Unable to place bids without phone verification

[elibechts-0]

I've tried to place bids on two items today, but every time I click "Submit Offer," it prompts me for phone verification. I must say, it's quite annoying — is this a new requirement? I've never encountered it before

Thanks in advance for any help

[kat@ebay]

Hi @elibechts-0 ,

Thank you for your post.

Phone verification has been introduced to the bidding process.  It's to help enhance the overall experience for buyers and sellers by reducing sniping, shill bidding and unpaid item situations.

Thank you,

Kat

[3942rick2005]

"It's to help enhance the overall experience for buyers and sellers by reducing sniping, shill bidding and unpaid item situations."

Oh dear! This is not going to go down very well. Losing sellers and buyers due to simpleton delivery and al capone's buyer protection fee already and now you are stopping the few bidders left from bidding. Who on earth dreams these ideas up?

[sweetcharity.2013]

Hello Kat,

This happened to me yesterday evening.

I was going to make a last second bid - in person - no snipe set up, I'd already bid earlier in the week. So are ebay now saying that a person cannot bid, in person, during the last seconds of an auction? Surely the point of an auction is to allow bids until the end time???

It didn't enhance my ebay experience & as a buyer I was not made aware of this - no message from ebay, where is this info hidden?

[kat@ebay]

Hi @sweetcharity.2013 ,

It still allows bids. If you get the prompt to verify by phone you will need to complete that process to continue with the bid.

Thank you,

Kat

[davrman]

Hi, Kat. 

Surely this won't be required for all bids? I can't imagine eBay making millions of phone calls to support this change. How will we know which auctions will require phone verification? Once a bid has been placed, will verification be required to place a higher one?

Thanks. 

[sweetcharity.2013]

Thanks Kat.

Unfortunately if you've seen something & decided to bid in the dying seconds, waiting for a phone call isn't an option. Seller loses out, potential buyer loses out, ebay loses out on fees, if not on loss of buyers who don't want/need (in my case) to be 'approved' to be able to buy as well as paying to buy (BPF).

It's another great way to annoy buyers, but hey, that's the ebay way! 🙄

[sweetcharity.2013]

I had placed a bid earlier in the week & when I decided to up it in the last seconds, I was unable to unless ebay rang me.

If it's for every bid, it'll be a nightmare.

[moonlight-rhapsody]

kat@ebay

"If you get the prompt to verify by phone you will need to complete that process to continue with the bid"

Could you say whether it's a random selection as to who will be asked to verify, or is it a particular type of bid/bidder?

Also, what does the process involve, ie what does ebay want to know before enabling the bid to continue?

Thank you.

[department28]

'Unfortunately if you've seen something & decided to bid in the dying seconds, waiting for a phone call isn't an option.'

This is a terrible idea! Many people like to place their bids in the last few seconds - there's no point bidding earlier, and alerting other bidders. If you bid too soon, you're more likely to get outbid by someone who may well increase their bid, if they see they have a rival...

Even if you use a mobile, which not everyone does, who's going to want to fumble around verifying themselves when they want to be concentrating on the bidding?! 

All this verifying and 'let's check it's you' is one of the most irritating things about doing anything online these days. It's all getting to be more trouble than it's worth.

[cyclingjason090]

And how exactly does all that take place with 5 seconds left to go on the auction? Does the bid still count and verification takes place after or is the bid ignored even though it's been placed in time?

[department28]

I would imagine the bid would not count unless the verification had been completed before the end of the auction.

I'm sure many an auction will be long over, by the time it would take some of us to get verified, what with all the 'oops, that didn't work, please try again' stuff that goes on... 

[cyclingjason090]

Maybe this is where the extra time being added to auctions comes in,  the end time is extended by 3 weeks for ebay to actually contact you 

[3942rick2005]

..............

[sweetcharity.2013]

Just did a little trial & tried to bid for something, I'm still getting a pop up box asking me to verify my phone number. I am unable to bid until verified on auction items it seems, funnily the phone number hasn't changed in all the time I've been on ebay & they've contacted me on it a few times....

The question is why would ebay need my phone number for me to place a bid? Are they going to call me & congratulate / commiserate with me come the end of the auction?

I'm having trouble seeing how it enhances my experience & more worryingly, how ebay thinks it will prevent unpaid item disputes.

Guess I will be buying even less here from now on.

[valueaddedresource]

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kat@ebay wrote:

Hi @sweetcharity.2013 ,

It still allows bids. If you get the prompt to verify by phone you will need to complete that process to continue with the bid.

Thank you,

Kat

---

kat@ebay  just for clarity - is the purpose here to verify the user (meaning it might be a one time inconvenience of confirming the phone number but once it is verified there will be no more disruptions) or is the purpose to verify the specific bid being placed?

If it's the latter, does that mean a user who has already verified all of their information may be required to go through this process on future bids/auctions and if so, is there a specific criteria for when it will be required?

[elibechts-0]

"Phone verification has been introduced to the bidding process.  It's to help enhance the overall experience for buyers and sellers by reducing sniping, shill bidding and unpaid item situations"

Thanks for the reply. I have to say this hasn’t “enhanced my experience” — it’s just added to the frustration. I’m struggling to see the logic: sniping is explicitly allowed according to your  website, shill bidding is already banned and supposedly managed by internal systems and phone verification mid-bid does nothing to guarantee payment. If someone doesn’t intend to pay, a code text isn’t going to change that.

Honestly, this feels like just another irritating feature — right up there with the  changes to the offer process and the buyer fees. None of these moves seem to improve the user experience, just complicate it

[fuzzywave]

Super annoying. 
No privacy, or no bids. 

I'm guessing they didn't consult a psychologist before doing this.
Infuriating your customers for the sake of having all their data, probably isn't the smartest way to make them compliant.

All these companies that decided for us, that phones would become a security device, turned a fun social tool into a security risk, a target for fraudsters.

Resistance is not futile 🙂

[fuzzywave]

Ps: I would have thought that reducing sniping would actually make shill bidding easier.
Perhaps Ebay would be cool with that?

I spend too much money on Ebay, I guess Ebay agrees.