topic Re: Message not sent in Selling

Message not sent

dylan11235813 — Mon, 02 Nov 2015 09:32:53 GMT

In the ebay messages I wrote "I will send a paypal invoice" and ebay blocked it... The reason I sent the email was because someone wanted express and they had already payed (not for the express). Ebay do not as far as I can see offer any way of actually being able to overcome this type of thing (unless the postage cheaper).

Re: Message not sent

harley_babes_hoard — Mon, 02 Nov 2015 10:10:00 GMT

yep I noticed this last week. You cannot mention paypal or invoice in messages any longer.

Re: Message not sent

bad_nana01 — Mon, 02 Nov 2015 10:32:18 GMT

Ebay and Paypal believe you are trying to do businss outside of what they control so obviously have keyword triggers set so that it flags and are blocked from sending your msg. Probably less hassle to send paypal invoice and msg that way

Re: Message not sent

clarry100 — Mon, 02 Nov 2015 11:05:27 GMT

Do you get any indication that the message was not sent?

Re: Message not sent

clarry100 — Mon, 02 Nov 2015 11:10:47 GMT

We quite often use this method of adding on a cost not just for express but when a buyer has not seen all our store listings first and did not find exactly what they were after until after they have paid. We let them know via messaging we will send a PayPal invoice for the extra $3 (or whatever) to include the extra matching headband they want. Seems much simpler than asking them to cancel the existing transaction and rebuy the correct item.
Looks like we will need to find sneakier words next time we do it then.

Re: Message not sent

digital*ghost — Mon, 02 Nov 2015 12:10:53 GMT

This has been happening for a while, but I find if you don't say "PayPal invoice" and separate the two words the message will go through (well, it did last time, which was about a week ago).

I just say things like "I'll send you a direct invoice", and in another sentence, something like "this will come straight to the address registered with PayPal".

If eBay would look past their paranoia for a moment and realise that if they provided proper facilities for resolving these kinds of transaction issues efficiently, everyone (including buyers) would be a whole lot happier.

Re: Message not sent

harley_babes_hoard — Mon, 02 Nov 2015 12:52:06 GMT

I used to just have a picture of my email address attached to a message but now since this latest improvement from eBay I have a picture of what I want to say in the message then attach it so the bots can't pick up any keywords. In the message itself I just put something like please see attached picture.

Re: Message not sent

*tippy*toes* — Mon, 02 Nov 2015 13:38:26 GMT

That's a good idea Harley. I managed to send my email address to someone a few weeks ago. In the past, people would just write the email address out in full, e.g. hairymary at abc dot com dot au (not a real email address as far as I know), but the bots can now detect that. In the end, after several failed messages, I worked out how to send it. hairymary ATtic abc DOTty COMe DOTh AUnty. That got through and the recipient was able to decipher it.

Re: Message not sent

dylan11235813 — Mon, 02 Nov 2015 22:04:59 GMT

@clarry100 wrote:
Do you get any indication that the message was not sent?

yes. there is a massive message that pops up and it says not sent. It looks worse than the warning for trying to include an emai,l. It should be noted that I have the buyers contact details anyway.

Re: Message not sent

jawsnine — Mon, 02 Nov 2015 23:41:18 GMT

Yes the warning is confronting. I got one through on Sunday just using the word invoice with no mention of Paypal at all. They can't block the word invoice because then we wouldn't be able to talk about combined invoices.

Re: Message not sent

clarry100 — Mon, 02 Nov 2015 23:50:44 GMT

I just now sent a message thru to a customer with the word "invoice" in it and it went thru OK.

So not too sure what combo of words they are looking for.

This was a customer looking for a special order of not listed items and I just said that "...since we already have your payment details from your previous order I can send you an invoice".

Re: Message not sent

justajunk — Wed, 04 Nov 2015 14:49:05 GMT

"I will send you a P@YP/\|_ 1N\/01CE shortly" would be one way to get around it if you don't mind your buyers thinking that you've had a bit too much to drink.

Otherwise, maybe an intentional typo or two would do the trick; surely, most could guess what a "PoyPal invojce" would be...