eBay

3576betsyd · ‎10-31-2023

I sold an item via Best Offer on Monday morning, and I am unable to send the customer an invoice, and when I try to message them I get this message "Oops! Something went wrong. Please try again later." They are a new user, less than a month old, with no feedback. Any thoughts?

ittybitnot · ‎10-31-2023

I sold an item via Best Offer on Monday morning, and I am unable to send the customer an invoice,

@3576betsyd

Did the buyer use the "Best Offer" feature OR did you send an offer and they accepted?

3576betsyd · ‎10-31-2023

I completely understand the 96 hours part, the fact that I can not send an invoice or even send them a message is concerning.

IMO, it is not relevant as to what the item is, if I accepted their best offer or they accepted an offer from me, etc.

It is the fact that eBay's system is not allowing any communication, without explanation.

ittybitnot · ‎10-31-2023

IMO, it is not relevant as to what the item is, if I accepted their best offer or they accepted an offer from me, etc.

@3576betsyd

It may indeed make a difference. Your settings are set to require a buyer to put up a payment source in order to make an offer in the first place. All buyer IDs are forced to do this when they want to MAKE AN OFFER from the listing. You cannot send an invoice to the buyer in this instance if you accept one or twenty of their offers. There is no way to combine items anymore when this is used and the ability to send an invoice is removed.

There is a work around now, to avoid auto-payment when the buyer makes the offer, but your ability to send an invoice may not be restored when they use it. If your buyer did this on purpose or by accident, that may be why you can't send one.

When YOU send the offer, the buyer has the usual 96 hours to pay. Typically, the buyer can select the payment method of their choice, and combine items for one shipping price should you send them offers for multiple items. You can send an invoice under these circumstances.

If you do not want to combine items, encourage multiple sales, and do not want to allow the buyer any time DO KEEP these preferences in place. Check yours here:

https://www.ebay.com/bmgt/buyerrequirements

Buyer Payment Requirements

*Require buyers to provide a payment method before they place a bid.

*Require buyers to provide a payment method before they make an offer.

3576betsyd · ‎10-31-2023

Checking the link you sent, my options are unchecked as I do encourage multiple items per transaction, so I do not think that is it, however:

They accepted an offer I sent Sunday evening, so based on what you have stated, I should be able to send them an invoice, and either way, I should be able to send them a message, and yet I can not do either.

mtgraves7984 · ‎10-31-2023

@3576betsyd

So what was the listing number? Maybe if we could eyeball it... 👀

soh.maryl · ‎10-31-2023

When I check your sold items, last one I see is Playskool Heroes Transformers Rescue Bots sold on 10/28/23.

Did you sell something else after that?

dbfolks166mt · ‎10-31-2023

If the buyer happens to be international you are using the EIS program and you would not be able to send an invoice however, to the best of my knowledge that should not stop you from communicating with the buyer. Given the account is less than a month old it is possible that the buyer does not have their account settings setup completely. If that is the case about the only thing I could suggest would be to contact eBay through the facebook connection and see if they can determine what the issue may be with the buyers settings.

albertabrightalberta · ‎10-31-2023

@3576betsyd wrote:

IMO, it is not relevant as to what the item is, if I accepted their best offer or they accepted an offer from me, etc.

It's not irrelevant because to those of us who are trying to figure out what happened don't even see that an item was sold on the date you claim.

Perhaps it was a phishing (attempt) sale.

Please post the item number.

albertabrightalberta | Volunteer Community Mentor
"I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you."

mtgraves7984 · ‎10-31-2023

@3576betsyd wrote:
I completely understand the 96 hours part, the fact that I can not send an invoice or even send them a message is concerning.

IMO, it is not relevant as to what the item is, if I accepted their best offer or they accepted an offer from me, etc.

It is the fact that eBay's system is not allowing any communication, without explanation.

@3576betsyd

Is it possibly an item that you negotiated an offer on through messages, and not from sending an official 'Offer'?

I'm still curious as to why we can't see a sold item on 10/30, and wondered if eBay has somehow blocked you and the buyer from communicating...?

Also curious as to how you see it under 'Awaiting payment', if the previous sentence is true. What's the listing number?

campanaelia · ‎10-31-2023

@3576betsyd wrote:
I completely understand the 96 hours part, the fact that I can not send an invoice or even send them a message is concerning.

