Serious error $999.99 item sells, everything changes to $4,000 including fees etc!

[ricarmic]

Wow.

This is a new one on me.

One of my big items sells this morning at 3 AM ET a $999.99 boxlot on .com

The actual item says its value is $999.99 and that it sold for $999.99 US$ but everything else shows the value jumping to $4,000 US$ plus shipping.

The actual item itself shows it sold for $999.99 US

Everything else in eBayland, all the communications etc even invoicing shows the value as $4,0000.

They calculated fees against the $4,0000 value ($240 worth).

Of course immediately afterward I got notification from the buyer that they wanted to cancel, which of course I did (buyer was new buyer in China and sort of said that they hit something wrong).

I'll have to call in to my special support phone line this morning to find out what happened here.

I've had no sales since then so don't know if this is a one off glitch or if there is a bigger problem....

Will post when I have more news, appreciate if anyone else has had anything weird happen to post it too....

[ricarmic · Accepted solution]

OK the mystery is solved.

Sadly I discovered this after the 5 minute editing period was over.

When I went to look at the item in "raw" ebayland, I noticed that it said that a best offer was accepted.

This solves the mystery.

The buyer was probably trying to put a best offer of $400 in for the lot and put $4000 in by accident.

It is most crazy that the system will let someone put a best offer in that is larger than the original amount but it appears that is the case.

Sorry for creating a scary looking thread, although there still is a glitch in the system in my eyes that let this happen.....

[ricarmic]

Actually I heard back from the buyer (in China) quickly. They thought they were bidding in their own currency 4000 RMB and didn't realize till afterward that it accepted it as $4,000 US$.

The system still should advise the buyer that there's a problem when the BO is higher than the original amount....

At least I don't have to spend time on the phone with the support folks now!

[zee-chan-jpn-books]

It's indeed silly that it would accept value higher than your listed price... Though I had something similar happen, where I had some back and forth best offer, the buyer eventually submitted an offer that was HIGHER than my initial counteroffer so I sold the item at that price... It was bizarre.

[ricarmic]

Because of all the glitches in eBayland as of late, I assumed that is what it was and that prospect was scaring me a lot!

It was only by happenchance that I had the idea to look at the lot from the "outside" where it showed that best offer was accepted,

I certainly agree that there should be something to prevent someone from mistyping an amount that is larger ie 4 times the price, and so large as was the case for this one!

(Remember I'm on .COM) Now my seller hub is all screwed up now for the next month because the chart etc has a $4,000 transaction that never was. It is nice to see my comparative statistics green for a change although they're ficticious too..... 😞

[ypdc_dennis]

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@ricarmic wrote:
... It is most crazy that the system will let someone put a best offer in that is larger than the original amount but it appears that is the case. ....

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Not quite crazy, I've had offers that also included shipping cost as part of the offer details or included a second item as part of a bundle offer.

However, eBay really should warn the best-offer maker that they are over the asking price for the listing.

-..-

[femmefan1946]

the buyer eventually submitted an offer that was HIGHER than my initial counteroffer so I sold the item at that price... It was bizarre.

Which has overtones of a known scam where the scammer sends a (bad) cheque for more than the asking price, and the seller is supposed to hand over the item plus change to the scammer's agent.

But as they say in the old country, "There's nane sae queer as fowk."

[momcqueen]

As a seller, you get a big ERROR message when you try to counter-offer at a price higher than the current BIN so it seems odd that it would let the buyer make an offer higher than the BIN. 

[ricarmic]

Hey YPDC I should have thought of that, I could have offered to include an awful lot of extra stamps for the extra $3,000!!!

I most surely would have loved to have had a real $4,000 sale, things have been quite slow for me since easter weekend (Saturday)....picking up a bit now but still not great...

[zee-chan-jpn-books]

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@femmefan1946 wrote:

the buyer eventually submitted an offer that was HIGHER than my initial counteroffer so I sold the item at that price... It was bizarre.

Which has overtones of a known scam where the scammer sends a (bad) cheque for more than the asking price, and the seller is supposed to hand over the item plus change to the scammer's agent.

But as they say in the old country, "There's nane sae queer as fowk."

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I only take PayPal so it wasn't the case lol. I got paid just fine.