Not allowed to buy from eBay seller?????
jfkheat
Posts: 2,736 ✭✭✭✭✭
I made an offer on a card a few minutes ago that was automatically rejected. I go to make another offer and this message pops up. "Sorry, you are not allowed to purchase this item.This item is only available to buyers who have not purchased or more items from this seller in the past 10 days." Has anyone here ever seen this message?
James
1
Comments
Yeah. Got the same message this past week for the first time. I have never seen it before. It made me wonder if the seller was suspected of schill bidding their auctions in the past and so this is a safety mechanism to combat it. Was annoying since I wanted to buy the item.
If you follow some of the facebook groups, Ebay sellers will post transaction communications as warnings on certain annoying or sketchy buyers and everyone will ban the Ebay Id just bc they don't want to deal with them.
Not saying that's the case here, but I know a lot of buyers are blocked without their knowledge, because of these groups. You can be sure if you ever won the bid on a card and then messaged the seller with "Hey, can you cancel bc my son accidentally purchased this without my knowledge..." you're certainly banned by a rather large group of sellers.
Jason C.
Wave of Cards on Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC52it5FXdZvDcbj_Ps7Fyqw
This is an option that a seller can set within their account. A seller can block buyers who are currently winning or have purchased an item from them within a certain amount of days. I'm guessing you are currently winning another auction with this seller or recently won one with him.
This is from the eBay Buyer Management page, "Consider selecting this requirement if you are selling expensive items and don't want to sell over a certain number to any single buyer."
Strangely, I also pointed out that eBay does not work as well as in previous years. I had a problem with delivery because they did not bring it to the locality where I live, but a more distant one. But fortunately, I called https://www.sendungsverfolgungpost.de/de/, and they brought it to me in less than a week. But I'm sorry that this online store allows itself to make such significant mistakes because they lose a lot of their loyal customers. I'm still waiting for him to regain his strength because I've been in charge for years, and I know I can work better.
This.
Here is the link for buyer management, which offers several settings options:
https://ebay.com/bmgt/buyerrequirements
Another related and interesting tool on the ebay platform is the data presented when you go to your Buyer Requirements Activity Log. This shows you a list of bids attempted to be placed by users where the bids were subsequently blocked due to your buyer settings, and the reason for the block (for example, Too Many Unpaid Item Strikes).
https://ebay.com/bmgt/blockedbuyeractivities
You are able to write a note to the seller requesting that they add your user id to their Exemption List, which would in turn allow you to bid on their items despite not meeting their general settings for buyer requirements.
I sell on eBay and block bidders all the time. Don't need the hassle of dealing with difficult people. Not saying that's the case here, but it is a business for most who sell there.
Why do I block someone? Here's some things NOT to do if you want to bid freely on eBay:
1) Change your mind after you buy something. I get this at least once a month. They pay for an item and then a few hours later tell you to "cancel" the order. Not a problem, unless I've already printed my shipping label. Then it's a hassle and I have to wait weeks for USPS to refund my money.
2) Make offers on fixed price listings when I don't have "best offer" in the listing. EBay likes to encourage bidders to try and sleaze down sellers and send unsolicited offers. Don't do it. If I'm open to offers, I'll put "best offer" in the listing.
3) Buy something and then complain after you receive it. I always take clear photos and give a good description, so there shouldn't be a problem. Most buyers who do this are either looking for a partial refund (not going to happen) or have buyer's remorse. Either way, I don't want to deal with you again.
4) Buyers who complain about shipping costs or try to bundle five things with one payment and ask me to combine shipping. Not a problem if it's baseball cards or coins, but not possible if it's something heavy. USPS rates are sky high now, so keep that in mind before bidding or buying anything. .
5) Leave negative feedback more than 5% of the time. Yes, there is a website that calls out buyers who trash sellers reputations or are difficult buyers. You will be blocked by thousands of sellers if you keep leaving negative or neutral feedback. Try to resolve any issues with the seller BEFORE trashing their rep. Most sellers will accept a return and some will even give you a partial refund (not me) instead of ending up with an upset buyer who's going to harm their eBay business.