IMO, it is not relevant as to what the item is, if I accepted their best offer or they accepted an offer from me, etc.

It is the fact that eBay's system is not allowing any communication, without explanation.

Is it possible the buyer has you on their BBL with the box checked not to receive messages from you?

NO KINGS

ittybitnot · ‎10-31-2023

They accepted an offer I sent Sunday evening, so based on what you have stated, I should be able to send them an invoice, and either way, I should be able to send them a message, and yet I can not do either.

@3576betsyd

Thanks for the clarification as to how the 'offer' came about. Under normal circumstances you should be able to communicate with the buyer. You should also be able to send an invoice (unless it was an international sale), but it is not necessary. It just resets the clock for the buyer and adds another 96 hours extra time before you can file (cancel) for "non-payment".

What people are telling you here is based on how things have worked in the past. Keep in mind, that eBay is tinkering all the time, and when trying out something new, it is not uncommon for five other functions to be broken and throw error messages. As an example, just last week sellers could surprisingly "cancel for non-payment" right away. There was no need to wait those 96 hours. No payment if 5 minutes?..no problem, an impatient seller could cancel for non-payment and award the buyer a strike right away.

Though you have been asked, is your buyer still a registered user? If they have ZERO feedback, you won't be able to access the page where their country of registration is located either unless you know how to tweak a URL to the feedback page. The link you get here in the boards that goes directly to the correct page. (ie. yours is (2010), does not function in the same way elsewhere and does not function at all for a ZERO feedback member.

There is always the 'clear cache/cookies, use a different browser, don't use the app, try the app, sign out, restart your device, yada yada "fixes" you can try. When things go amiss, eBay is not noted for announcements regarding malfunctions, glitches, or even policy or functionally changes (aka enhancements or improvements that really never are helpful to anyone). They have all of us wandering around wondering what is going on. Once in a while, by sharing information we find out!!!

mtgraves7984 · ‎10-31-2023

They have all of us wandering around wondering what is going on. Once in a while, by sharing information we find out!!!

@3576betsyd

I'm with @ittybitnot... please return and share what we've asked for. You may be onto something that affects us. 🙏

3576betsyd · ‎11-06-2023

I did not want to post the item number while the item was technically open as that would be working against the buyer's interest, but since it is now closed, and I have filed a NPB with eBay, I will share, it is 234220395597

Seems I was not the only one as someone actually left feedback stating:

Buyer used the buy it now option then went silent, never making the payment. Ignored numerous messages over 3 days asking to confirm if they still wanted to buy or if they wanted to cancel, and no reply at all. Clearly a time waster, Avoid!

In their case, it looked like messages went through, though in my case, invoices and messages were not processed. Was I blocked, I do not know, is there a way to tell? It was a US based user, according to their profile. As for caches/cookies, I tried contact on two different PCs and a Tablet, and each time, nothing. As far as I can tell, when I filed the NPB, they were a registered user. Looking at their feedback now, they still show active.

dbfolks166mt · ‎11-06-2023

I did not want to post the item number while the item was technically open as that would be working against the buyer's interest, but since it is now closed, and I have filed a NPB with eBay, I will share, it is 234220395597

Seems I was not the only one as someone actually left feedback stating:

Buyer used the buy it now option then went silent, never making the payment. Ignored numerous messages over 3 days asking to confirm if they still wanted to buy or if they wanted to cancel, and no reply at all. Clearly a time waster, Avoid!

Now that I can see the listing I checked and you do in fact use the EIS program. It is possible that even though the buyer is showing as US registered that they have a foreign shipping address which would route the item through EIS. That would explain why you could not send an invoice but it should not prevent you from contacting the buyer.

I would simply add the buyer to my BBL and repost the item. I have had some glitches with eBay over the years, some of which I reported, but for most I simply moved on and did not loose too much sleep over the issue.

In their case, it looked like messages went through, though in my case, invoices and messages were not processed. Was I blocked, I do not know, is there a way to tell? It was a US based user, according to their profile. As for caches/cookies, I tried contact on two different PCs and a Tablet, and each time, nothing. As far as I can tell, when I filed the NPB, they were a registered user. Looking at their feedback now, they still show active.