Sale Cancelled by eBay Due to a "Systems Issue"

[shiraikimiaki]

This just happened to me on an order I sold a day ago. Luckily I didn't ship it out yet, otherwise it appears eBay went and refunded the buyer on my behalf, even though eBay itself was the one who cancelled the order...

Has anyone else experienced this?

[mam98031]

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@corpblues wrote:

This also happened to me today.   

However, I did not get a message telling me it happened.   The cancellation happned on an item I sold for local pickup.  I only figured it out as the item was not in my pending shipping list, but I had been talking with buyer to coordinate the pickup as he had already paid.   After chatting with ebay support they explained it was cancelled due to a "glitch" or a "technical issue".   They could not provide more details on what the actual issue was.    I am also out final fees but told they will be refunded in 24-72 hours.   I don't undestand why I am out $15 for 24-72 hours for what was an eBay glitch.   

I strive to ship quickly, I frequently pack and ship within minutes of payment so I can keep an eBay top seller rating.  As a result of today, I am relucant to ship quicky as the order might be cancelled and refuned due to an eBay glitch.

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@corpblues 

I'm just looking for a little clarification.  There are two different types of emails from Ebay being discussed on this thread, so it can be a bit confusing.

Would you post the body of the email you got here.  Black out any personal info.  Are you sure Ebay refunded the buyer?  That does NOT always happen.  It depends on what the email they sent you says.

You should not delay your shipping of items.  You need to ship within your stated handling time or you can cause your account other health issues.

[valueaddedresource]

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@12345jamesstamps wrote:

So many things could have happened...dispute of charges of a buyer but not the buyer....after the buyer or said buyer made a purchase...🍷

Cannot mail items to said country or where?

The seller needs to check the buyer ID...feedback and such...is buyer still an eBayer who can buy?

We can only assume since seller never ever got back to any posts here as usual...LOL.

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@12345jamesstamps  again, I'm not sure why you find it so hard to believe this is an actual, specific issue acknowledged and verified by eBay and not any of the other things you've suggested here or simply an assumption.

Users are receiving emails verified to be from eBay literally saying eBay canceled the order due to a "systems issue." That email says eBay has refunded the fees, but when addressing the possibility that an order may have already shipped, it simply says "please get in touch, we're here to help."

Sellers who received this email and who had already shipped the order it references have verified the refund amount was taken from either their available balance or their payment method on file, has not been credited back to them so they are out both the money and the item at this point and despite the cheerful tone of that emails, eBay has not in fact been there to help them (so far) when they've attempted to "get in touch."

The OP is not the only one experiencing or reporting this, so whether or not they ever come back really has no bearing and doesn't change the facts, not assumptions, about what is going on here.

[corpblues]

To be clear, I did not receive an email from eBay.  Thus I do not have text to share.  I had to contact eBay support whom explained what happened.

I was able to relist the item and the buyer was able to buy it again. 

At this point the only remaining issue is the final fees credit is still pending.   

It is concerning that I did not receive a message from eBay informing me of the order cancellation due to system "glitch" or a "technical issue".  I could have easily delivered the item without being aware a refund had been issued.

[broto_64]

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@mam98031 wrote:

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@broto_64 wrote:

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@toomuchstuffagain35 wrote:

Hmm. If payment was received will that sale appear on the seller's 1099K?

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It is my understanding cancelled orders and refunds would be subtracted as expenses but you always need to check your figures and make sure that is correct.

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That wasn't their question @broto_64 .  It was will it appear in the 1099K numbers and the answer is YES.

1099K reports the total money received into your account in a calendar year.  It does NOT take into considerations, refunds, shipping or fees paid to Ebay.

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I wrote the answer in such a way that most readers would have been able to deduce as much, but you'd have to be smarter than a brick in order to do that, you understand? As for the second part, that is pretty much what I said as well, go ahead and disagree with me now.

[mam98031]

"Users are receiving emails verified to be from eBay literally saying eBay canceled the order due to a "systems issue." That email says eBay has refunded the fees..."

In part that is correct, but it also says they refunded the BUYER, which is why this is so unusual.  It says is :  As a result, we have had to cancel your order and issue a refund to the buyer.

