Problem with having accepted a counter offer on my item

[daro2096]

I received a counter offer on my item that I accepted however it is showing under manage offers as pending and it says you made this buyer the winner but it is awaiting payment. It expires in some 19 hours if they don't pay. I have contacted the user but not heard anything.

I thought this was all automated? That if you accepted an offer the item sells and payment is automatically taken from the buyer?

I get the feeling the buyer is not going to pay and is just a time waster. This is so frustrating and annoying.

[chapmania_eb]

I am having this issue. I accepted counter offers this morning on two items, and I want to send an invoice. I have already turned off the auto-payment "feature" because that was preventing me from doing combined postage invoices, but now I have this nonsense stopping me from doing it instead. Does anyone know if there is an option to just go back to the 4 days to pay system we had before? It worked well for me and in my niche I had very few non-payers, but lots of people wanting to buy more than one item and get combined postage.

[tressygirl]

If you have accepted a counter offer,  the item is effectively sold to that buyer for that price.

The usual rules then, no need to send invoices,  of 4 days apply for the buyers to pay you.

If they don't,  you take the usual route of cancelling the order on day 5 citing ...  Buy Has not Paid.

[chapmania_eb]

I'm afraid not. The offers are showing in pending not sold. This means I can't send an invoice, which I want to do to combine the postage costs. 

[sml192]

What @tressygirl has described is the old process.  Under the new procedure being discussed in this thread, which eBay are currently trialling, the items aren't deemed sold, and remain available for others to buy, until the buyer actually pays for them, which is why you are being prevented from sending an invoice. 

The buyer may be able to request a total by going to their basket.  Alternatively, you can offer to do a partial refund following payment.  If the buyer doesn't pay within 24 hours then the offers are automatically cancelled.

This is certainly going to cause a lot of confusion and I don't think there is currently a way of opting out.  It is completely separate to the auto-payment feature. 

[chapmania_eb]

I wish they would just leave things how they are. This has confused me and will probably be confusing the buyer, who I don't seem to have any way of contacting. So I guess I will have to hope they either pay within 24 hours or I will lose a sale. I hope I can find some kind of work around for this at some point, or it's just going to add a completely needless level of complication to things. 

[second-city-bazaar]

I have been having the same issue and it has been specific to accepting counter offers on offers already sent out.  Did you ever find a solution to this issue?  I would say that it is definately an ebay issue and nothing to dowith the buyer.  My way around it has been to contact the buyer and explain the situation and that you are unable to send out an invoice - i then end the listing and relist and ask the buyer to make an offer again and then accept.

I am currently on the phone to ebay to see if they can resolve the glitch as obviously it is costing me money having to relist just to make a sale.

Lee

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[sml192]

I don't think this actually is a glitch.

From what others have said on this thread, it appears to be a new procedure  which eBay are currently trialling whereby the items aren't deemed sold, and remain available for others to buy, until the buyer actually pays for them which is why you are unable to send an invoice. 

The items are placed into the buyer's basket rather than their purchases and are shown to sellers as pending orders.   If the buyer doesn't pay within 24 hours then they are automatically cancelled. 

[second-city-bazaar]

This has been happening to me now since around the beginning of July and I
think that it is a glitch for the following reasons.

1. All my customers are saying the same thing in that after me accepting
their counter offers they are then unable to check out as freight is
unspecified. However I sell furniture and can only specify freight/
collection etc, when I send out an invoice but I am unable to to send out
an invoice because this is not an option hence the sale can not be
completed.

2. I have just found out from a customer that they actually tried to accept
my original offer but again could not check out because of the unspecified
freight. However, I received no notification whatsoever about my sent
offer being accepted.

3. With the counter offers that I have accepted my eBay page says that the
offer was accepted and the payment is pending but there is no way for the
customer to complete the transaction and there is no way for me to send an
invoice for the customer to complete the transaction.

3. Despite accepting the offers and the buyers willingness to complete the
transaction the listing is still remaining live.

4. The glitch seems to be specific to offers sent by sellers and counter
offers received on these offers. My way around this is to end the live
listing, realistically and get the customer to make me an offer for the
original offer amount and then complete a second transaction without any
issues relating to the above.

5, I shouldn't' have to end a listing and relist in order to complete a
transaction - it's bad practice and it's costing me extra money.

This doesn't sound like a change of procedure to me unless eBay has
invented the worst procedure of all time (possible) but I didn't receive
any notification about any changes to the check out system.

[sml192]

You may well be right, but based on what others have reported here it seems to be a bit more than just a simple glitch. 

