shopping cart broken since mid December, can't get help with postage charges multiplying

[kylies*swap*cards*]

For years now I have had no issues with buyers being able to buy multiple items and make one payment and get charged one postage amount.  Since mid-December something broke and now every buyer is buying and being forced to pay for each item separately.  I have been on the phone to customer help (actually no help) 6 times and they keep denying there is a problem but agree to credit me the fees I am being charged as I am being charged up to 70 fees from each buyer (not to mention being charged 70 times by PayPal to accept the payments).  I have to go in an manually refund the postage amount from each payment (one buyer this was 70 items).  PayPal customer help told me I have to fully refund all the payments and then manually re-invoice the buyer from within PayPal to get a refund on the PayPal fees.

My postage and combined postage business policies have always been the same, I have not altered them.  One CS person even confirmed that there is nothing wrong with the polices as she can shop my store at her end and have only one postage charge and all the rest coming up with free postage.  But my long-term real buyers cannot achieve this and they have been buying for years and are experienced ebay buyers and sellers.

I even tried deleting my current postage policy and changing it to calculated postage - made no difference and the buyers are still being forced to pay for each item.  I do not have "immediate payment required" ticked and like I said I have combined payments and combined postage ticked.  Ebay says as they cannot reproduce the error at their end that there is no error so they won't forward it to tech support or anyone else.  Is there anything I can do?  They are completely refusing to escalate it to any other department, 6 different representatives all say the same thing, there is no error because they can't reproduce it.

I will be eternally grateful for any suggestions!

[thecatspjs]

The cart has been broken on and off for many sellers for a long time now.

In addition, the new seller hub is currently being slowly rolled out - which has a new format for promotion functions that may by chance be impacting on old rules ???  Just a thought, and sorry it doesn't solve your issue. 

[kylies*swap*cards*]

what is so frustrating is that CS was saying we have changed nothing on ebay for 3 years - kept denying it was anything they have done.  They tried to blame it on the app (but my buyers weren't buying from the app) and said they must buy from a PC if possible (they were).  I was also told to tell them to sign into the ebay au site and if they were signed into the au or their local site it made no difference.  I am really at a loss 😞 and these manual refunds are getting so time consuming and annoying.

[collect247]

I have just added 5 of your items to my cart and if I paid for them I only have 1 postage cost so there is no problem if I went

and purchased them.

[thecatspjs]

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@kylies*swap*cards* wrote:

what is so frustrating is that CS was saying we have changed nothing on ebay for 3 years - kept denying it was anything they have done.  They tried to blame it on the app (but my buyers weren't buying from the app) and said they must buy from a PC if possible (they were).  I was also told to tell them to sign into the ebay au site and if they were signed into the au or their local site it made no difference.  I am really at a loss 😞 and these manual refunds are getting so time consuming and annoying.

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Just in case - thought it worth checking are you setting your post discounts at this link http://cgi5.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?SellerShippingPreferences&sourcePage=MyEbay&mode=savenedit

[dazzledayz]

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@kylies*swap*cards* wrote:

what is so frustrating is that CS was saying we have changed nothing on ebay for 3 years - kept denying it was anything they have done.  They tried to blame it on the app (but my buyers weren't buying from the app) and said they must buy from a PC if possible (they were).  I was also told to tell them to sign into the ebay au site and if they were signed into the au or their local site it made no difference.  I am really at a loss 😞 and these manual refunds are getting so time consuming and annoying.

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Kylie here's what I do:

Tell them to buy but do not pay - you'll send an invoice when they are ready.

If they are using the dreaded app they may need to put items in their watchlist and make the purchases from the desktop.

Either that or configure their mobile user agent to emulate a desktop so they can get the proper cart.

Just a thought - check your seller preferences and make sure the "immediate payment required" checkbox hasn't been ticked.

I seem to recall someone reporting a glitch in that area a while ago.

[lyndal1838]

Kylie, as a buyer only I can tell you that this problem with the cart has been happening for a minimum of 3 years now.

Every year I buy 3 pocket diaries from a seller in the UK who definitely combines and discounts postage.  Without using the cart he does require immediate payment.

For the 4th Christmas in a row I have received the message that this seller does not allow combined postage when I try to buy from the cart.  The seller says he does and can see no reason for it not working through the cart but to buy each item seperately and request an invoice through checkout.  For the 4th Christmas neither system has worked (still the same message that the seller does not allow combined postage) and I have had to pay full postage on the 3 items....the seller does not even get the request for the invoice.

[kylies*swap*cards*]

I have that in my checkout information, do not pay until you have asked for an invoice but unfortunately they are self checking out and I am unable to stop them.  Most of my buyers are from overseas and communication can be difficult as their English is pretty limited in many of the cases.   I definitely don't have the "immediate payment" box checked (just triple checked in case!) because I know when ebay does mess with things until they break that sometimes they tick things automatically.  They are also using a PC (well I know the majority are) and the thing is they are long-term sellers themselves so I would be confident they know what a pain it is when they get multiple payments.  No answer I think for this issue, unfortunately 😞 but thank you for your input!