eBay

sin-n-dex · ‎01-14-2019

So I had tokens, around 700 of them. I sold most of them in my B&M store last year, in batches, to a regular token buyer. I have a copy of the email where eBay says I ended the listing in July 2018.

Well one sold recently, I couldn't find it. I always fall back on my records to figure out why I have an OOS on an item especially when I have good inventory control.

Seems like after I ended the listing it got itself relisted. I had to send a message to the customer to explain the item was sold in July, but seemed to be auto relisted (which would be a glitch if it happened that way, since I don't have auto relist turned on). Due to how some sellers behave, I wouldn't blame the buyer for not believing this might happen... no negs yet, no reply from the buyer (if there is no reply at all, I'm not concerned, no news is good news).

It worries me about what else might have been ended that's still in my eBay store. I frequently end items to give up on selling them online and move them into a showcase in the B&M store (usually high priced stuff with narrow margins).

The item that was OOS is worth $5, it's not a common item (given that it's a Canadian token) so there might be some disappointment as I'm not sure it would be that easy to find another one. The disappointment factor tends to increase exponentially on expensive items that are obtained for a really good price.

Do you notice when Windows does it's auto-update on your computer that some of your basic settings change? I keep turning off all the stupid mouse pad settings (so I don't make my screen larger or smaller by touching the mouse pad), but when windows updates it resets this. When eBay updates, what defaults does it restore that we have to keep changing?

Cheers, C.

ittybitnot · ‎01-14-2019

What you are describing has been called "ghost" listings. Items that ended long ago seem to mysteriously reappear for sale. These ended/sold/not relisted items are often so old they are no longer even viewable by the seller. For a seller with many listings, this can be a problem as you noticed. Previously, an ebay staff person addressed this issue saying that it simply doesn't happen, that it is the seller that is doing it even if unknowingly.

You can call CS to have the defect removed. Good luck with that, and hope you don't get a CS that "needs coaching".

dtexley3 · ‎01-14-2019

This is a reported issue. Most frequently I admit it's a chair-keyboard interface failure code [id-10-t] (ie I screwed up), but there's a few that defy explanation and others' have reported similar phantom relists.

Remember that when you end an item, it goes to your unsolds unless you then go and delete the listing it's easy to relist by accident.

Also if you do a Sell Similar to relist an item the original unsold item sits in your unsolds just waiting to be accidentally relisted.

Member of the Grumpy Old Man crew

sin-n-dex · ‎01-14-2019

@ittybitnot wrote:
What you are describing has been called "ghost" listings. Items that ended long ago seem to mysteriously reappear for sale. These ended/sold/not relisted items are often so old they are no longer even viewable by the seller. For a seller with many listings, this can be a problem as you noticed. Previously, an ebay staff person addressed this issue saying that it simply doesn't happen, that it is the seller that is doing it even if unknowingly.

You can call CS to have the defect removed. Good luck with that, and hope you don't get a CS that "needs coaching".

Hi,

It is so old that I can't view it on eBay...

However, I had a spreadsheet I was keeping of removed tokens (where I looked first to see if it should be removed), then I looked in my email (there's a folder for "ebay starts" and "ebay ends"), the item appeared in the ending folder, but did not appear in the start folder after it ended.

I'll have to see if a defect appears. If it does, I only have one for the past 12 months, but I do my best to remove any undeserved defects so when I do deserve it, it won't cause me to be booted.

Cheers, C.

sin-n-dex · ‎01-14-2019

@dtexley3 wrote:
This is a reported issue. Most frequently I admit it's a chair-keyboard interface failure code [id-10-t] (ie I screwed up), but there's a few that defy explanation and others' have reported similar phantom relists.

Remember that when you end an item, it goes to your unsolds unless you then go and delete the listing it's easy to relist by accident.

Also if you do a Sell Similar to relist an item the original unsold item sits in your unsolds just waiting to be accidentally relisted.

Generally when I do a mass-pull of tokens (like this past year), I will take the wish list and start ending them. At the point in time when I pull the token from the box and have it in hand, then I delete the unsold listing. (it's just double verification, I end them without seeing if I have them because if I can't find it, it should be ended anyway for obvious reasons).

When I relist something from my unsold, it sends a notification telling me my listing is live. That didn't happen with this item... but I do have the evidence that I did actually end it.

