Since when has eBay allowed sellers to block messages from buyers?

[Mayhem]

Just a quick bit of background. See an auction on eBay that I'm interested in, but not for the price that it is listed at. Auction has run for a few days and currently has no bids. I was going to ask the seller if they'd reduce the starting price. But when I go to use the "ask seller a question" function, no matter what option I choose, I can't get through to the part about asking. I get a "We're sorry but we couldn't find an answer for you. Unfortunately, this seller is unable to respond to your question. We suggest reviewing the item again to see if your answer is in the seller's listing."

I don't recall ever using this seller before so I doubt I'm specifically blocked by them...

[megasdkirby]

Have you tried using the "other" option? That usually works for me.

[Polygon]

Well, it should give you an option that this didn't answer your question then allow you to send them an e-mail. Choosing other also works. I've used both of these methods several times this week and they work.

[Kitsune Sniper]

Just a quick bit of background. See an auction on eBay that I'm interested in, but not for the price that it is listed at. Auction has run for a few days and currently has no bids. I was going to ask the seller if they'd reduce the starting price. But when I go to use the "ask seller a question" function, no matter what option I choose, I can't get through to the part about asking. I get a "We're sorry but we couldn't find an answer for you. Unfortunately, this seller is unable to respond to your question. We suggest reviewing the item again to see if your answer is in the seller's listing."

I don't recall ever using this seller before so I doubt I'm specifically blocked by them...

If they don't ship to your country, then the site blocks you automatically. In my experience, anyway. I've had people try to get around that by using an eBay US account.

[Mayhem]

I've messaged sellers who have only had items shipping to the US before (and when you try to bid, it stops your bid from registering) and I've been able to contact them fine, so I don't think it is that. Unless eBay has changed something recently.

To specify, I select the "ask a question" option at the bottom of the auction listing, select a topic, choose "no, I want to contact the seller" and hit the continue button. That's when I get the message saying I can't contact them. Never seen it before in my twelve years on eBay.


Have you tried using the "other" option? That usually works for me.
Yes, same response as above.

[The 1 2 P]

Just a quick bit of background. See an auction on eBay that I'm interested in, but not for the price that it is listed at. Auction has run for a few days and currently has no bids. I was going to ask the seller if they'd reduce the starting price. But when I go to use the "ask seller a question" function, no matter what option I choose, I can't get through to the part about asking. I get a "We're sorry but we couldn't find an answer for you. Unfortunately, this seller is unable to respond to your question. We suggest reviewing the item again to see if your answer is in the seller's listing."

I don't recall ever using this seller before so I doubt I'm specifically blocked by them...

If you click on any ebay members name you will go to their feedback profile and there will be an option(it might be on the left or right) to "contact member". Click on that and follow the prompts to send your question.

[Mayhem]

Forget to mention, I'd already done that as well, got exactly the same message as before. Frankly I'm at a bit of a loss...

Hang on... if I choose the "this is not about an item" option there, I can get through. Still really odd though.

[The 1 2 P]

Hang on... if I choose the "this is not about an item" option there, I can get through. Still really odd though.

That usually works. I know this because even bidders I have blocked from bidding on my auctions(and there are dozens of them) are still allowed to send me messages. I never figured out how to block them from sending me messages and just assumed it wasn't possible. So that being the case, I knew that you can still pretty much contact anyone on ebay thru the "contact member" link.

[theclaw]

That is unusual. There are sellers who don't mention shipping elsewhere yet will if asked. Never heard of blocking messages.

By the way... Is it just me, or can sellers no longer leave feedback for a non-paying bidder? Wasn't too long ago I could.

[ryborg]

By the way... Is it just me, or can sellers no longer leave feedback for a non-paying bidder? Wasn't too long ago I could.

Why would you want to in the first place? The worst you can do is leave a back-handed positive that can be instantly removed if the buyer asks ebay, or most likely, never read by anyone.

[nebrazca78]

Don't forget how buggy the eBay site is either. For quite a while now I haven't been able to use Firefox to make a bid or hit a BIN. It only works for me if I use Chrome now. Also I can't upload pictures using Firefox anymore. Have to use Chrome for that too.

There are also problems that happen on both browsers. When I change the handling cost on international shipping, the new cost doesn't show up. eBay actually accepts the new cost but the value on the screen doesn't change. Very strange.