That is unusual.  Ebay doesn't normally refund automatically, they leave that to the seller in case they had already shipped and Ebay did not have that info yet.  Ebay even acknowledges that the seller may have shipped the item.  

[mam98031]

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@broto_64 wrote:

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@mam98031 wrote:

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@broto_64 wrote:

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@toomuchstuffagain35 wrote:

Hmm. If payment was received will that sale appear on the seller's 1099K?

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It is my understanding cancelled orders and refunds would be subtracted as expenses but you always need to check your figures and make sure that is correct.

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That wasn't their question @broto_64 .  It was will it appear in the 1099K numbers and the answer is YES.

1099K reports the total money received into your account in a calendar year.  It does NOT take into considerations, refunds, shipping or fees paid to Ebay.

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I wrote the answer in such a way that most readers would have been able to deduce as much, but you'd have to be smarter than a brick in order to do that, you understand? As for the second part, that is pretty much what I said as well, go ahead and disagree with me now.

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Not sure about your need to be insulting and rude.  It is totally unnecessary and says far more about you than me.

If an order is cancelled but there was no payment provided by the buyer, the seller has no need to deduct that from a 1099K numbers.  

[valueaddedresource]

@mam98031 yes, it is unusual because, just like I said in that post....there is a specific "systems issue" technical problem which is obviously not being handled the same as "usual" situations where eBay may inform a seller they have stepped in to cancel an order (like for example if the buyer is NARUed after the sale).

Regardless of what eBay may or may not do in other situations where they may step in to cancel orders, that does not change the fact (as posted by multiple impacted sellers both here, in the UK community, and across social media) that for this specific "systems issue" scenario, eBay has already supplied refunds to the buyers and those refunds are being taken out of the seller's funds, not funded by eBay.

Yes, eBay acknowledged the seller may have already shipped. Again though, that doesn't change the fact that refunded amounts are being taken from sellers and that the only recourse they've been provided is to "get in touch" with no promise that those funds will be credited back to them if the order already shipped.

So far, sellers I've spoken to who have been impacted by this report they have not been able to get help from eBay to sort it out (yet).

Hopefully eBay will do the right thing tomorrow but even if they do, that still leaves sellers who have already had the refund amounts sucked back from their payment method on file or deducted from the pending or available funds holding the bag for several days and bearing the burden of that cash flow float while also being out the item as well if they already shipped.

Either way, everyone commenting here at least needs to be aware that if you received that email and/or the order was canceled with the "other"reason some have noted, it is a specific situation that is demonstrably not being handled the same way other situations where eBay may step in to cancel an order normally are - so whatever rules, policies or procedures might usually apply to other scenarios may not be in play here.

[mam98031]

Thank you.

[turnsby777]

What I find confusing is only 34 replies and 1,100 views?  I've been waiting for this to be on the news. On the 18th ebay says there's a problem with shipping labels, verify address, I did. That's not good enough-2 days later they cancel order.  So how many people have they done this to? Called ebay and she said they have a 'high volume' of calls. She couldn't/wasn't allowed to give any information but did say a couple times 'they are working on it' until I realized what she was saying- it isn't fixed yet! I think her response was we will email you when it's fixed. So why did email say relist if it isn't ok yet? It said relist, which I did- are you going to cancel it again? The 'Orders may contain incorrect shipping address' email said problem started on the 7th, email sent on the 19th, 10 days ago- so how bad is this? What happened? They're cancelling orders that may have already been sent- and that's their best option?  If you didn't use ebay label it could have been sent so they have to reimburse. And charging back seller- what about overdraft fees if seller counted on it? And the possible distrust of buyer thinking: ebay stepped in and cancelled- what is wrong with seller? This is best option? And she didn't say not fixed- more like they haven't found problem, so... were they hacked? Or was it to do with the email the 17th, the day before, 'We’re updating the default shipping rates shown on your listings'.  Did someone crash the system? It did say 'Please note that this change will only apply to sellers receiving this email.' so not everyone got crashed, just the 'lucky' ones. Without any information from ebay the questions just get bigger. This is overseas too- how many sales are there in a day? Did it just affect the people getting the email or everyone? How many have they cancelled? Are they still cancelling? They haven't found the problem? Is it internal- or external? Again, why isn't this on the news? this sounds so big if they have to cancel sales. Ebay you really should give some explanation, some information. If shippers did this we would expect explanations, and I think you would too.

