eBay

estatemaster12 · ‎12-17-2020

Hi all,

I process several hundred auctions per month.

I've experienced it a few times over the years that a completed order showed up in "Manage all orders", where you can rate a buyer, mark an order as shipped etc., and then after a few days (within a week) it vanishes. You can still mark the order as shipped, but only if you remember the auction ID and navigate to the auction manually. (I keep track of orders in a separate spreadsheet.) This happend about twice a year.

Until last month. I have about 10 completed orders (a sudden STEEP incline) that are nowhere to be found in the order overview (https://www.ebay.ca/sh/ord/?filter=status:ALL_ORDERS).

Sometimes (but not all the time), the auction will become visible when I filter by the buyer username (which of course requires me to have that documented elsewhere already) but not when I use the filter to look up the auction ID, item title or buyer username.

Example - this exists as auction link, but will NOT show in "Manage all orders":

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/154229215683

I am anxious to skip a day co-documenting orders in my spreadsheet, missing a completed order and not shipping the item until the buyer complains about it.

Has anybody else noticed this happening more in the last few weeks? Does anybody have some sort of trick up their sleeve for when that happens? Is there anything that can be done to fix it?

Thank you.

femmefan1946 · ‎12-17-2020

If you click on Seller Hub-> Orders-> All Orders all the past orders for up to 90 Days will appear.

estatemaster12 · ‎12-17-2020

Hi femmefan1946,

I'm sorry to say that they do not. MOST past orders for up to 90 days will appear. Some don't. That is why I made this post.

I will take some screenshots to prove it.

estatemaster12 · ‎12-17-2020

I have posted 5 screenshots here: https://imgur.com/a/N6kRKmG

The first screenshot shows auction https://www.ebay.ca/itm/154229215683

- auction number: 154229215683

- item title: 1954 Bank of Canada DEVILS FACE 100 Dollar Note - VF25

- auction ended: Dec 12, 2020

- buyer username: vichashvict

The second screenshot shows "Manage all orders", me using ctrl+f to search for the auction number in the browser window, 0 search results.

The third screenshot shows "Manage all orders", filtering for the auction ID 154229215683. No results.

The fourth screenshot shows "Manage all orders", filtering for the buyer username. One auction comes up in the search result, however it is a different, earlier auction for a completely different item. You can see that auction ID, item title, image and date are different. This buyer has bought 3 items in the last month. Only one of them shows up in "Manage all orders".

The fifth screenshot shows "Manage all orders", filtering for the item title. One auction comes up in the search result, however it is a different, earlier auction for a completely different item. You can see that auction ID, image, date, and buyer username are different.

kawartha-ephemera · ‎12-17-2020

As far as I am aware I have never had an order "disappear" other than when they exceed the 90 days look- back period.

However in recent weeks I have had the search filters fail to return orders that I knew had to be there in the All Orders list. Like you I tried the username filter which returned nothing, next I tried using an item title key word, that didn't work either. Finally I gave up using the filters and just slowly scrolled through the orders list ... the order was there in the All Orders list as I knew it was. This has happened on a couple of occasions lately.

estatemaster12 · ‎12-17-2020

Thank you.

Unfortunately, these orders are not in the list. I can't show you the entire list to prove it, but I can attach a screenshot of me using text search on the buyer username and 1 result comes up (the earlier order which also shows up in filters) but not 3 (which would include his two more recent orders).

kawartha-ephemera · ‎12-17-2020

Having orders disappear at 90 days is sometimes problematic, anything earlier is terrible. I tested both the ebay filters and my browser's "find on page" tool just now, both had no problem finding orders ... the browser page search was a lot faster though.

Thinking back on my own frustrations using the ebay filters like username etc. has me questioning if I was partly to blame. Much of the time ebay lists whether they be orders or active listings are very, very slow to load these days, I wonder if there are instances where I've simply used the filters too soon before the page has completely loaded. I don't know if that's even possible to do.

femmefan1946 · ‎12-17-2020

tyler@ebay

This could be worrisome.

