It’s difficult to know what the deal is, quite literally. But quite a few people have contacted Tamebay today with details of a promotion.
Apparently there was a discount code – CTWENTY – offering 20% off BIN buys promoted by eBay UK on Monday.
That’s pretty much all we know for sure. And as one seller we know said on Facebook: “Why wouldn’t a retailer with over a million quid of BIN listings be made aware of this in advance? I would be shouting at sellers from the rooftops about how the marketplace was boosting sales.”
It wasn’t offered to all buyers, as far as we can see, and it also wasn’t universally available to anyone who found the code online. Moreover, it seems from reports that it was quite quickly withdrawn, even from those given the initial opportunity. There are lots of questions.
Judging by forum comments some people bagged the discount. Others didn’t and, quite possibly, it was withdrawn from use later on Monday. What do you know?
What was your experience? Did you bag a bargain? Were you a seller who benefited? All intel happily received.
18 Responses
I bagged a bargain! I was emailed the code yesterday morning, directly from eBay, so got myself a new full set of colour toner cartridges yesterday, costing £85.00 with 20% off. Saved £17. Thanks eBay!
I got an email directly from eBay offering the code, deliberated over what to use it on, placed my oder and the code was invalid so received no discount 🙁
Had a direct email code, tried to use it late afternoon and it was rejected, tried several times until nearly midnight each time the code was rejected. Thanks Ebay
tried to no avail. Said ‘ no balance left on redemption code’. Tried to contact them but waiting time was ages. Wasted time trying to find something to purchase – thanks Ebay!
I heard about it yesterday afternoon. I tried it on two different accounts and got the error as above.
The community manager on eBay said that the error was a technical glitch and they were working on it and it seemed to get fixed around 8:30pm. I tried it again and it worked, bagged myself £26 off something I had my eye on.
I was told via ask eBay on Twitter that the offer was oversubscribed and withdrawn. Like many frustrated buyers I couldn’t use it after happily filling my basket with goodies, thanks a bunch eBay!
Got the email yesterday morning, tried it and it failed so spoke to customer services.
Discount only for those who received email, and not to place order until code working again,or would not get discount.
Eventually managed to place order with discount applied at 9-40pm, discount for me showed on paypal straight away and also amount expected was debited to my credit card.
Just short of £50 saved.
its absolutely chronic the garbage coming out of ebay 24/7, while they hold us up to an unrealistic standard.
if ebay had to deal with ebay DSR’s, they’d be banned from their own site permanently.
Complete and utter shambles. Tried to use code throughout the entire day with no success. Almost impossible to contact ebay to discuss, massive queues in live chat. Eventually stopped taking live chat at night. I have written to trading standards as it hasn’t been first time ebay have pulled a stunt like this. Complete joke of a company!
I tried to put it through around 10pm last night and failed. The wait time for a call from ebay would have taken me to about 1 in the morning, so that shows you the volume of problems. I didn’t put the order through. The message shown on the site at this time said.
Our coupon campaign today has proven to be hugely successful with customers and the promotion exceeded all our expectations. Due to huge customer demand, this discount coupon is no longer available and we apologise to any customers who have been unable to participate. We know our buyers love to shop and we regularly offer discount promotions so there will be more opportunities in future.
I phoned ebay to get a number to make an official complaint this afternoon, and had every intention of contacting trading standards, as I honestly think this is sharp practice by ebay,to entice buyers. I was pleasantly surprised to be told by the Irish call centre that we would get the discount today, and just to call when we were putting the purchase through, and they would arrange that the discount be credited to our Paypal account. As the ebay account is in my husband’s name, he had to make the call. When we called at 6.30pm the Irish call centre I originally went through to had logged off, and Indonesia had logged on. We were told in no uncertain terms that we would get no discount!
I intend to report this matter to local trading standards. We are waiting for a call back tomorrow – I’m so glad they record phone calls, I want the recording from this afternoon when I was told categorically that we could get the discount today. In spite of this, I was told that even if this was what we had been told, we still wouldn’t get the discount! Both call centres tried to tell us there was a technical glitch which was why the code wouldn’t work (in spite of the above message being clearly shown), and I genuinely think this is some sort disreputable practice to pull punters in, and when the algorithm tells them sales have gone past a certain point, they switch the voucher to invalid, because a good amount of people will still put the order through because by that time they have mentally bought the item.
In any case, the email said nothing about it being a limited offer, any right to withdraw the offer , or anything similar. I’m totally disgusted by the money grabbing machine which is ebay.
Ebay bid logged but no money taken.
Inbox
x
Nigel cockburn
20:48 (2 hours ago)
Reply
to me
eBay
Hello professorbuysalot
Fashion Home & Garden Electronics
Motors Daily Deals Nectar
Free UK Delivery
Free Click & Collect
eBay Money Back Guarantee
Live Customer Service
20% OFF WHEN YOU SPEND
£20 OR MORE ON EBAY
ENDS MIDNIGHT
MAX COUPON VALUE £50
COUPON CODE: CTWENTY
How To Redeem Your Voucher
HOW TO REDEEM YOUR VOUCHER
Nigel cockburn
11:52 (8 hours ago)
Reply
Hello ebay staff,
I wish to thank you for the above offer of 20% off purchases over £20.
I am pleased to confirm for you that I was pleased to accept it yesterday.
In fact, I purchased (or at least I bid for the Buy it Now price) for some laptop / notebook memory from a supplier in Jersey.
I had spent many hours checking the exact technical specifications of every similar memory item that you had advertised to establish the correct specifications for the choice of SODIMM and I bid just before midnight, using ebay UK countdown time!
When I clicked on the bid button, I entered the code that you sent to me and then the pc screen displayed a message to the effect that I had used all of the credit balance on the code – as my purchase was for £85.99 ie over the £50 ceiling.
The details of my bid are:
Kingston 16GB(2x 8GB) DDR3 1600MHz PC3-12800 (204 PIN) SO-DIMM MEMORY 1.35v
( 371326730031 )
memorycard77786739Feedback percentage of99.3%
I am mailing you because I have just discovered that payment for the memory was not taken from my Paypal account.
Further investigation suggests that the vendor did not receive my bid.
I did bid for this item and your server must presumably have that bid recorded?
Your accounts system must also have recorded my using the offer code that you had mailed to me – to its full extent?
I ask if you can please recover my bid and facilitate the purchase for me, also I worry in case there is a bad purchaser signal raised against me? as I had deliberately linked my DEBIT card to paypal so that I would never receive pore payment accusations.
Thank you from Nigel.
ebay cant copy the time from auction to watching list correctly.
ebay cant count the characters remaining in feedback box.
ebay always get number of characters remaining wrong by different amounts.
ebay never reply to messages.
ebay deliberately try not to allow complaints to be made.
ebay never action complaints.
ebay send out con codes to dupe people into bidding for things that ebay never intended to honor.
ebay is clearly just another scam site now – shame as it used to be quite good.
Also – ebay cant get the ADVANCED search working even as a basic search as every time you set the “ADVANCED” criteria it resets with the carriage return key.