Has anyone ever noticed how sometimes when you use the eBay messaging system it automatically takes you to the eBay motors part of the site? For a company who's entire business is simply running a website they are absolutely woeful. I think the problem is that they are trying to add new features to the messaging system and they haven't ironed out the bugs yet. And it usually takes them quite a while to do so, if ever. I have submitted many corrections to their prefilled information and never had any of them fixed. For instance, take a look at Ms. Pac-Man for Super Nintendo. This is what their prefilled info reads under game special features:

Create your own BRATZ look by dressing her; travel around the world; participate in a number of exciting mini-games like figure skating; raise your own virtual pet.

Obviously this text belongs to the game Bratz but they seem to have no interest in changing it. I don't even bother submitting error reports anymore.

Not only that but the dicks at eBay have seemingly started allowing bootlegs to be sold. Every time I see someone selling Dreamcast bootlegs I report it. Lately none of these auctions have been taken down and every one has gone to completion. This really pisses me off when I've had listings taken down for selling things like Fami converters that aren't even illegal.

But of course these are things we must deal with when using a site that gets 1000 times more traffic than any other auction site.

.

[theclaw]

Why would you want to in the first place? The worst you can do is leave a back-handed positive that can be instantly removed if the buyer asks ebay, or most likely, never read by anyone.

Perhaps, it seems for now a workaround is to leave the feedback right before you click 'close case'. Until ebay changes that too.

[Kitsune Sniper]

Don't forget how buggy the eBay site is either. For quite a while now I haven't been able to use Firefox to make a bid or hit a BIN. It only works for me if I use Chrome now. Also I can't upload pictures using Firefox anymore. Have to use Chrome for that too.

There are also problems that happen on both browsers. When I change the handling cost on international shipping, the new cost doesn't show up. eBay actually accepts the new cost but the value on the screen doesn't change. Very strange.

Has anyone ever noticed how sometimes when you use the eBay messaging system it automatically takes you to the eBay motors part of the site?

... WTF? Check your browser. I bitch and moan about eBay being buggy but none of those problems have happened to me.

[nebrazca78]

... WTF? Check your browser. I bitch and moan about eBay being buggy but none of those problems have happened to me.

What am I supposed to check? I haven't changed any settings since it used to work. When I try to put in a bid eBay gives me that "page not accessible at this time" message.

The thing where it randomly takes you to eBay motors has been happening to me forever and with multiple computers, OSes and browsers. Everything still works fine, the eBay logo just changes from normal to the blue eBay motors logo.

[nebrazca78]

While we're bitching about the new messaging system, here's another bug. Now when you send someone a message it has a dropdown selector where you select what item you are messaging about. This is the same place where you can also select "this is not about an item". The problem is that the thumbnails do not always match the items. Some of the auction titles have the wrong picture for an unknown reason.

Also the My eBay screen keeps telling me I have a question to answer. But I have already answered the question. When I click the link it shows the item and it has a red bar that says "unanswered question". When I click respond then it just says "You have no more questions to answer".

[The 1 2 P]

My biggest ebay complaint as of late is that uploading pictures has drasticly changed. It use to take a minute or so but now I usually don't even see the blue "upload" box for standard or basic uploader so I've been forced to link directly to photobucket for my pictures. This wasn't a problem last year(when ebay still had the enhanced uploader) but now it's a big one, as I learned when checking the forums and have noticed many many other people are going thru this as well.

[ryborg]

While we're bitching about the new messaging system, here's another bug. Now when you send someone a message it has a dropdown selector where you select what item you are messaging about. This is the same place where you can also select "this is not about an item". The problem is that the thumbnails do not always match the items. Some of the auction titles have the wrong picture for an unknown reason.

Also the My eBay screen keeps telling me I have a question to answer. But I have already answered the question. When I click the link it shows the item and it has a red bar that says "unanswered question". When I click respond then it just says "You have no more questions to answer".

Damn, you have a lot of issues with ebay. Some of them sound like they're on your end, so try updating your browser. I'm on ebay probably more than anyone else here and I've never heard of anything at all like what you explain, and I use Firefox too.


My biggest ebay complaint as of late is that uploading pictures has drasticly changed.

Ebay's photohosting is 100% garbage. Tiny images and you can't put the photos in the actual item description, where they belong. I've been using Photobucket since '03 and I've found no reason to switch to anything else.

