higher level - either "security" or "account specialists" or whatever - have uniformly resulted in being told "there is no restriction on your account - talk to your bidding service" (which naturally, I already have), a suggestion to use ebay's own "bidding services" (aside from proxy bidding, I don't know what that is), AND that the "problem is fixed" - sometimes, with a statement guaranteeing same.
Then it happens again. Four times in a row!
I suspect ebay tech reps don't know there's been a decision make way up the food chain to eliminate third-party bidding, and they haven't been told - and the mechanism is to harrass them with unneeded "security verifications" until people stop using them. The absolutely stupid inanity of such a decision is hard to believe.
To check as to whether my auction bidding service is at fault, yesterday I signed up for a new one - with the same "Account Verification Required" results.
It's so unfair to sellers (and buyers, but especially to sellers) to deny them the bids they are seeking and are entitled to. I believe it to be a breach of some fundamental contract of the ebay/seller relationship to arbitrarilty impose unneeded and unwanted "security checks" on bids.
I hope someone on here can convince me that the above is not true, but here are the facts:
If I set up 20 bids for a day, likely 2 or 3 - but sometimes more - will run into the "verification" error message. There seeems no rhyme or reason or pattern. One rep I spoke with said it was part of Ebays "security algorithm" - that the computer, based on prior bidding, etc, flagged a bid for verification. This makes NO sense at all, from what I see. If bid #4 is flagged, why are the following six bids not flagged? (I bid on the same types of stuff, and have for most of the past 16 years - no surprises with MY bidding patterns, for sure!)
I feel sorry for sellers when the bids are stopped. One which was stopped was for one hundred dollars more than the winning bid. That's a fair amount for a seller to not receive.
In frustration, I've taken to alerting sellers when this happens. Ebay doesn't seem to care to fix the problem (as nine phone calls indicate), but maybe if enough people become aware and start complaining...
Again, I hope someone will see this and come up with a fix other than my leaving in rejection of such blatent manipulation of the ebay market.
