Warning - Buy it Now listings not running for a full month

[ett1954]

Just listed a Buy it Now and it is showing ending on 3rd March. 

I had around 100 listings auto-renew today half are finishing on the 3rd March whilst the remainder are finishing on the 4th March.  These were sequential listings in order that buyers can easily find what they want; now they are spread over two days.

Marco@ebay can you ask your CEO to use some of his "magical innovations" to put them back into sequence please.  It also would help if he could get the children, sorry programmers, to stop playing on a live site.

[ett1954]

@rainbowtrax   Two very well presented posts.  I certainly admire your patience and perseverance in trying to get what is, in effect, a simple understanding across.

A word of caution for anyone running auctions; if you are currently using the auctions in your schedule list to cater for the time change next week - that is setting a time earlier an hour to finish at a specific time you require; double check your scheduled time in the schedule list.  I use the schedule list to store listings prior to setting a specific time nearer the planned listing date.

Yesterday I was using the reschedule function on the drop down tab with no problem - I set for auctions to start an hour earlier and the listing is showing that in the schedule list.  Tonight I set two auctions on a ten-day auction to start tonight to finish a week on Monday, however I used the revise item function as I had to change the postage prices to cope with the Royal Mail changes on 2nd April.  When I checked the scheduler afterwards it had automatically brought them forward an hour - I had to reset them with the reschedule tab.

[bojangled]

Given that Marco is away, is it worth tagging  dave@ebay  ?

Really would like a solution to this, I don't want to spend next weekend taking listings off when it should be a prime selling period. 

I'm close to hitting my 1500 threshold. If March listings aren't adjusted I'll be £20+ down, doesn't sound like much does it, but the work involved and possible unlisted stock is more costly.

Jo

(Suffering from the now well known 'eBay anxiety'.)

[rainbowtrax]

Hi anita@ebay , regarding the issue raised by @bravergrace on the weekly chat, this thread is already in existence. Every BIN listing started during March by all sellers is affected, as shown in all the screenshots above. Please can we have some help here as this is going to cost us around £100 over two accounts on 31st March in listing fees that will be applied to hundreds of listings which are going to renew a day earlier than they should. 

Please take some time to go through all the comments as it's been like banging our heads against a brick wall. Please, please, please, can ebay deal with this. I don't want to have half our inventory not listed on Easter Sunday but, as things stand, ending the listings before they renew is the only way to avoid the overcharge.

[bojangled]

Bumpity Bump anita@ebay dave@ebay ? Any news on this glitch please.

Jo

[rainbowtrax]

dave@ebay anita@ebay please can one of you at least respond before we go off into the Easter break during which all of the fee overcharges are going to hit sellers' accounts.

[bojangled]

I'm really disappointed at the complete lack of communication over this issue. 

Called CS last weekend, advised I'd get a callback, nothing.

Been brought up in weekly chats and other threads, and no information or assistance forthcoming. 

It's now a case of wait and see/preventative measures on what should be a busy weekend for sellers.

Jo

[ett1954]

I have deliberately held back from responding further on this thread recently as I suspected this would be the outcome.  The same happened with the issue in the US and Canada however the implications to their sellers were not as significant as they are the UK; they simply lost a day in the middle of the month which will not impact their renewal fees.

As this foul up occurred on the 1st March in the UK, with renewals scheduled for 31st March many sellers, especially those not reading these boards, will find an unpleasant shock during Sunday as listings generated on 1st March auto-renew resulting in a second lot of fees for those listings on their March statement.  This will be particularly impacting on those sellers running at the maximum of their shop allowance and had new listings created on March 1st; as @rainbowtrax previously pointed out.

It appears that the eBay CS agents on these boards have 'run for the hills' in the belief that the problem will rectify itself (which it probably will) after this public holiday when we will have moved into April.  Someone, however, will have to clear up the mess of those sellers who have had their accounts double-dipped during March - that is those who actually realise.  Those who don't - well that's another nice little earner for eBay.

eBay purports to be a world-leading tech company yet they cannot cope with a leap year; something which every other platform and company I have dealt with accomplishes with ease.  This issue was first raised in the US on February 10th, just short of 7 weeks ago, yet the issue still persists ........... this is in itself an indictment of the competency of the eBay tech department.

The total silence in the last few weeks and lack of any update only strengthens the feelings of many sellers that eBay holds their fee-paying customers in utter contempt.

Good luck to those of you who are impacted by this; I am sure you will have your extra fees 'credited' after the hassle you will have to go through to get them.  I look forward, not, to discussing this again in four years time.

[wastingtime101]

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@ett1954 wrote:

I have deliberately held back from responding further on this thread recently as I suspected this would be the outcome.  The same happened with the issue in the US and Canada however the implications to their sellers were not as significant as they are the UK; they simply lost a day in the middle of the month which will not impact their renewal fees.

---

Not quite @ett1954 . In the US all listings created between Feb 10 - March 9 lost a day on renewal. That means all listings we created March 1 will renew a day early on March 31. Sellers at the max of their monthly free listings will see extra insertion fees because of this error.

eBay gave us an update that they fixed the programming go-forward, but they did not address the fee issue which I take to mean sellers will have to pay those extra insertion fees in the US.

[ett1954]

@wastingtime101   Of course you are quite correct - I don't know why that didn't occur to me.

Not good news if US sellers have to foot the bill for inept programming.  I don't know how that would pan out in the UK as it could be construed as a fee increase to the existing fee structure.  By law you have to give at least 30 days written notification of a fee increase in the UK - no such notification has been given.  I am not conversant with consumer contract law but I am sure someone with this knowledge will be along to confirm or not.

Thanks for your correction.

[rainbowtrax]

Well, I'm certainly not taking the chance of getting charged those extra fees. I have no trust whatsoever in ebay refunding them once they've overcharged us so it'll be a case of spending Saturday night ending hundreds of listings before ebay get the chance to overcharge us. That'll be around half our listings on one account but I'd rather have zero sales on Sunday than give ebay a penny more than they're due. It's a no-win situation though. Either way, we're worse off. I'd just rather not make ebay better off in the process.

I have heard from Dave that this issue is in the queue to be reviewed but Marco has raised it before and got nowhere so I'm not that hopeful. In any case, it's too late now for any remedial action on ebay's part. Anything they do now is too little too late. I'm disgusted (but not at all surprised) that ebay have had all month to admit their mistake and put this right but they've done nothing but deny it even when they've had it explained with examples multiple times. I don't honestly think they can be quite so stupid as to still not understand so that just leaves the probability that they're hoping that if they play dumb for long enough then we'll all give up and go away, leaving them to gather in the extra fees. It's never nice to know that you're being taken for a mug.

[ett1954]

Look on the bright side; those extra fees will help bolster the financial results for the 1st quarter trading of 2024.  This will help keep the shareholders sweet for another quarter by helping support eBay's share buyback scheme.  This will in turn keep the CEO and Board in 'gravy' for a little longer.