Hmmm phantom purchase a first for me in 26 years here!!

[ricarmic]

Got a message from a buyer yesterday asking me to please send the stamps or refund them.

They were a significant repeat buyer, but the last time they purchased stuff was this time in 2024! I figured that is pretty weird, so I asked them when they purchased the item (hoping they weren't really talking about a year old older).

They weren't, on their end, they believe they purchased and paid for it on January 18 this year. (the repeat buyer aspect is probably why they waited so long before contacting me).

I checked everything I have, no emails, no orders on that date and no $$$ received from their ID.

The lot in question is a multi item lot and someone else a 1000 miles away did purchase one as well on the same day.

It leads me to believe some sort of ebay glitch happened and it didn't recognize their purchase at all, at least from my end.

I asked them to talk to the support folks, it will be interesting to see what comes back from that.

I'm annoyed because they bought a lot of stuff from me last year, this stupid glitch is probably going to cost me a good customer but time will tell.

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

It sounds like they may have arrived at the final checkout screen and closed it before it finished loading. Leading them to believe they completed the transaction.

I would ask them to send you a screenshot of the item in their purchase history and the invoice page showing the seller name, item, etc. If they are able to do that, I would reach out to eBay and see what they say. 

It seems a lot more likely that there was a user error resulting in the checkout not being completed than a new bug resulted in a phantom order. 

It is also possible that they purchased a similar item from a different seller and mistakenly contacted you. That has happened to me before. Someone contacts me to say there is a problem with X item - I ask for a photo, and it's a CD or DVD I never sold. It turns out they bought something from both me and another seller, and then accidentally contacted the opposite seller. 

[ricarmic]

Generally in my past experience they've had it in their shopping cart and forgot to finish purchasing it.

Given how many things he purchased last year in separate transactions he's not a novice.

I'll wait until they've contacted support to see what comes from that.

(Yes I too have had oops it was a different seller situations, it doesn't look like thats the case for this one, I was very surprised this morning when he came back with a date....)

[marnotom!]

I still think it would be useful to get a screenshot from the user’s purchase history ASAP to compare the listing details.

(Excellent suggestion, @ilikehockeyjerseys!)