Simply-the-best-for-you Volunteer Community Mentor
Okay this is getting beyond weird. That Youtuber said it was a new feature as well, but I know it is AT LEAST 8 months old and not just on the app but the website too. How? Because December 12, 2022 I posted about how frustrating it was whenever I had to wait 48 hours for any current offer to expire before I could sent it to buyers who became watchers after I sent the current one. And someone told me how to find that check box on the offer window, right below "Allow counteroffers". So I happily began using it, but stopped after a while, because I'm not crazy about a listing being un-editable, which it is during the 48 hr offer period, and with 'automatic' it could easily remain uneditable perpetually, like every time ONE new person starts watching, BAM another 48 hours.
So I have definitely NOT checkmarked that box in a long time, but a few days ago I discovered that each new offer I tried to set up already had that box checkmarked BY DEFAULT (made a post about that too). I thought it was the "new normal" and I was very unhappy about it. But mine is no longer doing that -it has gone back to the default of un-checkmarked.
Now ...... note that I said "mine" ...... because at this point the feature is CLEARLY not looking/working/defaulting the same for everyone right now. Another case in point, see this screenshot. MINE doesn't call the feature "NEW!"
@amazingsecondshop wrote:Someone had mentioned there would have been a strikethrough for offers, but on my sold listings page and my orders page it showed full amount sold. It listed on order totals $308.55 (before fees).
@amazingsecondshop Yes, you're screen is correct. Those people were incorrect & I & someone else posted that upthread somewhere. There is NO strikethrough when they are Seller Initiated Offers. Never has been. So, what you're seeing is correct. IDK why there is the difference in how Ebay shows seller intiated vs. BO's, but there is.
Okay, I don't even know WHAT to make of this, craziness like I've never seen on ebay before. I'll get to the 'crazy' in a moment, first how I got there:
So, just now I was trying to think of how someone who'd never made offers (at all) before could accidentally do so. In other words, how could it be done with the fewest possible keystrokes? -The OP already clarified that he had not received any buyer messages to which he could have accidentally replied with an offer, so we can rule that one out.
The mechanism in Seller Hub involves first filtering all your listings by ones that are 'Send Offers -Eligible', then selecting a listing, then plugging a number into the offer box (whether you misidentify it being amount or percent -doesn't matter, I'm just talking about keystrokes performed by someone who doesn't even know they're creating an offer) then clicking 'Send.' -That's an awful lof of accidents.
So, what about on My Ebay Selling Overview, where you have all those prompts to send offers for individual listings? So I clicked Send Offer on one of those .... meaning already one less click than in 'Hub' because no filtering was needed. But you would still have to enter a number in the box and hit Send. And here's where offer amount versus percent discount IS important: Look -Unlike the 'Hub' window, this one doesn't even have a percent discount option, ONLY offer amount. So the OP COULDN'T have used this one, because the employee told him he made an offer of 88% off. But you can't do that in this window. See screenshot, but then keep scrolling because next I'll show you the (new) ultra-crazy thing.
So I took that screenshot and was just going to close the window and come here to share it, but then I just got curious about: what if you can enter a number but then click 'Review offer' and be able to change to a percent discount there. So I started trying to make a pretend offer amount of $600, for this $674.95 item, but look what that triggered: the red-lettered rejection saying that's not a low-enough offer. Now ..... look at its' MATH. And it's not even a decimal error, as in 30% instead of 3%. The actual discount of lowering the BIN price to $523.75 is not even a rational number, but an irrational one starting with 0.224..... (so about 22% off).
In other words, this function is not smarter than a 5th grader.
In the YT video, Mailseum said he recently recently noticed the "automatically send offers" feature on the desktop seller hub. The option was probably new to him.
I just noticed the option several days ago. So, I did some research and came across the YT video. I then thought of the op's situation.
I just checked my sent offers and the option to automatically send offers is defaulted to active. I'll have to uncheck it because I'd rather avoid the drama.
Just to make sure I wasn't crazy, I've tried another one. Yet again, the math makes no sense. 17.73 is NOT 95% of 21.85. It's actually another irrational number of roughly 81%.
Also, did it always have different discount minimums for different items? It demanded at least 3% off for that other listing, but at least 5% off of this one. Is that yet ANOTHER glitch, or intentional?
@gurlcat wrote:
@simply-the-best-for-you wrote:So, I'm curious. Your own screen shot shows exactly what most of us have been saying, you clearly sent an offer. If you're still saying you didn't send it, how did it get to the buyer? It's clear from all the screen shots that an offer was sent & the buyer accepted it.
Also, can you explain why you thought the masked ID was a different, unknown ID? Ebay has been using masked ID's for many years now, you not knowing that is quite odd. I'm not trying to put you on the spot, just trying to get an understanding of how well you know transacting on Ebay. I'm trying to remember when it changed, but I want to say it's edging in on a decade now.
You keep bringing up how he didn't know about masked i.d.'s as if proving his ignorance about the site functions proves he could have accidentally sent this offer. It is NOT "quite odd" that he didn't know about masked i.d.'s -that's a really passive aggressive thing to say by the way, and completely irrelevant. If anything, it only supports the fact that he's not an experienced seller, and his statement that he had never even TRIED to send offers before.
