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

[sweetcharity.2013]

Update - I've taken the plunge & got verified 😙 It takes longer than 10 seconds by the time you've listened to the faff & entered the code. It then gave me the option to bid as normal so I could theoretically bid in the last few seconds if I'd arranged verification earlier. Then I tried to increase my bid & that appeared 'as normal' although it looked like a slightly updated version (possibly?) & I wasn't asked to re-verify.

There was no asking me to authorise a payment as with BIN offers, so I'm waiting to see what transpires in a couple of hours if I'm not outbid!

[sweetcharity.2013]

How does this prevent unpaid items? Why don't you just tweak the software to make it same as BIN so that when an auction is one, payment is automatically taken?

Urgh! Please don't ask ebay to take auto payment, their postage charges are too high as it is & I'd hate to lose some chance of combining shipping.

[department28]

I wonder if this was just a 'one-off' verification, or if you will be asked to do it again when bidding on another item?

[plpmr]

"Why would an auction site want to reduce sniping?"

The only possible outcome would be for sellers to get a lower price - where's the logic in that?

[sweetcharity.2013]

Tested started to place a bid on something else & there was no further request to verify - today at least...

[sweetcharity.2013]

Ok, so I was the successful bidder & the payment process was as per normal, item in basket awaiting payment. I presume I could still not have paid, so telephone verification has NO bearing on that as far as I can see this time.

[sweetcharity.2013]

‎15-07-2025 3:17 PM

Tested started to place a bid on something else & there was no further request to verify - today at least...

Disappointing update - Tonight I tried to bid on something & YET AGAIN was ASKED TO VERIFY my phone number. TBH along with everything else this has gotten beyond a joke!!!

As an added extra, PayPal has a Log in problem, nothing to do with ebay - except if you want to pay for something here. AND the page for sending an offer has problems eg. It's either 'temporarily down or moved to another web address'.... 

No wonder sales are reported to be down 🤔

[department28]

Oh dear. Were you able to verify yourself in time to bid, or did you lose out?

As we do not seem to have been given any warning about this, I wonder how many people have been taken completely unawares, and found themselves in this frustrating situation, mid-bid?

Not only will the bidder have had the disappointment of losing their chance of winning the item, the seller may well have lost out on a much higher bid. The seller won't be aware that a potential higher bidder was thwarted from placing their bid, because of this verifying thing - but they would certainly be annoyed if they knew!

I really hope eBay change their mind about this!

[notstopbuying]

I think it is to do with eBays A.I ,or better known as Artificial Idiot.

[edwardian-dreams]

🤣——————————-

[sweetcharity.2013]

Oh dear. Were you able to verify yourself in time to bid, or did you lose out?

It wasn't a last minute bid, auction ongoing, but I am miffed that as a mature adult with a clean record on ebay that I'm forced to be 'approved' to buy something. I just didn't bid in the end & that's the end of it. Another ebay own goal as far as I'm concerned as I'll buy even less here.

[kat@ebay]

Hi All,

Just to clarify on some of the questions being asked. When asked to verify by phone it will give the option of sms if you have a mobile number on your account and call/sms for a landline. When you complete the verification once you won't need to do it again for the same auction. The bid goes ahead as normal. However you may be prompted to verify on future auctions. We are unable to share any specific criteria details due to security reasons that could allow circumvention.
We appreciate the points raised on this process and will share the feedback with the relevant team.

Thank you,

Kat

[department28]

'When you complete the verification once you won't need to do it again for the same auction.' 

I'm afraid this is not much comfort to those who will now be unable to place a bid in the last few seconds of an auction, unless they have already placed an earlier bid, to ensure they can verify themselves in time...

This is going to be very off-putting to many bidders.

[plpmr]

If the earlier bid was placed without verification it does not guarantee that the last seconds bid will go through without verification.

[department28]

Yes - it could be a very hit & miss business. As you pointed out, just because you weren't asked before an earlier bid, doesn't mean you won't be interrupted before a later bid.

And even if they say you aren't going to be asked twice for the same auction, does that mean that if you placed a bid a few days in advance, you definitely wouldn't be asked again, if you decide to bid again at the end?

[godshat]

Does this mean you have to verify on Every single Bid, and every time you start a new offer?

[godshat]

thanks for the information, I think this is really drastic, and isn't going really helping anyone, it cut down some snipping but if this continues, I might as well just pack it all in and go to the shops instead

[plpmr]

cutting down or stopping sniping will mean a seller get a lower price.

Absolutely no logic.

[kimmyikeda]

This has prevented the last three bids I have tried to make. The first time it happened I thought it must be an error as I thought surely Ebay can't be expecting someone to go through a verification process to make a bid in the last 20 seconds of an auction - that would be stupid!

To my surprise the same thing then happened on the next auction too. My confusion and annoyance led me to find this page. Even with the explanation given here by the Community Team representative, I cannot understand the logic behind this move. Unless this is only affecting a few bidders, sellers are going to be heavily impacted by this, as many people who would have made legitimate bids will now not do so. 

My guess is that this might be happening to me because I use a browser than uses uBlock Origin, NoScript, and other add ons to protect my privacy.  I could try turning them off or using a different browser but instead I have decided that I am not going to bow to this idiocy and so will be making no more bids on items where I am asked for verification. If that turns out to be all auctions then so be it.

[majoliebylizzie]

Sure. Verification wwould be much more beneficial.