Offers being accepted then not showing up as sold creating havoc for sellers and buyers

[danra_1073]

I am a very active seller in the hobby/model train space with over 1000 transactions a month processed on Ebay.  Recently, we have noticed that when and offer comes on for an item that we accept, sometimes, and the key word is sometimes... the offer acceptance never processes as an actual order.  It disappears completely and the listing remains active.    Yes, I have reported the issue and opened a Case with Ebay.  No fix as of yet and this seems to be happening 2 - 3 times a day on my account which is frustrating and wasting everyone's time.  

The fix in the meantime is to relist the item at the agreed price and send the purchaser a message with the new listing ID number.  Be sure you DO NOT promote the new listing and use the "Sell Similar" option when doing so as this avoids any promotional fees that might have been applied since Ebay cannot seem to fix the issue, they certainly do not deserve my advertising dollars on the items affected.

All Ebay can tell me is they are working on it and no one seems to really be elevating the issue that is affecting my revenue, likely your revenue and of course the mother-ship.

Anyone else having this issue?  Work-around ideas welcome!  Happy New Year Sellers!  Wishing you all much success in 2024! 

[gurlcat]

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@pjcdn2005 wrote:

What a confusing issue. 

So are you saying that the sellers who have unchecked that a prepayment method is required for an offer are not seeing this happen?

Is this only happening when there is a counteroffer?

I realize this is probably explained above but I'm having a hard wrapping my brain around it.

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Ha, SAME HERE.  And I'm also wondering 'how do seller-initiated offers work now?' since this thing seems to turn buyer-initiated ones into seller-initiated ones .... or ... something.  

Also what happens if a seller has a Best Offer auto-ACCEPT amount set for the item and a buyer makes an offer of at least that amount .... does the seller even see that it happened??  

And then there's the fact that it's obviously only partially rolled out, and probably glitching too (cuz it wouldn't be eBay if it wasn't).  

And I'm honestly not even interested in TRYING to understand it yet, just waiting for it to all settle out.  

[gurlcat]

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@danra_1073 wrote:

I called about 2 weeks ago as it was affecting a rather large model train transaction (several thousand dollars worth) and the agent created a help/IT ticket.  I think the problem was just surfacing at that time.  Thank you for the info on the Chat bot.  I have never used it.  I prefer talking to a real person anytime I call ebay.  For what I pay in annual fees to these people, they owe me a real person to talk to each time I call!  

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It's chat BOX, not 'bot.' 
Well okay at first all the replies come from a bot, but if you type "chat with an agent" then a real person WILL get on and chat with you.  It's even better than a phone conversation for a couple reasons: 1. No misunderstanding each other if you have very different accents. 2. When you're done you can request a transcript or just take screenshots of the conversation.  That way you have a word-for-word documentation you can reference if you forget exactly what they said, and PROOF if you need it to back up what they said would happen, what they instructed you to do, etc.  

[gurlcat]

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@robbie31415 wrote I like this change, maybe the implementation needs some work but overall a good idea.

Just because you are willing to accept a lower price shouldn't remove the item from being live.

Only thing that should change status of item to 'sold' is payment.

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The thing about offers I have ALWAYS had beef with is how a buyer can use them to not only get a better deal but then also hold the item HOSTAGE where nobody else can get it or even see it, with no deposit or even a polite message saying when they'll pay.  That's the "thanks" you get for agreeing to a deal?  -No, most buyers don't do that, but when they do it makes me sick and they often end up back-end problem buyers too (complain about shipping time, complain about the item, etc.).  

For the life of me, I couldn't understand why eBay couldn't just treat an accepted offer like an item in the buyer's CART.  Like at the offer price ... but not SOLD until they pay!  That way they could just not pay if they change their mind, not get a buyer strike, but not keep the item invisible for 4 days either!  

Unfortunately ..... the ways eBay is attempting to solve the problem is just creating new ones.  Hopefully when it's all ironed out it will be the fair deal you and I both want.  

[janet9988]

I wonder what happens if the seller decides to end the listing at this point. Do they earn defect?

[gurlcat]

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@janet9988 wrote:

I wonder what happens if the seller decides to end the listing at this point. Do they earn defect?

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No a seller can end any item listing that hasn't been paid for yet.  BIN, auction (even with bids), offer-accepted, doesn't matter.  It's still YOUR item until someone has paid for it. 

[gurlcat]

Next they'll turn (unpaid) closed auctions into BIN listings with the price of the winning bid.  Actually I would kinda love that.  Or better yet, the winning bid plus like 10% or something.
-But they way they'd do it, they wouldn't notify the auction winner.   
And they wouldn't notify sellers. 
And it would start like this next Wednesday, before these 'offer' things are even halfway sorted out. 🤣

[fern*wood]

I'm curious about what happened to the ebay reps that would help answer questions and clear up confusion on the boards.   I haven't seen one since before Christmas.   Were they decommissioned?   I don't trust the phone in reps. 

[ittybitnot]

And I'm also wondering 'how do seller-initiated offers work now?

@gurlcat 

I got some  yesterday,  three from the same seller.  Generally, when shopping I put items on my watch list to study more closely later.   There is was no "accept" button for the buyer, only checkout or decline.     There was no option for making a counter offer (which may be a seller setting). With no accept button, there is no way for the products to 'go into a cart and request total'.  They would have to be paid separately, but my payment sources were not limited like they are when a buyer is forced to put up a payment source in order make an offer or bid.  The particular seller has rather high shipping $10.65 each for a jewelry piece, so had I paid for all three pieces of jewelry shipping would have been   $31.95. 

