Community Chat, January 15 @ 1:00 pm PT - General Topics

[Anonymous]

Join the Community team here at 1 PM PT on January 15th for our Weekly Chat with eBay Staff. We don't have a set topic this week, so please bring any general questions you may have about buying or selling.

The chat will be open for questions from 1-2 pm PT, at which point we'll close thread from additional responses. After this time, we'll continue to work on responding to any queries that might still be unanswered.

If you're new to the chat, welcome!  Simply Reply to this post with your question from 1-2 PM Pacific Time and we'll be happy to look into it for you.

*Please note that we're not able to address account-specific queries. Questions regarding your account should be directed to eBay Customer Service.

[Anonymous]

Good afternoon everyone! The chat is now open for replies, looking forward to talking with everyone 🙂

[vrykalak]

When you change an item from Fixed Price to Auction, the Fixed Price becomes the Buy it Now price, which means Best Offer is illegal. Could the system please TURN OFF Best Offer in this situation?
Also, the default Auction length is 7 days. I want it to be 10 days. Is there any way I can make that happen automatically?

[merivalady]

EBay pleasing themselves and adding " Best Offer " To our listings.

This is a pathetic process that EBay have just decided it's a good idea to edit our listings and add the " Best Offer " to our listings without our consent or approval.

The listings we place and set the price for is our property, It is up to us what price we would like to set for these items and if we would like to accept lower offers than the price we have set for them.

EBay adding " Best Offer " to our listing without our consent or approval is a pathetic practice that should be stopped asap.

This practice is very frustrating and very time consuming to sellers who do not wish to have " Best Offer " on their listings and have to spend time going through each listing to remove the " Best Offer " that you have added to our listings without our consent or approval, Further more it is very annoying receiving messages informing us you have added this function, and receiving messages informing us that buyers have made a offer on the items that you have added " Best Offer " without our consent or approval. This is a total waste of our time and extremely frustrating.

This is also causing frustration to buyers who think the seller is accepting Best Offers on the Item only to find when they submit a offer the seller declines the offer because they do not wish to accept offers as they have already set the price at the price they are willing to sell it for.

EBAY MUST STOP ADDING " BEST OFFER " TO OUR LISTINGS WITHOUT OUR APPROVAL OR CONSENT.

If we want to accept " Best Offer " on our listings we would add it to the listings ourselves.

[mihu-5160]

First, unfortunately, your asterisk disclaimer is ignored. I have called your customer service SIX times about this issue. So clearly, that's a waste of my time. 

I brought this issue to your attention a month ago before Xmas on this chat and still have no solution. 

I am being overcharged ebay fees on my seller account. Last month, I was overcharged about $900. My charges are variable and they are NOT correct for the category. I had to pay that $900 out of pocket. Why? Because the first time I called, I was lied to and told I am not being overcharged. The second time I called, I was lied to again. The third time I called, I received the same unintelligible customer service reps and hung up. The fourth, fifth, and sixth time, I was told EVERY TIME that the billing issue exists and I am correct (contradicting the first claims).

EVERY TIME I was told they are working on it in the back office, it has been reported. This issue is on every transaction for seven weeks (about 400 transactions). This should not take THREE WEEKS. The first time, I was told I'd get a call back. Nobody called back. Got a message thru ebay. "Working on it". Responded to it FIVE TIMES for an update. No update. Disappeared. 

Fifth call. Sent to the back office. "I'll call you back before five business days". No call.

Sixth call last Friday: Yes, an issue. Yes, supervisor said send it to back office. "I'll call you back".

"When?"

"When it's done."

"A day. I want a day. This is not Groundhog Day."

"Call you by thursday."

I ask, "Nah, I wanna call you." 

"Ok, here's a number." GIves me ebay generic number. 

No call back, no fix. 

Either you are defrauding me, or your customer service is so incompetent your company should close itself up. 

This is absolutely despicable you would treat someone who has paid you literally HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS in service charges in 12 years. 

I went from $200k in inventory 2.5 years ago to $24000 today. Thank God. I would rather cut my head off with a band saw than deal with eBay for another year. Does anyone actually want to be here? Does anyone actually like selling on eBay? Or just like me, you're here because you're half (or totally) in a corner? I'm reading The Grapes of Wrath. There's a passage that applies to this company, eBay. In the beginning of the book. Those who've read it know my reference. 

With that being said, lying, incompetence, disregard for customers is blatant and incredible. 

I removed $8000 of inventory because of this garbage; I do not plan to be on this site in any significance beyond July. God Almighty, nearly free at last. 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Problem with Store Page Billboard (Note: I use Google Chrome):

I occasionally replace my regular Store "Billboard" with a Billboard announcing a sale I'm running or to present a seasonal greeting, etc. I create my billboards in canva, so creating the billboard isn't an issue. The problem arises when I go to replace the old 

billboard with the new one. This used to be a simple process. Go to my store home page, click on "Manage My Store" above the billboard, and then , on that page, on the left hand side under Store Management, Store Design, click "Edit Store".

So far, so good. The "edit store" page shows my billboard, and I then hover over the upper right hand corner of my billboard, and click "Add Image".  The way this used to work was, this would remove my current billboard and provide an opportunity yo upload my newly created image from my computer's "download" page, or wherever I had stored the downloaded canva jpg. Wait a short amount of time, and the new billboard would appear, and then I could click "publish", and....done! Easy peasy.