Cheers, C.

twnpopcards · ‎01-14-2019

@sin-n-dex wrote:
@dtexley3 wrote:
This is a reported issue. Most frequently I admit it's a chair-keyboard interface failure code [id-10-t] (ie I screwed up), but there's a few that defy explanation and others' have reported similar phantom relists.

Remember that when you end an item, it goes to your unsolds unless you then go and delete the listing it's easy to relist by accident.

Also if you do a Sell Similar to relist an item the original unsold item sits in your unsolds just waiting to be accidentally relisted.

Generally when I do a mass-pull of tokens (like this past year), I will take the wish list and start ending them. At the point in time when I pull the token from the box and have it in hand, then I delete the unsold listing. (it's just double verification, I end them without seeing if I have them because if I can't find it, it should be ended anyway for obvious reasons).

When I relist something from my unsold, it sends a notification telling me my listing is live. That didn't happen with this item... but I do have the evidence that I did actually end it.

Cheers, C.

I use Turbo Lister for all of my listings and they are all 30 day or less listings. When i sell and item I delete if from T/L so that I do not accidentally relist it. But even doing things this way I have had listings suddenly come up sold that sold months ago and in some cases over a year ago. When a buyer suddenly makes this purchase and I cannot locate it I look first T/L to see if it is even in my listings for upload and have found that they are not in any T/L folder. I then have checked my sold spreadsheet and sure enough the item was previously sold and was somehow relisted by Ebay.

Luckily when I have explained this to buyers they have worked with me to either purchase something else ( I do offer more value than they paid for) or i refund the money from the purchase. I have only had one instance where the buyer wanted their money back so I cancelled the order as buyer request and they were refunded immediately and no defect was received. The buyer understood what had happened and said they had run across this type of issue with other sellers in the past so they did not leave negative feedback.

This "glitch" has been happening for years to sellers and is a known problem to Ebay but they do not seem to care to try and fix it. Its in their best interest to have this happen as it lowers sellers ratings and can cause a seller to fall below standard and then have to pay the additional 4% FVF so once again an Ebay glitch makes money for them.

I hope that you do not end up with an OOS defect due to this glitch but have heard other Sellers who did get a defect due to this glitch. As far as Ebay is concerned its not important enough to try and fix because it can create additional revenue for them and they are still more focused on making changes to things than fixing what they have broken with previous changes.

sin-n-dex · ‎01-15-2019

@twnpopcards wrote:
@sin-n-dex wrote:
@dtexley3 wrote:
This is a reported issue. Most frequently I admit it's a chair-keyboard interface failure code [id-10-t] (ie I screwed up), but there's a few that defy explanation and others' have reported similar phantom relists.

Remember that when you end an item, it goes to your unsolds unless you then go and delete the listing it's easy to relist by accident.

Also if you do a Sell Similar to relist an item the original unsold item sits in your unsolds just waiting to be accidentally relisted.

Generally when I do a mass-pull of tokens (like this past year), I will take the wish list and start ending them. At the point in time when I pull the token from the box and have it in hand, then I delete the unsold listing. (it's just double verification, I end them without seeing if I have them because if I can't find it, it should be ended anyway for obvious reasons).

When I relist something from my unsold, it sends a notification telling me my listing is live. That didn't happen with this item... but I do have the evidence that I did actually end it.

Cheers, C.
I use Turbo Lister for all of my listings and they are all 30 day or less listings. When i sell and item I delete if from T/L so that I do not accidentally relist it. But even doing things this way I have had listings suddenly come up sold that sold months ago and in some cases over a year ago. When a buyer suddenly makes this purchase and I cannot locate it I look first T/L to see if it is even in my listings for upload and have found that they are not in any T/L folder. I then have checked my sold spreadsheet and sure enough the item was previously sold and was somehow relisted by Ebay.

Luckily when I have explained this to buyers they have worked with me to either purchase something else ( I do offer more value than they paid for) or i refund the money from the purchase. I have only had one instance where the buyer wanted their money back so I cancelled the order as buyer request and they were refunded immediately and no defect was received. The buyer understood what had happened and said they had run across this type of issue with other sellers in the past so they did not leave negative feedback.