[nebrazca78]

Firefox has auto-update on. I also tried to update manually but it said there were no new updates. Lame.

[layzee]

Not only do I sometimes have problems e-mailing sellers who are foreign (from my perspective), getting the "We're sorry we couldn't find an answer for you. Unfortunately, this seller is not able to respond to your question. We suggest reviewing the item again to see if your answer is in the seller's listing." message; but a foreign buyer also alerted me to the fact that they couldn't e-mail me and I do ship internationally.

One can circumvent it by e-mailing sellers directly as opposed to e-mailing them from the item page, but 1) this is annoying and 2) not everyone knows how to do this or can be bothered doing this, which means a decrease in potential sales in the later above scenario.

Someone needs to figure this shit out.

Regarding the mis-match of item thumbnails under the messaging system, this minor bug is not due to the above user's web browser settings but does, in fact, exist.

Regarding eBay's photo-hosting or to be more precise, the automatic downscaling/downsizing of uploaded photos, this is in fact, pretty damn retarded. It used to be that the free gallery photo was self-hosted (assuming you self-hosted it and gave a photo URL as opposed to uploading the photo itself to eBay), but now all free gallery photos are hosted on eBay. There is actually a legitimate reason for this, but the automatic downgrading of photo resolution and size makes it way too small.

What the hell is eBay doing? It's like they want to fail. The faulty messaging system results in less sales and thus, less FVF for eBay. The low quality eBay-hosted photos may result in less sales and thus, less FVF for eBay. eBay rarely makes changes that are positive for sellers as well as buyers, but now eBay are implementing changes that are negative to even themselves!?

I can't remember the last positive change eBay has implemented. It's just a long line of bad or at best, questionable, changes.

[Mayhem]

Thanks for that Layzee, at least I know I'm not going completely mad ;)

[kupomogli]

Firefox has auto-update on. I also tried to update manually but it said there were no new updates. Lame.

I once had a problem where Firefox was running ridiculously slow on Ebay and only Ebay yet all other browsers worked fine. I later formatted my PC and then Ebay was working fine again with it. Maybe Firefox got a corrupted update or something and it's messing up browsing on Ebay. Try uninstalling and reinstalling Firefox.

[mobiusclimber]

Before uninstalling Firefox, just trying clearing your cookies and cache. Under tools, click Clear Recent History... and select what you want to clear from there. I couldn't access Racketboy or Google for awhile, but after doing that I was able to again. Who knows why?

[nebrazca78]

Regarding the mis-match of item thumbnails under the messaging system, this minor bug is not due to the above user's web browser settings but does, in fact, exist.

Here is a snip from when this happened to me today:

http://home.comcast.net/~mr.moto.x/ebaybug.jpg



What the hell is eBay doing? It's like they want to fail. The faulty messaging system results in less sales and thus, less FVF for eBay. The low quality eBay-hosted photos may result in less sales and thus, less FVF for eBay. eBay rarely makes changes that are positive for sellers as well as buyers, but now eBay are implementing changes that are negative to even themselves!?

I can't remember the last positive change eBay has implemented. It's just a long line of bad or at best, questionable, changes.

It's amazing that they somehow stay in business. I guess that's what being ubiquitous can do for you.

.

[fahlim003]

If you click on any ebay members name you will go to their feedback profile and there will be an option(it might be on the left or right) to "contact member". Click on that and follow the prompts to send your question.
Doesn't work. God damn, is this blocking of questions move complete bullshit.

[bangtango]

Firefox has auto-update on. I also tried to update manually but it said there were no new updates. Lame.

Browser settings then? Something disabled that shouldn't be? Something enabled that shouldn't be?

If I were you, I'd just spend 10-15 minutes reviewing your options, settings, add-on's, etc. with Firefox open. Might have to tinker with them. One single thing clicked here or another thing unclicked there can really foul up your day-to-day internet activities whether it is using a site like Ebay or even something like YouTube and Facebook.

I'd do it, because if something happens where Google Chrome starts giving you problems when using Ebay and you never settled the Firefox issue, then you'll be up a creek unless you have a bunch of different browsers installed.

Besides, if your Firefox set-up is keeping you from using Ebay effectively, then you more than likely will have a similar problem on other web sites sooner or later.