But since around the first of the year, maybe end of last year, it hasn't been easy. It seems Google considers this insecure, and I have not been able to upload my new image. I finally tried MS Edge instead of Chrome and ran into the same problem, although with Edge I found what appears to be a workaround. Both Google and Edge view this as insecure, but with Edge, I could override Edge's objection. 

I won't go into detail about how I did that. The point is, I should not NEED to do that. Apparently, there is something screwed up on eBay's end which is why both Google and Edge are identifying this as a security issue. Could you pass this to the proper team and get this resolved? This is especially important given that ebay doesn't provide any very good way to announce that I'm running a sale, for example, and I therefore use my billboard to make such announcements , per ebay's recommendation.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Wow...sorry about the font size in my prior post....

[merivalady]

Ebay really need to stop frustrating buyers / sellers buy editing listings and adding " Best Offer " without the sellers approval & consent.

[gwzcomps]

Never got a followup from last week. It seems like eBay inconsistently enforces their policies. The policies are scattered all over the various pages and eBay hides behind vague wording. With how things are handled from a policy standpoint and a CS standpoint it comes off as eBay being very anti seller. Is there an "order of operations" when it comes to policies? When things like false claims by buyers is against policy it make no sense why sellers (that don't offer returns) are punished for false claims. Kind of follows the sentiment that eBay lies about valuing their sellers and just want to squeeze us for as much money as possible.

[Anonymous]

---

@vrykalak wrote:

When you change an item from Fixed Price to Auction, the Fixed Price becomes the Buy it Now price, which means Best Offer is illegal. Could the system please TURN OFF Best Offer in this situation?
Also, the default Auction length is 7 days. I want it to be 10 days. Is there any way I can make that happen automatically?

---

Hi @vrykalak, can you give an item number example for this? We'll be happy to review something specific if you can provide it. As for changing the default option in the listing form, it looks like when I went to create an auction in your account the duration is defaulted to 10 days. Can you tell me where you are seeing something different?

[vrykalak]

I saw another entry in my last invoice from eBay saying I paid $1 for a listing upgrade, which turned out to be a larger photo.
Several months ago, I noticed a fee of $7 for the same upgrade to several listings, that had persisted for three months before I saw it..
I NEVER turn that on, and I ALWAYS check before I list or relist an item that the fee is $0.00.
So eBay is setting it for me, and then charging me for it. Grrr.

[gwzcomps]

I would say it is safe to assume all of these unauthorized changes have to do with either the mobile app or the fact that some people use the basic listing page instead of the advanced one.

[mihu-5160]

I think they see in data where turnover is more important than sell price. They get fees from higher sales prices so offers would lower their cut there; however, people must move stuff off ebay fast enough to cause concerns. 

[Anonymous]

---

@mihu-5160 wrote:

First, unfortunately, your asterisk disclaimer is ignored. I have called your customer service SIX times about this issue. So clearly, that's a waste of my time. 

I brought this issue to your attention a month ago before Xmas on this chat and still have no solution. 

I am being overcharged ebay fees on my seller account. Last month, I was overcharged about $900. My charges are variable and they are NOT correct for the category. I had to pay that $900 out of pocket. Why? Because the first time I called, I was lied to and told I am not being overcharged. The second time I called, I was lied to again. The third time I called, I received the same unintelligible customer service reps and hung up. The fourth, fifth, and sixth time, I was told EVERY TIME that the billing issue exists and I am correct (contradicting the first claims).

EVERY TIME I was told they are working on it in the back office, it has been reported. This issue is on every transaction for seven weeks (about 400 transactions). This should not take THREE WEEKS. The first time, I was told I'd get a call back. Nobody called back. Got a message thru ebay. "Working on it". Responded to it FIVE TIMES for an update. No update. Disappeared. 

Fifth call. Sent to the back office. "I'll call you back before five business days". No call.

Sixth call last Friday: Yes, an issue. Yes, supervisor said send it to back office. "I'll call you back".

"When?"

"When it's done."

"A day. I want a day. This is not Groundhog Day."

"Call you by thursday."

I ask, "Nah, I wanna call you." 

"Ok, here's a number." GIves me ebay generic number. 

No call back, no fix. 

Either you are defrauding me, or your customer service is so incompetent your company should close itself up. 

This is absolutely despicable you would treat someone who has paid you literally HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS in service charges in 12 years. 

I went from $200k in inventory 2.5 years ago to $24000 today. Thank God. I would rather cut my head off with a band saw than deal with eBay for another year. Does anyone actually want to be here? Does anyone actually like selling on eBay? Or just like me, you're here because you're half (or totally) in a corner? I'm reading The Grapes of Wrath. There's a passage that applies to this company, eBay. In the beginning of the book. Those who've read it know my reference. 

With that being said, lying, incompetence, disregard for customers is blatant and incredible. 

I removed $8000 of inventory because of this garbage; I do not plan to be on this site in any significance beyond July. God Almighty, nearly free at last. 

---

Hi @mihu-5160, as I asked in this response in the weekly chat you have referenced, we are happy to look into this further if you can give us an item number as an example. 

[mihu-5160]

I think what it is is a purely incompetent, greedy corporation.