If it is a new procedure then it definitely needs to be communicated and explained properly to buyers and sellers, and clearly there would need to be an opt-out for sellers such as yourself who have to provide quotations for freight post sale. 

[moviesmoviesmovies]

I've been back and forth with customer service with this for the last few weeks and they seem to be unable to grasp how ridiculous this has made things. I receive numerous offers from buyers who build up larger orders to save on postage. This new offer procedure has broken the whole process on mutiple offers. My buyers are being forced to pay multiple postage costs and I have to refund them back individually. So far they have been mostly understanding but what is going to happen when a buyer is being forced to pay 10 times the amount of postage on 10 items in the hope that I refund them back.  I'm not sure why they think this is in anyway a good idea. 

[chapmania_eb]

Same here. In my niche it is very common to bundle up multiple items and then ask for the postage to be reduced. Ebay have made it harder for me to do that for people. I am not sure why they always feel the need to fix what isn't broken. 

[bob.builder]

I have exactly the same problem. I received an offer on an item which I accepted. It doesn't show in active auctions any more, its not in waiting payment, it doesn't show a sold. The only way I can find it is in offers pending where it states awaiting payment. There is no where I can send an invoice. Its basically fallen off the system. Buyer hasn't paid and I assume they are unaware that there offer has been accepted. They have over 500 feedback so aren't time wasters.

I believe ebay has a major issue when accepting offers.

[bob.builder]

I have exactly the same issue. I accepted an offer last night and the item is now in pending. Not sure if the buyer is even aware that I accepted the offer. Tried to message them via contact buyer, but as soon as I put in the item number it kicks me out of messages.

[sml192]

Out of interest, when you have spoken with eBay customer service have they actually confirmed that this is an intended new procedure rather than just a glitch? 

[moviesmoviesmovies]

Eventually they said it was a new procedure but it took a long way round to get there...

"I have checked the details of account and can see that the offer is accepted from your end successfully but as the buyer had not yet made the payment so the item is not showing in your sold section.

Please allow me to share that this is a new update made by eBay as we have observed that buyers send offers and after the seller had accepted the offer, they do not make the payment. As this inconveniences the sellers and to avoid unpaid item cases so this initiative was made from our end.

So here, the item is active on site and is open for buyers to either purchase or make offer and if the buyer pays in meantime, the item will be sold and if they do not make the payment and a different buyer purchases the item, that sale will be automatically nullified and the new buyer who had paid will be an eligible buyer for the item.

I hope this explains the situation and how to handle it in the future."

There solution to not being able to send invoices was to refund the buyer afterwards. Not really practical on an ongoing basis.

[second-city-bazaar]

I spoke to someone today who basically couldn't confirm or deny that there is a problem.  I doubt whether it is procedural as it is affecting many different sellers in many different ways.  He did say that the had taken many calls recently regarding the same issue and he told me that the official line is that the buyer should check there basket vans pay.  However, I explained to him that my customers could not complete their transactions until I amended the freight...but I could not amend the freight as I was unable to send out an invoice.  He didn't know what to say to this and said he would report it to engineers as a technical issue.  I had just under £1000 in orders yesterday that could not be completed via the normal and expected way.  So much for eBay being a selling platform.

[second-city-bazaar]

Yes I had this issue last night every time I tried to  use the item number to message the potential buyer.  I also had a customer that advised me that they had accepted an offer from me but couldn't check out due to freight issues - I didn't even receive a sold notification from eBay.  I wonder how many other sales I have missed?

[second-city-bazaar]

That explains why the listing remains live until payment has been received but it bdies not explain why bmy customers can not complete the transaction due to freight issues and not does it explain why I can't send out out invoices and amend the freight in order for the my customers to complete the transaction.

As I've said earlier, yesterday I had many orders outstanding and incomplete and could only complete those orders by ending those live listings, relist and then having the customers make the same offer again, thankfully most of my customers have been understanding and have done this.

[bob.builder]

The lady I spoke to at customers services didn't think it was right that an item I had accepted an offer on should still be available on ebay for someone else to buy.  I had in theory entered into a contract when I accepted their offer. She escalated it to the technical team.

[anne.craig]

This is how Vinted works - I suspect eBay are copying them.  However, on Vinted they can buy several items then request a package size for the comined orders to give them a cost before they pay.  The items remain unsold until payment is made.  This only works because they are not required to make instant payment like they are on eBay (unless it's turned off).  However, there you are required to give a postage cost when listing (obviously they don't sell large items where this needs to be confirmed afterwards).  On Vinted, there are only three package size options!  So a max size & weight per parcel I guess.