@gurlcat There was absolutely NO passive aggressiveness (I say exactly what I mean) intended towards OP & it is ABSOLUTELY NOT irrelevant. I spent 30 years in IT, 10 at one of the largest software co's in the world, doing exactly this - software diagnostics. I am an expert in that field. The #1 first thing that must always be ascertained, is the skill, knowledge & expertise of the user having the issue. It's literally the FIRST thing you do. We do it on these boards all the time, usually more subtly, but I made sure to let OP know that I was not trying to call him out in any way, simply trying to get to the bottom of this situation. Since we do not have the benefit of being in the room with the user when they did the action & b/c on any system there are usually various navigation options, which we are not privy to seeing, we MUST rely on other means to determine this. I absolutely do not believe OP is lying, but I do think there is a chance he is confused about the actions he took.
The reason we must do this is b/c somewhere around 99% of the problems/questions brought to this board (and in the greater software world at large) are in fact user errors. By an unbelievable high margin, user error is most often the culprit. This is Diagnostics 101.
Further, I am a Community Mentor here, which is a program that involves us being approved to get accepted & has standards related to it. I resent the implication that I was doing ANYTHING other than trying to help the OP. My ONLY interest here is in figuring out what happened to HELP OP. OK, not quite true, I have one other interest. As a diagnostics expert, I do get a thrill out of helping to resolve a complex problem, which is the other reason I VOLUNTEER my time & effort on these boards. This is literally what I did for my entire career & now that I'm retired, I still love the thrill of problem solving.
Unfortunately, it seems in the couple of days I was gone, we are no closer to solving this.
Also, as @wastingtime101 pointed out, the automatic send offers ability is not new. But this doesn't appear to be an automatically sent offer. I also read the update that @amazingsecondshop posted & that glitch had to do with automatic offers, as did the video that @cardxcraft , so unfortunately, I am back to my original belief that the OP likely accidentally sent an offer without intending to. I do allow for the possibility that it may be a glitch, but I have seen no EVIDENCE of that. Coming from a scientific background, until I see actual evidence of a glitch, I have to go with user error.
And once again, it behooves us to remember that correlation does not equal causation. And in this case, we do not even have the correlation part.
If there were some evidence that OP had sent an Automatic offer, then there would be some correlation at play here, but that is not the case.
@robots-r-us If I offended you in any way, by questioning what you knew & didn't know, I sincerely apologize to you, as I absolutely am only trying to help, using the diagnostic skills I have outlined above to try & determine if this was a user error or a 'glitch' that you can contact Ebay about. As I stressed when I asked you, I am absolutely NOT trying to call you out. I have a scientific background, so tend to be direct. I am simply trying to figure this out, as many others are too, so that we can assist you if you have any possiblity of remuneration.
@amazingsecondshop wrote:Below is the message I received in my messages from eBay on June 9th. This was a follow-up from my inquiry at eBay help on May 28th.
A few days before the offer pricing error, I changed all my listings to do an auto offer of 6% to anyone who viewed the listings. After the 54% off auto offer pricing error, I have it disabled.
@amazingsecondshop Thank you for posting this. Your issue DOES seem to be the same one that affected the user in the video that @cardxcraft posted. BUT, the OP's offer was not automatic, so not the same issue it seems.
@stacy_pme wrote:Exactly, i get items pop up that are eligeable to send on offer on... that have zero views.... and no watchers... it just happens...
I'm still confused why the seller doesn't just cancel the transaction. He won't lose much doing so. Seems like a bunch of pontificating for such a little thing. Who knows what happened. Someone could have used OPs phone and did that accidentally... there are a million "what ifs" in the world, I find it odd to jump immediately to "ebay is trying to steal my money" or "a hacker hacked my account".
@stacy_pme B/C the item is gone already. THe buyer picked it up & he let it go before he realized that the price was wrong 😞
As proof, here is what happens if you click that box without inputting an offer amount:
@splendidthreads wrote:
@simply-the-best-for-you wrote:
@gurlcat wrote:
I don't know why I didn't think of bringing this up in this thread before, but there's a brand new change to seller initiated offers that started sometime in the past few days, in fact if you look at my posts, I'm the one who noticed it and posted about it, right on the same day he made this post. The programming change is: up to a couple days ago, when you went to send offers for a listing, the options underneath (Allow counteroffers and Send offers automatically) -they were all UN-checked, so you would have to opt IN to use them. Well, now "Automatically send offers" is defaulted to opt in, and you have to un-check it to opt out. I'm not happy about it, but whatever.Where are you seeing this? As in what screen & what environment? I double checked & mine are the same as they always have been. Both unchecked on the web & Accept Counteroffers checked on the app (Android) - same as they've always been on both. I don't have the time to devote to simulating other environments right now, though I have the ability to simulate mulitple OS's/browsers. I am curious where you're seeing this b/c no one else has mentioned it & I can't find it anywhere. I'd love to try the simulator if I knew where you were seeing it.
I send tons of offers daily, oftentimes 3-5x/day & have seen no change in the screens at all. I would notice immediately, as I don't allow counters & have never sent an auto-offer.
They may be rolling it out. I've seen it for the last few days, except none of my boxes are filled until I check them.
@splendidthreads THAT I've seen. THAT I've had for awhile. I was specifically referring to gurlcats assertion that the box was automatically checked. I have never once seen that box automatically checked & now I see she's posted that it isn't. I have verified it in some enviroments, but have not had time to simulate ALL environments. Nor do I intend to now that the person asserting it was checked is saying that it's not anymore. Unless someone posts a screenshot showing otherwise. I send out hundreds of Seller Initiatied Offers a week & have never once seen the box for Automatic checked.