Sorry for the rant, but there are many more reasons why you can get blocked from bidding. Just accept it and move on to the next seller.
I had previously bought hundreds of dollars worth of cards from a seller, both graded and raw, without issue. I always paid promptly and always left positive feedback.
EBay started offering the eBay standard envelope with the fake tracking, and the seller shipped me a single raw card purchase using that method. It took over a month to arrive, and in the meantime, the seller and I were in periodic communication about the low dollar card. It finally arrived, and I immediately informed the seller that it was safely in hand.
I know "how the sausage is made", so to speak, and followed up with a friendly message informing the seller that the eBay standard envelope is a moneymaking scam for eBay, and that I would personally prefer that any future purchases of raw low dollar items be shipped in a PWE, as all of my previous purchases from them of that type had been prior to that, without issue.
I received no follow-up response and forgot about it, actually. Some time later, I was browsing his listings again, added a handful of items to my cart that exceeded $100. They would have been shipped in a priority mailer, anyway, but upon trying to check out, I found that I'd been blocked. I didn't even bother contacting him about it. It's his loss, too.
I may be blocked by other sellers without me being aware, but that's my only experience with it, so far.
Valid points by MrTim; but in the case of the OP, I believe it is an issue relative to general buyer requirement settings, which is a very different thing than being blocked as a user-specific setting, added to the blocked list.
If you're blocked, the message back from ebay will be different. It will specifically say that the seller is not accepting your bids or business. But if your bid does not go through based on requirements, you can take the time to request being entered into their exemption list if the item means that much to you. The seller may or may not ignore that request.
When I look at bids that were blocked on my buyer management page, I can for example see users who have good reputations, with multi-thousands feedback at 100% plus account history of 10 or more years. These are people I do not have any personal sales history with (to my knowledge) and are not specifically listed on my blocked buyer list. However, my settings prevent bids from buyers with 2 or more unpaid items over 12 months, so it blocks a lot of people.
FWIW, an objective data point I've observed: Ever since the ebay system relatively recently stopped allowing bidders to cancel their own trading card bids while auction is still in progress (which I agree is a good strategy for putting up a fight against shilling), on the selling side of things I have noticed a correlated sharp increase in items that are won but then the "winner" requests that the sale be canceled instead of paying. That almost never happened with me before the change. Circumvention of the retraction rule, but it does lead to more unpaid items.
I do choose to be more strict with my settings, with the limit being on the low end for unpaid item strikes. It does block a fair amount of users who I have not specifically put on my blocked list. But, if someone were to write to me during an auction and explain that they'd like to bid but are blocked due to unpaid strikes, then I do take the time to research their account history as well as get confirmation that they do intend to pay, and in some cases I will then add them to the exempt list. (obviously, they would get their name added to the blocked list if it did not end up working out though).
Countdouglas, the eBay standard envelope is worthless. I've received many cards that way and about half of them still aren't marked as delivered! What good is a tracking number if it doesn't really track anything? A lot of sellers will be giving away their cards if they rely on that service. I'm an honest guy, but I'm sure some buyers will claim they never received their card if it's never posted as delivered. No proof of delivery and eBay immediately issues a refund to the buyer.
Bottom line, eBay had a good idea to keep shipping costs down, but I think it's going to blow up in their faces in the long run.
Shipping in a PWE doesn't guarantee buyer won't complain they never received it. Without the tracking one would never know.
With e-Bay standard envelope, the seller's covered for reimbursement if envelope never arrives, whether it actually does and says otherwise or not.
That's the big difference between the two choices.
You guys do realize that this thread is a year old and has absolutely nothing to do with what is being discussed now, don't you?
You do realize that this subject is still relevant, don't you?
Does anyone else notice this thread, and only this one, never gets marked as read even after opening it multiple times?
ETA: now that I posted it to it, it is marked as read 😂