@estatemaster12

Can you cross-reference to Paypal?

Being old and set in concrete in my ways, I keep paper records. Perhaps having your own spreadsheets.....

OH! Some techsavvy people have said stuff I basically ignored (because: concrete) about CVV? Would those downloaded records help?

estatemaster12 · ‎12-17-2020

These auctions (that are just a few days old) are not in the csv report, no.

I tested this with 7 more auctions that went missing from ebay (unless you go to the auction page via direct link) in the last month.

I'm not sure what my next step should be. I can't find for the life of me how to report a bug to ebay.

kawartha-ephemera · ‎12-18-2020

There's no reason that it should ever be be necessary but you could go to Paypal (if you are not on MP yet) and download their transaction report. I have done this many times, it's very easy to open the downloaded file in excel or similar spreadsheet software. I keep the columns that are useful and ditch the rest either by hiding or deleting those columns. At that point it is quick and easy to sort records by paid date, sale date, whatever you need.

The Paypal report when sorted by paid date should match-up with ebay's All Orders database provided they are also sorted by paid date.

Comparing the 2 sets of records will reveal any missing records (Orders) in the ebay database if they are in fact disappearing.

Edited to add that auctions awaiting payment will of course not show up in Paypal, are these all auction sales that are the problem and are they paid or unpaid ones that disappear?

estatemaster12 · ‎12-18-2020

Thank you. That's what I'll have to do for now.

These auctions were all paid. It is of course possible that this has happened with unpaid auctions in the past and I just never noticed. But the vast majority of the auctions get paid on time so it's unlikely.

kawartha-ephemera · ‎12-18-2020

Some time ago, maybe it was early in the year I had an odd experience with ended auctions. Probably had a couple dozen ending one evening which I was watching as they were about to end. A short while after they ended I decided to check on the final results as some had attracted good bids. So, not seeing them appear as paid orders I went to the awaiting payment list .... roughly half of them were not listed even though I knew they had sold. Looked for them everywhere, unsold, awaiting payment, paid awaiting shipment etc. There were about 10 ended auctions that simply vanished without a trace! Of course this was disturbing as I was certain quite a few had sold very well but what could I do .... nothing. That was late afternoon on a Sunday I think, of course every so often I looked again hoping they would appear but I went to bed late without finding a trace of the "missing". Thankfully with much relief when I checked again the next morning all had reappeared right where they should have been all along. To this day I wonder if the buyers had a similar experience, if they disappeared on their side no one ever reported it.

Moral of the story is ... I have no doubt whatsoever that strange events are possible once an auction ends.

tyler@ebay · ‎12-18-2020

@femmefan1946 wrote:

tyler@ebay

This could be worrisome.

@estatemaster12

Can you cross-reference to Paypal?

Being old and set in concrete in my ways, I keep paper records. Perhaps having your own spreadsheets.....

OH! Some techsavvy people have said stuff I basically ignored (because: concrete) about CVV? Would those downloaded records help?

Thanks for the tag @femmefan1946 - definitely a concern for sure!

Hi @estatemaster12 - I'm not able to provide account specific support on the boards, so I can't look at your specific examples, but I'd very much recommend contacting CS on this. They can review your examples and check the nuts and bolts behind the scenes. For what it's worth I've also seen this in the past and the root cause ended up being the 'transaction cache', which a CS teammate can review and reset if necessary. This usually brings the order back to be visible on your side.

You can request a call back via the 'Help and Contact' flow in the upper left hand corner, but for what it's worth I love our social media team. I work closely with them and they're all well-trained and helpful. Plus you can send them a direct (private) message and they will respond when they get to it (usually up to a day or so depending on volume). No ~~being subjected to our~~ hold music required!

You can reach them on Twitter or Facebook. If you message them please make sure to give them your registered email address, post code on file and your first and last name (via private message) so they can hop in and help!

Tyler,