This "glitch" has been happening for years to sellers and is a known problem to Ebay but they do not seem to care to try and fix it. Its in their best interest to have this happen as it lowers sellers ratings and can cause a seller to fall below standard and then have to pay the additional 4% FVF so once again an Ebay glitch makes money for them.

I hope that you do not end up with an OOS defect due to this glitch but have heard other Sellers who did get a defect due to this glitch. As far as Ebay is concerned its not important enough to try and fix because it can create additional revenue for them and they are still more focused on making changes to things than fixing what they have broken with previous changes.

I have an update...

There were two more phantom listings that I discovered tonight. But the buyer spends thousands and buys many tokens, so two missing from his order isn't a big deal. He will be happy with a credit on his next order (so no risk of defect here). I am going to double check all my other token boxes (which are stored 50 miles from here) just to make sure it's not a miss sorting error where I forgot to put them in the auction box.

As for the customer who didn't get his token... he did write back, seems OK with my explanation (as much as it made my heart race to send that message), and gave me a wish list of similar items. Low and behold, I found something else on his list which I'm sending free of charge to make up for the mistake. (even though eBay messed up, I could have done my due diligence and checked the box to make sure, but I was preoccupied with personal matters last week).

As for the OOS... my argument will be "I posted a tracking number for sending a package, I sent a package, the customer got something, so remove the defect." (Messages will explain what really happened though, but if I get a sympathetic rep they might think I did some good customer service to fix this).

C.

reallynicestamps · ‎01-15-2019

I believe every long term seller has had this happen.

I can understand why eBay would deny it, since it is very hard to prove, and I don't think they want it to happen since it means an unhappy (or furious) buyer.

Most of my items are unique (or hard to find) so if something sells, I won't be replacing it. EBay needs to understand that collectibles are not like cellphones or Tibet silver bracelets. Sellers don't have dozens of identical items.

FWIW, I put my listings in alphabetical order from time to time and check for duplicated listings. Last time I did this I found three out of about 500 listings. As I recall, all were duplicated within minutes of the first listing.

BTW, I love the 'chair to keyboard interface problem'. Been there too.

sin-n-dex · ‎01-15-2019

@reallynicestamps wrote:
I believe every long term seller has had this happen.

I can understand why eBay would deny it, since it is very hard to prove, and I don't think they want it to happen since it means an unhappy (or furious) buyer.

Most of my items are unique (or hard to find) so if something sells, I won't be replacing it. EBay needs to understand that collectibles are not like cellphones or Tibet silver bracelets. Sellers don't have dozens of identical items.

FWIW, I put my listings in alphabetical order from time to time and check for duplicated listings. Last time I did this I found three out of about 500 listings. As I recall, all were duplicated within minutes of the first listing.

BTW, I love the 'chair to keyboard interface problem'. Been there too.

I've had other issues of OOS... for instance, it's misfiled, and I jump the gun to not annoy the customer by refunding. (I haven't done this in a few years, but it's pretty bad when I find the item a few weeks later. Let's say I don't relist it at that point, I figure the item is cursed).

The other issue is the switcheroo item... I've shipped an UNC coin instead of the XF one the buyer bought. (I didn't hear any complaints, but am glad I caught that and removed the UNC listing before it sold). I've had issues of similar items in different packaging and shipped the wrong one (which is why I look at pictures for some items, if they're not necessarily unique). I've had two listed and relisted the wrong one (this was a disaster when the one I relisted was beautiful and I should have listed the low grade one with the hole... at least the buyer was OK once he understood I made a mistake and wasn't just unwilling to sell the coin). And then there's the typo issues in the title... I had a 1968 and 1969, forgot to change the title in the 1969, didn't look at the picture, and shipped the 1968 one because "the title says". The buyer didn't complain about not getting the one in the picture (maybe he wanted 1968 and assumed the picture was wrong), but the buyer who did buy the 1968 when I then found out I shipped it in error... I couldn't make him happy, he collected only 1968 items. I shipped him a few common ones from my inventory (reserved for auctions). never heard anything, but didn't get any bad FB either, so I'm going to assume that ended well.

What can I say, with 10,000 plus transactions, stuff is going to happen. Most of the higher volume dealers that I do business with are understanding of mistakes because they make them too.

Cheers, C.