Only one of the three had a 'decent' offer anyway so I purchased that one, where had I been able to combine I would have bought all of them.  Seller missed out on a couple of hundred dollars. 

[gurlcat]

So now I'm wondering if that's the case for ALL seller-initiated offers now.  I send them pretty regularly, and I do seem to be having fewer takers as of late.  And that's not something that has a seller preference option, unlike the buyer-initiated and auction payments.  So I just wonder if it's another roll-out-in-batches thing, or all sellers overnight, sometime a while back. 

I sell mostly jewelry too (vintage), but I've had only occasional multi-listing buyers for some reason, probably mostly because I just never have a ton listed at once (I think about 45 listings right now, and 10-15% of those are other categories).  So the auto-pay drama hasn't worried me too much on that front, although I do have it switched 'off' for those 2 formats where it's optional, because I know the payment forms accepted are very limited and I know some people are just offended by change, period.  

But let me ask you this -would you not trust a seller to combine a multi-item purchase and refund you the overage amount, if they agreed to ahead of time?  That's what I've done for lots of buyers whenever the situation didn't allow me to invoice them, and I do it as soon as I hear the notification that they paid.  If you had written to that ^ seller before accepting any of her offers, I bet she would have agreed to do the combining "manually" like that.   You wouldn't risk anything by asking. 

[gurlcat]

Usually a 'blue' won't comment in a thread unless someone requests one of them by name.  -Have you been seeing threads where people tried to do that but they never replied?  

[ittybitnot]

-would you not trust a seller to combine a multi-item purchase and refund you the overage amount, if they agreed to ahead of time? 

@gurlcat 

I suppose my answer would be "maybe".   The particular seller mentioned above, I would not due to past experiences with that member.  They do often have quality products, have 'learned' to send a combined  invoice, but do not discount the shipping.  Since they are rather "new" I don't really know if they are clueless or just playing 'dumb'.  

The screen I was presented with NO "accept" feature for the seller generated offer, looks like the same one a buyer gets when the buyer generate an offer (and the seller accepts) that morphs into a YOU SENT AN OFFER, and the buyer receives instead of "your offer was accepted", they get YOU HAVE AN OFFER.  No 'accept' feature, no invoicing, no combining items.  The buttons are 'decline' or 'check out' as well.  Though the product will remain for sale until "somebody" buys it,  nobody is required to buy it at all, so it doesn't do much for the non-paying buyer issue for those who make offers to the seller.  Now they can do it all they like and don't have to pay.  (Next time I will post a screen shot of a seller generated offer when I get one). 

Keep in mind this is the only seller generated offers  I have seen so far (sent to me) since the new "enhancement, test, intended change, improvement that looks like a glitch"  (LOL, got to find a shorter name for this)  has been discussed here.  I do not make offers on those who retain the buyer requirement to require a payment source upfront.  

With this new feature, retaining the preference no longer insures a seller will be paid, no more auto-billing for accepted offers, and buyers who make such offers are no longer required to pay at all.  Requiring a buyer to put up a payment source in order to make an offer is still effective in discouraging PAYING buyers who do not wish to comply. 

I just put the stuff on my watchlist and wait for the offers to "roll in"....many are for way less than my offer would have been had I not used my back button when the 'auto-pay" screen was presented, but since they all have to be paid in full regardless it has diminished my enthusiasm for accepting multiple offers from the same seller  as well.  

[gurlcat]

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@ittybitnot wrote:

The screen I was presented with NO "accept" feature for the seller generated offer, looks like the same one a buyer gets when the buyer generate an offer (and the seller accepts) that morphs into a YOU SENT AN OFFER, and the buyer receives instead of "your offer was accepted", they get YOU HAVE AN OFFER.  No 'accept' feature, no invoicing, no combining items.  The buttons are 'decline' or 'check out' as well.  Though the product will remain for sale until "somebody" buys it,  nobody is required to buy it at all, so it doesn't do much for the non-paying buyer issue for those who make offers to the seller. 

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Actually it does wonders for the non-paying buyer issue.  Nobody was required to buy the item when there was 4 days to pay, and nobody COULD buy it during that time while the so-called buyer was m.i.a.  Now it's the same as far as nobody being required to pay, but anybody could pay, and they might just pay the full asking price, lol.  I had that happen just a couple nights ago -I had sent out $165 offers for a jewelry lot (to about 6 watchers I believe).  Then maybe 12 hours later, someone just bought it at the $190 BIN price without making or receiving an offer.   Had one of those watchers ACCEPTED that offer, I'd get less money and may have to wait longer to get paid for it.  

I think this is going to be good for everyone once they incorporate more payment forms.  The combined shipping thing -maybe they'll figure out a way to make it work, or buyers and sellers will just have to work together to do that.  

[fern*wood]

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@gurlcat wrote:

Usually a 'blue' won't comment in a thread unless someone requests one of them by name.  -Have you been seeing threads where people tried to do that but they never replied?  

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Yes, many. 

[gurlcat]

Oh, WEIRD.  Have there been discussions about it among members, like this is an ongoing observation?  

Let's check it now.  (bearing in mind it is Sunday).  

Hey Devon@ebay Elizabetih@ebay (I'm drawing a blank and can't remember any more names right now lol) - Are yall still here?  If so, sorry for the summons; we're just wondering if ebay employee help is still available in the Community. 

[toomuchstuffagain35]

I've noticed a lot less interaction from the blues, starting with when Trinton left  (I may not have always agreed with what he had to say but at least he answered). It seems to have diminished even more since Tyler went.