Auctions ending when your servers crashed

[alic-47]

Ebay crashed just as one of my auctions was ending, and bids could not be placed for the final 20 minutes. 

I have already been contacted by customers who wanted to place a bid but could not. 

How quickly will ebay make arrangements for auctions to be extended for 24 hours in this circumstance? It is not fair to customers or sellers to have negative reviews for cancelling an item when the issue was with ebay. 

( I have contacted customer support - was told the wait time was 1 min. But 20++ mins later...still waiting...).

[enigmabear]

I was not aware eBay were going to make such an arrangement. Did someone tell you that?

As the only people here are fellow buyers and sellers, it would depend if someone here has already spoken to eBay and if they see this post, if the can give you the response they were given

The line about 'eBay tech staff checking this forum for issues' is nothing but a tal story

They simply do no such thing

[alic-47]

Bless you! I believed that spin - so really just assumed this was a good place to post the question. 

I just assumed that they would actually fix something that is a problem for both sellers and customers? 

So - I've had offers of several hundred dollars but am I obligated to sell for $3 because none of the auto-bids went through????

If so, my foray into e-bay selling will be coming to a very abrupt end. 

[enigmabear]

Very very often, eBay's first response is to deny there is any issue/problem at all (even when there very clearly is an issue and they have had numerous complaints already (there was a big one last year where several members here called them, and were all told that 'nobody else had complained' 

And in the past few weeks there have been several glitches/errors that apparently 'tech staff were alerted' (a couple are still happening and others went on for a week or more)

Honestly, I do not know what eBay plan to do (if anything) but the issue also happened on eBay US and eBay UK, so with this situation , things could be differnt as would appear to be a 'BIG' one harder for them to deny happened 

[chameleon54]

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@alic-47 wrote:

Bless you! I believed that spin - so really just assumed this was a good place to post the question. 

I just assumed that they would actually fix something that is a problem for both sellers and customers? 

So - I've had offers of several hundred dollars but am I obligated to sell for $3 because none of the auto-bids went through????

If so, my foray into e-bay selling will be coming to a very abrupt end. 

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Theres nothing showing in your sold listings for $3 in the last couple of hours, so maybe the auctions have just vanished along with the ebay outage. If so you will not be tied to anything and may be able to re-offer the lots.

One major suggestion. Never start an auction of an item worth hundreds of dollars for 99 cents or three dollars. As you have experienced, bad things can happen with auctions and it is rare to get multiple bidders. Much better to start the auction at the minimum price you arev willing to accept. Saves a lot of tears.

[alic-47]

That's really great advice - thanks! 

To be honest I do list things at a higher value when I want more from them. This particular item was a lucky find - I wasn't really fussed what I got for it - which is why it was listed cheaply. If $3 was the maximum legit bid  - all good. But it was that I was contacted by customers who had wanted the item, been willing to pay more but were prevented from bidding because of these tech issues that was more of the issue. 

Great advice anyway and a good thing to keep in mind 🙂

[brerrabbit585]

The same thing happened a few years ago and I think ebay was down for a few hours. I have a feeling they offered extra listings to the sellers concerned but my memory may not be correct. I do remember thinking it wasn't much compensation when auctions often get most of their bids at the last minute.

[alic-47]

UPDATE - Thanks everyone for the support and suggestions. 

Actually, I have to admit that (once I got on  to them!) Ebay were fantastic. They were able to reverse the auction, liaise with the poor customer who was caught out, contact those whose auto-bids had "disappeared" and manage the entire resolution. They were very proactive and helpful, and very quick. A big relief 

[brerrabbit585]

I'm glad it worked out for you!

[enigmabear]

That is amazing

So glad to hear you were on of the lucky ones that connected with a helpful CS staff member