posted on June 25, 2002 12:58:18 PM
You know the old story. Customer wins an auction and your email to them bounces. You can phone them after you get their contact information (If it's right) or report them to SafeHarbor. Of course most of us report them for having the wrong contact information. I have been reporting them until I got the following email from eBay:
Hello,
I have investigated your report, and found that the other
member's email
address has recently been changed.
You may want to use eBay's Email Forwarding System to contact
them. To
use this feature, click on their User ID from any page on the
site, then
enter your user ID and password into the subsequent web page.
Again, thank you for taking the time to write. I appreciate
your
continued help in keeping eBay a safe and fair place to trade!
posted on June 25, 2002 01:18:12 PM
I don't know how it reads to you, but it reads to me that they changed their email address after your complaint, plus an advertising to use their system.
The bounced email in question was an aol.com email. When I followed the instructions given by eBay it showed the email had been changed to usahotmail.com and gave the new email address with the change dates.
It appears to me that eBay has not updated their records to show the new email address and this is their way of letting you find the change without bothering them.
The customer also has not updated their contact information to show the new email address.
Guess eBay found a way to keep from booting members for not having correct contact info.
posted on June 25, 2002 03:41:45 PM
eBay wants the users to place the sometimes- expensive phonecalls to users with bad emails to get them to update their email accounts.
There are no general reminders on eBay that current email address are vital to the auction process and need to be updated when ISP or email accounts are changed. eBay makes zero effort.
I had a buyer win an item recently and he has a perfect 149 feedback rating. He had bid and won a few other items when he won my item but there was a 3 month gap of buying items in his feedback. I figured he had changed his ISP 3 months ago and forgot all about his registration info on eBay and by the time he figured it out he was NARUed and too embarassed or humiliated to try to straighten it out with eBay. He may never bid here again because of it.
posted on June 25, 2002 09:15:03 PM
I will not waste my money on a long distance phone call to a buyer. If the buyer is also a seller I go to one of his auctions and email them through ask the seller a question.
I played email tag with an AOL customer a couple of weeks ago. I wrote her, no answer, then she wrote why didn't I write to her, I answered I did. She wrote again so I finally went through an active auction she was running and finally after about 5 emails got an answer. I take that back I probably would have called her because it was for a good amount and I didn't want to put them back on to auction. I understand that sometimes AOL's emails don't go through.
posted on June 25, 2002 09:32:01 PM
I had an auction end tonight, 1742480755, with the longest, stupid user ID I ever saw, 19 letters. A very long email address as well, 15 letters plus AOL.com
This user signed up 6/15, zero FB & AOL says there is no such person.
So, what do I do, and I'm not going to call them. If their so new how can their email address be bogus?
Go to the auction they won and click on their user ID. This will take the seller
(And only the seller) to a page that shows their current email address.
Any other person that does this will get a link to Contact an eBay Member form.
You will see: The email address for this member is:xxxxx@xxx
It's really kind of neat as now we can always find the correct email address when out email to the customer bounces.
posted on June 25, 2002 10:09:13 PM
You can sign up with AOL and get bounced if you violate AOL rules. It's easy to do.
The click on any eBay user thingie shows the same invalid email on my high feedback dead email user. If the email is dead it will be dead there too.
posted on June 25, 2002 10:25:32 PM
Thats where I got their email address, I clicked on their user ID soon as the auction ended.
When I try to send my EOA email AOL says this is not a known user.
Edited to add:
I just checked their bidding & this person has bid on 64 auctions since June 15th, probably 2000.00 or more.
I kind of expect to see "not a registered user" show up anyday now.
[ edited by mcjane on Jun 25, 2002 10:52 PM ]
posted on June 26, 2002 05:47:20 AM
they had to sign up with that email address because you cant change any of your contact info before your 1st 30 days is up after signing up with ebay. least thats what ive seen. so somehow they got it verified.
