posted on March 30, 2002 09:33:49 PM
Had an auction end March 24. Sent my regular EOA e-mail right away.
Since then, I've had 5 requests for info from the bidder, who doesn't seem somehow to be receiving my e-mails.
I've sent two eBay Payments invoices, but for some reason, neither invoice showing up in my "Billpoint" account record of invoices sent but not yet paid.
Earlier today I requested the member's contact information through eBay (twice), but now it is 8 hours since I did that & no e-mail notice received from eBay.
I have no other idea what to do, I even sent an e-mail from an alternate e-mail address of mine, and still no contact confirmed.
Strangest thing that's ever happened, I guess when 7 days are up all I can do is send an official reminder to pay through eBay, cause I cannot figure out any other way to reach this bidder, seems like everything I've done has ended up in some Bermuda Triangle out there!
posted on March 30, 2002 10:47:27 PM
That does sound strange. Is he still bidding on other auctions? Does he have many feedback? It's almost like you have a ghost bidder.
I don't know what to suggest except maybe see if a friend or family member can contact him from their computer?
posted on March 30, 2002 11:28:14 PM
One of my best customers just quit eBay because of a similar situation.
The customer is a buyer only on eBay, a collector of antiques. Her feedback is several hundred.
She won an auction, never heard from the seller. She tried to make contact with the seller and never received a response. About day eleven after the auction she gets an NPB from eBay. Again she tried to make contact. No response. The days pass by and she got a final NPB notice from eBay. By this time she is asking her regular sellers for advice, was told to request the Contact Information, got the phone number, talked to an answering machine, never got a response.
She is an elderly retired lady, at a time in her life when she can afford to buy nice things for her home, which is why she was buying on eBay. The situation upset her so much she wrote her regular sellers and told us she was quitting eBay for good.
My point is wait until you get the contact information from eBay and call the buyer. Not all emails reach their destination.
posted on March 31, 2002 12:09:09 AM
I have heard of cases where a buyer or seller doesn't get the messages. But it is strange that the Billpoint invoices don't show up as sent.
I have only had to request contact info a few times but received it right away.
hotcupoftea, perhaps your customer dealt with a seller that figured they didn't get a high enough price for the item so just chose to ignore the buyer?
posted on March 31, 2002 05:23:02 AM
I had this happen to me too. I had a bidder who had bid on several things. I sent my usual EOA notice, I sent it a few more times.I finally heard from my bidder but I could tell from her email that she wasn't getting my notices. Finally what I ended up doing was sending her from eBay "mail this auction to a friend", using one of the auctions she had won, she got that one ok,
I then used my yahoo email account a different one that I had previously used, for some reason this worked, I finally was able to contact her. I had tried sending her an email with my hotmail account that didn't work?? I have no idea what the problem was??? this bidder was from canada, she ended up sending me a payment from her paypal account with a different email address, I guess she just wanted me to get her money. I tried to use that email address but that one also also didn't work either. I found this situation to be very frustrating and I'm sure I lost a repeat customer from it.
Sue
posted on March 31, 2002 09:19:43 AM
I have had this also in the past. It is usually AOL and when I send from Yahoo It goes through just fine. I believe it is a ISP Spam filter, which halts, canned, or cut and paste e-mails. I always use Yahoo once on any buyer/seller who I cannot communicate with after several tries.
posted on March 31, 2002 06:05:49 PM
A ghost bidder is someone who comes out of the Twilight Zone and bids on your auction. He can contact you but you are unable to contact him. You are unable to send him an invoice because he is not in the system. Same as when you try to pull his contact information, it just isn't there because he isn't either.
Da da da da.....................
Seriously, I would hate to see a seller or a buyer get a negative over something like upriver's problem as it is out of his control.
How many times do we see negative feedback where it says that either party didn't answer numerous e-mails? Maybe some of the negatives are because of this.
>>"How many times do we see negative feedback where it says that either party didn't answer numerous e-mails? Maybe some of the negatives are because of this."<<
It happens a lot more than you think. We've had so many irate people claim that we didn't contact them or answer emails after sending them an EOA, and at least 1 or 2 more email messages. So far we have not had any negs because of this but I'm tired of them threatening negative feedback for something that's beond our control.
AOL addresses are the worst by far, however, our AT&T email system sucks almost as bad. We have received emails that were sent as much as 1 month prior to our receiving them. They might as well have sent a letter via snail mail..
posted on March 31, 2002 10:19:47 PM
I send emails through accounts off my domain name.
Why someone would run a business off a hotmail account I don't understand.
Many people sick of spam set their accounts to not recieve anything from hotmail, yahoo mail, AOL or any of those hot beds of spamming activity.
If you're gonna use a free email service to run your business pick one that hasn't pissed off the entire internet world.
On a side note.....many people who "CLAIM" didn't get an email from you are simply stalling for time. Those extra days of back and forth are just to buy some time because they didn't get a chance to get your money order or forgot to send you a check etc etc lol
posted on March 31, 2002 10:25:04 PM
lovepotions is right. I always use my ISP email name. When in trouble, that is if my ISP is having a problem, then I go to my hotmail address. I just hate sending WBN to hotmail or Yahoo, but AOL is so big and that is their domain so I am not so nervous about that. It is hard for AOL users to get a good email service.
posted on March 31, 2002 11:39:33 PM
Once when I was new at this, I thought I was sending e-mail to the buyer (typing it on my own, not through ebay) but learned that I kept missing the underline mark between his first and last name (because when ebay underlines the buyer's whole e-mail address, that underline mark disappears!
Hasn't happened again, of course. Why would anyone have that line in their e-mail address? Odd to me.
This probably has nothing to do with your problem but I thought I'd throw this in. . . .
