Big Ebay Fail last night

[Runscott]

If you listed items that ended between 7:00-7:30 Pacific last night, you might want to read this.

I had a $2,400 snipe in on an item that ended last night at 7:30PM Pacific. A little after 7:00 I noticed that I could no longer get to the item to view it - I was in the middle of listing items for sale, and that feature also stopped working (couldn't use the 'selling' link).

I put in snipes just in case I forget about an important auction, or I'm away from the computer, so I started thinking that it was a good thing that I had the snipe in. When I clicked on the auction link from the 'item about to end' ebay email, I got an 'Invalid Item' message. I tried to click auction links for some of the items I had listed earlier that evening, and same thing: 'invalid item'. This continued until shortly after the auction ended, at which time I found that a bid put in prior to the ebay problems won at $1,225 - half of my snipe!

This morning I got an auction sniper report that my snipe had failed because it was an 'invalid item'. I clicked the link and it worked fine. I'm not surprised, as the item had a value of around $2,500-3,000 and I wasn't expecting my $2,400 snipe to win - the only way it went for such a low price was because no one could either bid or snipe. I let the seller know that he got screwed and explained what happened from my end.

Does he have any remedies?

[Leon]

Originally Posted by Runscott

If you listed items that ended between 7:00-7:30 Pacific last night, you might want to read this.

I had a $2,400 snipe in on an item that ended last night at 7:30PM Pacific. A little after 7:00 I noticed that I could no longer get to the item to view it - I was in the middle of listing items for sale, and that feature also stopped working (couldn't use the 'selling' link).

I put in snipes just in case I forget about an important auction, or I'm away from the computer, so I started thinking that it was a good thing that I had the snipe in. When I clicked on the auction link from the 'item about to end' ebay email, I got an 'Invalid Item' message. I tried to click auction links for some of the items I had listed earlier that evening, and same thing: 'invalid item'. This continued until shortly after the auction ended, at which time I found that a bid put in prior to the ebay problems won at $1,225 - half of my snipe!

This morning I got an auction sniper report that my snipe had failed because it was an 'invalid item'. I clicked the link and it worked fine. I'm not surprised, as the item had a value of around $2,500-3,000 and I wasn't expecting my $2,400 snipe to win - the only way it went for such a low price was because no one could either bid or snipe. I let the seller know that he got screwed and explained what happened from my end.

Does he have any remedies?

It might be against their rules but if it were absolutely an outage I would seriously consider voiding the sale. An internet malfunction that greatly impairs or disables the site should be just cause.

[bn2cardz]

The fault went through paypal as well. So any site that functioned off the paypal store was down as well. It was a huge issue last night with EBAY and PAYPAL being the biggest ones that hit our hobby.

[buymycards]

I had the same problem last night. Everything was working fine and then every link stopped working.

[bobbyw8469]

Does he have any remedies?

In a nutshell, NO. This is not the first time this has happened. I gave away a valuable program around 6-8 months ago when almost the exact same thing happened. I sent it off, knowing it was a steal. Also sold a 1954 Bowman Ted Williams card around a year ago for a steal. No one could bid. The winning bidder promptly paid, and flipped it for $500 more in only a week. It's just the nature of the beast. Ebay expects sellers to suck it up and take it on the chin. It's the cost of doing business.....

[Runscott]

Some sellers cannot afford such hits. I contacted this particular seller and he thought it was because the high bidder was a zero-feedback bidder. I gave him the details of last night's system-wide event and he will not be selling at the half-price bid. It was a non-baseball rare item that several collectors had snipes ready for. Very doubtful I would have gotten it even at $2,400. This got me to wondering, though - if I had put in a bid prior to the outage and won the item for a song, would I have been pissed when the seller refused to sell? Knowing the problems ebay was having, I like to think I wouldn't have

[Darner]

I was trying to bid on a ticket stub that ended a couple of minutes after 10 PM Eastern. The best I could get was getting my watch list to load on my computer. Couldn't even log in through mobile. It wasn't a rare or valuable item but frustrating nonetheless.

[Stonepony]

Originally Posted by bobbyw8469

In a nutshell, NO. This is not the first time this has happened. I gave away a valuable program around 6-8 months ago when almost the exact same thing happened. I sent it off, knowing it was a steal. Also sold a 1954 Bowman Ted Williams card around a year ago for a steal. No one could bid. The winning bidder promptly paid, and flipped it for $500 more in only a week. It's just the nature of the beast. Ebay expects sellers to suck it up and take it on the chin. It's the cost of doing business.....

I may be wrong , but wasn't your situation due to sniping services not being able to cast bids? This situation is different in that you couldn't bid thru EBay itself. That would be a hard pill to swallow as a seller being that the auction process was completely compromised. I wasn't a buyer or a seller last night, but it's a bad situation for many people.

[jefferyepayne]

Originally Posted by Stonepony

I may be wrong , but wasn't your situation due to sniping services not being able to cast bids? This situation is different in that you couldn't bid thru EBay itself. That would be a hard pill to swallow as a seller being that the auction process was completely compromised. I wasn't a buyer or a seller last night, but it's a bad situation for many people.

