More eBay Humor

OC Engineer JD Jan 16, 2009

  1. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Sadly, I have seen this idea advanced more than a few times, since about 2008. Nothing seems able to get off the ground and start flying. Or if they do, they get slapped down for supposedly using some theme which is claimed to be proprietary.
     
  2. WFOJeff

    WFOJeff TrainBoard Member

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  3. pmpexpress

    pmpexpress TrainBoard Member

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    A long standing issue (i.e., for several years now) when a seller has not set up any shipping rules under "Account preferences", "Shipping preferences", "Offer combined payments and shipping'"

    When no rules have been set, a default error code 80016 with a message stating that "The seller does not offer combined shipping discounts. The seller has disallowed combined payments and shipping discounts. Please proceed to checkout and complete your purchase." appears.

    Certainly not a buyer friendly way of consummating multiple item purchases, the following workaround should be utilized when eBay's shopping cart prevents you from making an invoice request:

    While this method will not work for post-purchase "Buy-it-Now" listings, when an error code 80016 appears because there are no seller established shipping rules, use the eBay Message Center to ask about combined shipping and include an attached screen-shot image of the error page (i.e., shown below).

    ebay-error-code-80016.jpg

    Buyers can help themselves and any sellers that they are dealing with by attaching a copy of the aforementioned error code with their messages.

    Even though their listing descriptions may state that they offer discounted, combined shipping discounts, astonished when they are advised of the issue, many sellers are unaware that buyers have seen eBay's 80016 default message because no shipping rules were created.

    Should error code 80016 appear while you are checking out an eBay shopping cart with a number of Buy-it-Now items in it, simply use the eBay Message Center to ask about combined shipping and include attached screen-shot images of the error code page and your shopping cart page.

    Have only had one seller refuse to work with me on adjusting the shipping cost because the sale wasn't deemed big enough to warrant the trouble.

    Immediately went to another seller and completed my Buy-it-Now purchases.
     

    Attached Files:

  4. Maletrain

    Maletrain TrainBoard Member

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    Pmpexpress, I think we are talking about 2 different things. Please reread my original post. The excuse for not letting me "request a total" form the seller was not that he did not allow it - - it was that he had already reduced the price of the items.

    In fact, I just checked, and I can't even click on the "request total from seller" button because it is grayed-out. To get the excuse for graying it, I need to click on the "i" in the circle next to it, and that pops up a window with the excuse. I get nothing like the screen shot you put in your post.

    The solution for the buyer is still the same: messsage the seller and ask for him to refund the extra shipping costs. Most will, but they have to decide whether to (1) call the Philippines to get a refund of the excess fee on shipping, or (2) charge you the extra fee in their "combined" total, or (3) take that excess fee as another cost of doing business with eBay that is not worth the time of option 1 to recover.
     
    Last edited: Dec 21, 2017
  5. pmpexpress

    pmpexpress TrainBoard Member

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    Have also seen this issue in the past.

    The eBay Message Center is a buyer's best means of dealing with this situation.

    The seller used eBay's mark down manager to initiate a sale, but did not have any existing shipping policies in place.

    Not particularly intuitive, the eBay shopping cart AI interprets the invoice request as being an additional discount request.

    As the added 10% fee on a seller's shipping costs boosts the venue's bottom line, there is no reason to fix the ongoing issues unless there was an unsustainable loss of site users; which apparently there is not.

    Now publicly held, eBay's management answers to its stockholders, not its users.

    Besides, the venue has innumerable Chinese and enterprise sellers engaged in marketing consumer commodity goods.
     
  6. Maletrain

    Maletrain TrainBoard Member

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    Well, the seller I just talked to thought he had shipping policies in-place. All eBay needs to do is ignore them or erase them, and then rake in the fees.

    I am not seeing this as a computer programming problem or a naive seller problem, but rather a dishonest company problem. I have recently seen Verizon lie about an intentional "customer service" computer program improper restriction being a "technical problem" that they implied, without actually stating, was physical incompatibility between FiOS and copper-wire telephone service. (Verizon is actually trying to kill the copper wire system to avoid state regulation, and switch everybody to VoIP.) So, this seems to be the new business model: program a computer to steal and then blame the computer or customer. It is dishonest.

    Whether or not it can be fought is not clear, and I am not going to bother. I am just going to more often use other means to get what I want. But, once a company had crossed the line into dishonesty, it is not going to be treated the same way by its users that a valued entity is treated. And, that will eventually hurt. Most users will just start finding ways to cut eBay out of the deals. Although eBay tries to restrict sellers from giving buyers their e-mail addresses and mail addresses, the sellers do include that info in the packages they ship. So, one eBay deal and there is ample opportunity to evade all fees on future sales between that buyer and seller. I suspect those Asians will pick up on that faster than anybody. Plus,there are already competing sites. And, of course, they might P.O. somebody in "Anonymous" and get hacked for it. Getting reviled for your business practices is a stupid thing to do.
     
  7. mtnbimmer

    mtnbimmer TrainBoard Member

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  8. mtnbimmer

    mtnbimmer TrainBoard Member

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  9. JMaurer1

    JMaurer1 TrainBoard Member

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  10. JMaurer1

    JMaurer1 TrainBoard Member

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  11. JMaurer1

    JMaurer1 TrainBoard Member

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  12. JMaurer1

    JMaurer1 TrainBoard Member

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  13. JMaurer1

    JMaurer1 TrainBoard Member

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  14. JMaurer1

    JMaurer1 TrainBoard Member

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  15. JMaurer1

    JMaurer1 TrainBoard Member

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  16. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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  17. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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  18. WFOJeff

    WFOJeff TrainBoard Member

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    Quickly...Boxcab needs the Heimlich!
     
    BoxcabE50 and mtntrainman like this.
  19. SP 9811

    SP 9811 TrainBoard Member

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  20. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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