Answering a buyer's question - ebay have made a simple process very complicated.

[cosmintas]

Good morning all,

Since ebay stopped showing us the buyer's name and address on the 'sold confirmation' email there have also been a lot of other changes that has made the process of interacting with a buyer or potential buyer more difficult, all due to their (ebay's) neuroses about selling outside ebay; (and their ludicrous messages if you happen to give out an address or phone number for a local pickup).

But my question this morning is on a slightly different topic:

For the first time in a while I have had a buyer ask a question about combined postage overseas for some magazines. The email that arrived in my inbox this morning said "Help answer a question from the ebay community" (sounded more like a forum question than a buyer query). The email HAS NOT been replicated in my ebay messages. The item the buyer is interested in has no marker next to it to indicate there is a question attached and even the items their are enquiring about is not the item under which they asked the question! In other words they have asked a question from a listing for car magazines when they are interested in art magazines (which are listed) It just makes no sense.

The only way to access the question to answer it is to click on the link in ther email (which is addressed to my ebay account and looks legit). I clicked and I can answer the question (I haven't yet) but lord knows where the inf0 will go because I probably won't be able to access it again from messages. Talk about make a simple system complicated!!

Anyone else had anything similar recently?

Also, this morning I had an email from ebay about Mailman postage. It all looks good until you read the fine print which states they don't post to PO Boxes, remote islands etc. Again....how do I know where I'm posting to if ebay won't identify the buyer before they have paid? I know I should only post to Paypal address but I still like to know generally whether my buyer is in Australia or not when the item sells. Is that too much to ask ebay?? I cannot set up Mailman as my default postage option as a PO box buyer may come along and I wouldn't know until after they've paid. I'm all for competition for AP but Mailman and ebay need to sort this stuff out.

[*sparklz*]

 As it is not in your ebay messages it is scam

If you have to click on a link in it is a SCAM

If you click on it and sign in you will be giving them access to your ebay account

Click on forward and send to spoof@ebay.com and then delete it.

DO NOT reply to it

[digital*ghost]

The buyer has asked you a question from the Q&A section of the listing at the end. It Iis posted publicly and both sellers / recent buyers of the same item get emailed to answer. It's supposed to be for general product questions but eBay haven't explained the feature very well.

I'd find their user profile and contact them through that.

[lm-entertainment · Accepted solution]

i too had the same thing happen - and as digi has explained, it is a product-specific question but also may not be specifically to do with my listing. 

the one i had was for a product i sold, but the potential buyer was intending to ask a different seller - and it seemed because we both sold the same item - everyone was asked to chime in with a suitable answer. 

i responded and the buyer said they weren't even looking at my item as it was more costly as the chinese sellers who it related to. 

basically, now i'm only responding to any specific questions which do appear in my message inbox :]

[cosmintas]

Thanks I have done as you suggested. If it is legit then I will wait for ebay to prove to me that it is.

[cosmintas]

Thanks for your advice. There was something fishy about it, even though it looked legit it was addressed to me when the account is in another of my ((first) names. Also there was no way of seeing the user ID or their country of origin. The whole thing is just stupid! Why on earth would you ask a question about art magazines from the listing of car magazines? I'm just forgetting about it until ebay tell me whether or not it's legit (see answer to above poster). Appreciate your help though 🙂

[cosmintas]

Thank you. From now on I too will only answer questions that are listing specific and appear in my inbox of ebay messages.

[digital*ghost]

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@cosmintas wrote:

Thanks for your advice. There was something fishy about it, even though it looked legit it was addressed to me when the account is in another of my ((first) names. Also there was no way of seeing the user ID or their country of origin. The whole thing is just stupid! Why on earth would you ask a question about art magazines from the listing of car magazines? I'm just forgetting about it until ebay tell me whether or not it's legit (see answer to above poster). Appreciate your help though 🙂

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Maybe they found the ask a question link difficult to find, maybe they were actually asking from another seller's listing and it was grouped with yours for some reason, thus you were copied in on the feature. There's a lot of things eBay do to change the way things work on the site (or introduce new features) that cause weird moments, and bouts of suspicion completely unnecesarily.

Not in the same vein as this new feature, but to exemplify my point - The way orders are currently displayed in purchase history, you wouldn't think it would cause dramas, but it has been. Before the change, multiple item purchases were grouped under a single order, and buyers had access to one 'contact seller' link at the top. Now they are displayed separately as though they were each different orders, but with a small and easily missable note saying it was a combined order, while 'contact seller' is on each item. Doesn't seem like a huge change, but...

I sell and I get a lot of multiple item orders, and lately buyers have been messaging me via every single item in an order for something like item not received. If there are 10 items in an order, instead of getting one message saying the package didn't arrive, I get ten copy / paste messages - one for each item. The first few times it happened I couldn't fathom any reason for not just sending me one message about the whole order, so my immediate reaction was suspicion. I thought it was clearly a case of buyers just sitting at their computer copy / pasting a word for word generic message to all of their recent sellers angling for refunds. And then I saw the purchase history set up and it all clicked.

The point is, don't be too quick to presume the worst - of buyers, anyway. They can do some strange and confusing things, but often it's because eBay is a strange and confusing place, sometimes even to members who have been around for a long time.

Anyway, slightly more info on this new Q&A feature can be found here (I also posted a screen shot proving few - if any - of the people getting prompts to answer questions understand what's going on. If you look at the screen shot, you'll also see you're not the only one that thought it was fishy). https://community.ebay.com.au/t5/Buying/An-ebay-member-has-a-question-for-you/m-p/2104844#M84366

[*tippy*toes*]

I get those questions for some items that I've bought. The questions then show up under the listing they sent the message from. If it's not legit, then the scammers have hacked the whole of eBay and are able to manipulate individual listings. No one has to answer them. If you don't want to answer, delete it.

[cosmintas]

Hi all,

Just to follow up on this, about a week later I got the question again but this time through the proper 'ask the seller a question' from the correct listing (ie the one they are interested in purchasing) and have been able to answer and quote combined postage for the items they want. Thankfully the buyer persevered and there will be sales and ebay will benefit from it.

Cheers 🙂