I logged into ebay at some point last night and my entire watch list was gone. A few hours later, everything was back. Ebay screwed something up last night and had to recover. Unfortunately it sounds like there was a period where linked to existing items weren't working.

jeff

[bobbyw8469]

Originally Posted by Stonepony

I may be wrong , but wasn't your situation due to sniping services not being able to cast bids? This situation is different in that you couldn't bid thru EBay itself. That would be a hard pill to swallow as a seller being that the auction process was completely compromised. I wasn't a buyer or a seller last night, but it's a bad situation for many people.

Yes....both times was Ebay kicking off the sniping services. However, with the vast majority of people who snipe versus people who place "regular" bids on Ebay, maybe the outcome would have been the same, whether they blocked sniping software or just shut down the whole auction. Either way, it is a horrible situation for Ebay to put sellers through, and they should have some sort of culpability in what transpired.

[Stonepony]

Originally Posted by bobbyw8469

Yes....both times was Ebay kicking off the sniping services. However, with the vast majority of people who snipe versus people who place "regular" bids on Ebay, maybe the outcome would have been the same, whether they blocked sniping software or just shut down the whole auction. Either way, it is a horrible situation for Ebay to put sellers through, and they should have some sort of culpability in what transpired.

Agreed ( but I hope your not holding your breath)

[bobbyw8469]

Originally Posted by Stonepony

Agreed ( but I hope your not holding your breath)

Oh, I'm not...lucky for me, I didn't have any super duper high end/rare stuff ending with the snafu hit. It affected a couple of my items, but they were already at prices I could live with, so even though they didn't get bid up at the end, I'm still cool with it. It teaches me that maybe if I see something I want, I should make a "normal" play for it instead of relying so heavily on a sniping service.

[savedfrommyspokes]

Many sellers who had listings ending during this time frame lost a lot of revenue due to the typical last minute surge in bidding....I had 3 items I was going to "manually" snipe and was not able to and each item finished well below their "normal" value.

For many of these sellers who lost out on the necessary/expected late bidding last evening, they were probably lucky to break even (at best), but more than likely were in the red on their items as those last few bids is where the profit comes from.

[slinger23]

Correct me if I am wrong, but back in the day, if eBay knew there was a glitch occuring on their system, they would extend the auction by 24 hours. I vaguely remember something like that way back then. I am imagining this, or didn't it occur?

[TanksAndSpartans]

Both my WatchList and Purchase history were gone last night and back today - site was also loading very slow, but still searchable. I wasn't bidding or selling and would have forgotten were it not for this thread.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by Stonepony

I may be wrong , but wasn't your situation due to sniping services not being able to cast bids? This situation is different in that you couldn't bid thru EBay itself. That would be a hard pill to swallow as a seller being that the auction process was completely compromised. I wasn't a buyer or a seller last night, but it's a bad situation for many people.

Read my OP. The items were unreachable, either by bidders or the sniping services - they were defined to everyone as 'invalid item'.

[Stonepony]

Originally Posted by Runscott

Read my OP. The items were unreachable, either by bidders or the sniping services - they were defined to everyone as 'invalid item'.

My point was to Bobby , that he lost out when sniping services were disabled. I doubt Ebay raised much of an eyebrow. Last night direct bids thru EBay ( as well as snipes) were not working. You would think Ebay would be culpable when a bidder can't place direct bids using their auction software.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by slinger23

Correct me if I am wrong, but back in the day, if eBay knew there was a glitch occuring on their system, they would extend the auction by 24 hours. I vaguely remember something like that way back then. I am imagining this, or didn't it occur?

Yes, it's been a long time since they did that, probably before they became a shareholder held company, but they did do this once upon a time.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by Stonepony

My point was to Bobby , that he lost out when sniping services were disabled. I doubt Ebay raised much of an eyebrow. Last night direct bids thru EBay ( as well as snipes) were not working. You would think Ebay would be culpable when a bidder can't place direct bids using their auction software.

I thought you were referring to the fact that sniping didn't work during the ebay outage, which means he would have lost out no matter how he tried to bid. Some people here might not have realized that NOTHING worked during the ebay outage. By the way - I have only had one snipe fail ever (prior to last night) and it was because I changed my ebay password and forgot to change it with the sniping service.

Ebay doesn't consider themselves culpable for anything. They have no competition.

[Buythatcard]

I had my items scheduled to list at 10 PM EST. They all failed to list because system wasn't available. Finally, at 11:30, I was able to get them listed.

At the same time, I had several items ending at 10 PM Est which I lost a few dollars because of the glitch. I am sure that all sellers who had listings ending in that time period lost money.

But lower sales, also mean lower fees for eBay. So, they are the biggest losers last night. I would have thought they would extend all closing times by a few hours to help offset their losses. But they didn't. We all lose.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by Buythatcard

But lower sales, also mean lower fees for eBay. So, they are the biggest losers last night. I would have thought they would extend all closing times by a few hours to help offset their losses. But they didn't. We all lose.

If the sellers as a whole lost $1,000,000 ebay lost 100-130K. But they are certainly the "biggest losers" on any night.

[Buythatcard]

Originally Posted by Runscott

If the sellers as a whole lost $1,000,000 ebay lost 100-130K. But they are certainly the "biggest losers" on any night.

+1