Duplicated listings

[vintagechinashop]

I have just discovered 50 duplicated listings on my account. The offending items were all listed on the same day and time as its duplicated counterpart. Now I'm 100% certain that I did not list all these identical items twice at exactly the same time. I'm therefore concluding that there is a glitch at play here because normally if you try and list an identical item twice you get a warning. 
not only am I annoyed that I've been charged twice for 50 items at 0.6 p a throw but that I may have sold these items twice when I only had one in stock therefore causing me a massive problem in terms of cancelling sales 

I'm going to make sure that I check for duplicates every month but it's very frustrating and time consuming also taking up listings in my shop which I could have used for new items. I also have no idea how long this has been going on as they are all listed till sold or cancelled automatically every month. It's very concerning to me. I wondered if anyone else had experienced this. Its definitely worth checking 

[bravergrace]

Yes, I've had it happen a few times over the last 6 months or so.

It seems to be caused by delays within eBay's system when listing or relisting an item.  eBay identifies the delay, but instead of telling you: "There may be a delay in listing this item", it tells you: "Relisting failed.  Please tick the box to try again, or else relist manually".

The seller  hits the "try again" button, or relists manually.  eBay doesn't identify this as a duplicate because the the delayed item is in some sort of limbo within its system.  So it lists the item.  The delayed item then gets listed - often with the original time (not allowing for the delay), and it doesn't get identified as a duplicate, because the check for duplicates has already been done.

Problems seem to arise:

- where a sale is cancelled (either unpaid or returned), and I tick the "refund and relist" or "relist automatically" box.  Sometimes this works OK, but sometimes it says it has failed, so I relist the item manually.  Then, at some later stage, eBay relists it automatically anyway.

- where one or more items in a bulk listing/relisting get thrown out by the system, with some daft excuse like "This item doesn't have a postage policy" or "No pictures".

It's a nuisance, and yes, I have been caught out by it a few times where both listings have sold.

eBay won't believe you, though, so the only thing is to check your listings for duplicates every month or so.

[vintagechinashop]

Thank you. I thought I wasn't going mad 

it's very annoying and costly too. I'm just glad I noticed it now before I sold something 

I'll definitely be running a check every month