Contact Seller - NOT POSSIBLE!

[tigreville]

For 5 days now, it has been impossible to contact sellers. This is an important function when buying used mechanical items - there are often questions that need answering before deciding whether to bid, and how much to bid. If I click 'Contact Seller' on the listing, it goes to the usual screen with standard answers on postage etc, with the CONTACT SELLER button at the bottom. If I click on that, a small pop-up appears at the right of the screen with a blank box presumably meant to type your message. But if I put the cursor in it, it remains dead. Nothing I do makes any difference. I've even tried placing a id in case that wakes it up but it doesn't. Am I the only Ebay buyer with this issue?

[john1297576]

Some sellers do not want to be bothered with messages. Perhaps that is what you have come up against.

However if you are using business sellers, there should be contact details at bottom left of every listing.

[tigreville]

Thanks for your quick response. This isn't it, however. The fact is, I can't send my question at all - it isn't that the seller doesn't reply. I have tried sending a message using the 'ask the seller a question' function on several other listings, just to check whether it was something odd about the particular listing I want to message. I have tried other private listings (non-business) and I've tried business listings. I've tried sellers I've bought from several times in the past. The result is the same with all - there is simply no way of sending a message.  Ebay don't seem to be taking this at all seriously - I've spoken on the phone twice about this and both times, the call handler didn't seem to understand how important it can be to be able to ask sellers questions. Both said that other people have reported the same issue and the IT dept would have it sorted soon. This goes back to last Sunday and it still isn't working.

[tressygirl]

I have just been successful in sending a message,  which leads me to ask which device and browser are you using ?

I do not use the app,  but believe there's a new update to install, could this be the issue?  That aside, the app and mobile browser seem to bring about these temporary glitches.

If using,  it may be worth,  if you can,  to switch to a laptop / PC,  and try Chrome it works best with eBay.

The ol' cure of clearing cache and cookies may help,  too.

@tigreville 

[tigreville]

Thanks. I am using my laptop (PC with Windows 7 and Chrome). I've deleted cookies, cache etc - no difference.  Windows 7 has worked fine since it stopped being supported nearly 5 years ago, but could it be this that's causing the issue now? It worked fine until a week ago.

[tobiasd4]

I have tried sending message to a couple sellers from listing and feedback page.

I could type without issue.

Points to an issue with your device rather than ebay.

I use laptop and tablet.  using chrome, Firefox, Windows 7 and 10.

[tigreville]

How strange. It was fine until a week ago and I can't think of anything that's changed on my laptop. I am extremely computer-illiterate I ought to add, so it could be something obvious. Any suggestions for what it could be?  Thanks.

[tigreville]

I now have Ebay sending me messages asking if my question has been resolved: no, it hasn't. I appreciate everyone's attempts to help but nothing has answered my question or provided a solution. I hope Ebay reads this!

I have received a personal message from one member (Steve) who has exactly the same problem, but he was unable to post his reply on here for some reason. And I am unable to reply to his message - I get told by Ebay that I've used all my message capacity - this despite this thread being the first I've ever been involved in, and having never sent or received any personal message before!

What the hell's going on?

[tigreville]

Problem solved, thanks to Steve, who sent me a couple of PMs, first to say he had the same problem and then (this afternoon) to tell me he'd discovered the solution. It turns out Ebay, in its wisdom, has messed around with the 'Contact seller' function. Previously, all you needed to do was click on the large blue oval with Contact Seller in it, then type your message. Now, you have to click that, then when the small screen pops up on the right with the blan area looking as if it's where you might type a message, you have to click the greyed-out Send message button (despite there being no message to send yet). Then, you type your message in the very small space above that.

So, it does work after all but why Ebay have changed something that worked well and was self explanatory to something that needs to be figured out is one question I'd ask. Another is why Ebay's own helpline people didn't know anything about how it works (I spoke to two last week on different days and they couldn't work out what was going on). A third question is why Ebay don't notify members of such changes - it wouldn't be difficult and it would save some people a lot of hassle!