[mam98031]

@turnsby777 

Why would it be on the news?  When an internet site starts experiencing several different issues, is it your expectation that the News outlets should be reporting on that?  What would they report?  That the site is having some issues?  For what purpose would they report this?

"On the 18th ebay says there's a problem with shipping labels, verify address..."  Ebay does not "verify" ship to addresses.  They never have.

You were advised to relist because there wasn't anything wrong with your listing, but with the  buyer that purchased from you.

Because the site is having issues does NOT mean it was "hacked".  Certainly it is possible as all internet sites have that risk 24/7.  But it is unlikely.  It is more likely that the Thursday night site update created multiple issues on the site and they are trying to run them all down and fix them.

If the system were "crashed", we wouldn't be able to access it.  I'm not even sure how one would accomplish a selective crash of any site.

The email you received about the discount on shipping and the Calculated Shipping program is unlikely to be what caused all the issues on the site in the last few days.  Heck that option doesn't even require a change to the Calculated Shipping program.  That option has been there for a long time.  The only thing different is Ebay is auto enrolling sellers into extending the discount to the buyers.  But in that email you can opt out of that happening to your account.

It is merely just another Tool offered to sellers.  We can choose to use it or not.  Our choice.

Remember paragraphs and a space between them makes your post so much easier to read.  It can be hard to read a wall of text.  Not to mention annoying to the eyes.

[jbbowers12012]

Does anyone know if this issue has been resolved???

[mam98031]

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@jbbowers12012 wrote:

Does anyone know if this issue has been resolved???

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Not yet, however I haven't seen any new complaints.  It is likely we will learn more about what happened in the next couple of days, when the work week starts and all the staff is back.

[turnsby777]

Ok, as Steve Martin said, excuuse me. I don't post so I don't know your rules. If it's 'annoying' please do not read.

""On the 18th ebay says there's a problem with shipping labels, verify address..."  Ebay does not "verify" ship to addresses.  They never have."  

- Reply- To make more clear- ebay emailed "On the 18th ebay says there's a problem with shipping labels, verify address..."  They were saying to verify address to make sure it was correct. No mention of 'ebay verifying'. 

ebay*asked me*the seller*to verify* buyers address. Which I did. It was correct.

I posted to give information, and maybe get some. I am not interested in opinions. Or criticisms, that is why I do not post. This situation seems big so I posted. I won't post again, do not need more negativity.

The information that the email 'We’re updating the default shipping rates shown on your listings' is something that has been around is helpful, that cannot be the cause then.

The point is not 'the site is having issues'. It is that ebay is cancelling sales. If you think that is no big deal, you can have your belief.

The other point is they do not know what/where the problem is. When I asked should I relist then, will it be cancelled again? the response was silence.

Why would news report it? Because ebay matters. I'm not special, so if it happened to me it could be happening to countless people. Countless because without information one does not know, hence one posts to give/receive information.

My opinion, I think it's a big deal cancelling sales. But what do I know, I've only been on ebay for 26 years.

[janet9988]

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@corpblues wrote:

To be clear, I did not receive an email from eBay.  Thus I do not have text to share.  I had to contact eBay support whom explained what happened.

I was able to relist the item and the buyer was able to buy it again. 

At this point the only remaining issue is the final fees credit is still pending.   

It is concerning that I did not receive a message from eBay informing me of the order cancellation due to system "glitch" or a "technical issue".  I could have easily delivered the item without being aware a refund had been issued.

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If EBAY did not inform you then I would NOT refund the buyer and relist.

[janet9988]

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@mam98031 wrote:

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@jbbowers12012 wrote:

Does anyone know if this issue has been resolved???

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Not yet, however I haven't seen any new complaints.  It is likely we will learn more about what happened in the next couple of days, when the work week starts and all the staff is back.

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I wonder how ebay will handle this considering sellers refunded... and relisted the unpaid or perhaps paid for item..... or not maybe......or did not?