PayPal glitch fails to record small number of eBay sales

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PayPal Bug BountyWe’ve been contacted by Susan, an eBay seller who tells us of a glitch where sales are showing up in PayPal but not on eBay.

Susan only became aware of the issue when she received a PayPal notification email but noticed that there was no corresponding sale for that item on eBay.

eBay tell us that this looks like an issue which is affecting a very small number of payments. They are working with Paypal to get this fixed and are also going to be asking customers to contact PayPal as it looks like the root cause (and the solution for the customer) is with them.

This scenario is caused when the transmission to update/confirm the payment from PayPal fails. This can be because of site maintenance, outage etc.

Whilst we know that this is a real pain in the neck, it’s worth keeping an eye on PayPal payments in case an unrecorded eBay transaction slips through. Now that we know it’s an issue with PayPal we’d expect eBay to remove any defects caused by late shipments or unhappy customers that don’t receive their items… that is of course if the buyer is even able to open an eBay case which may be doubtful seeing as there’s no recorded transaction.

9 Responses

  1. “that is of course if the buyer is even able to open an eBay case which may be doubtful seeing as there’s no recorded transaction.”

    We had this issue in November, and the customer contacted us as they had received no email confirmation from ebay and transaction wasn’t visible in their ebay purchases.

    As a plus, there would be no ebay fees.

  2. We had an issue overnight where we sold 3 of the same item to 2 buyers (1 UK buyer bought 2 quantity, and 1 European buyer bought 1 quantity).

    However, we only listed quantity of 2 (and I’ve double checked this)

    I wonder if it’s related?

    S.

  3. Yes, we had one this morning – fortunately the customer contacted us because she hadn’t received an eBay confirmation.
    She tells me she had no joy with either eBay or PayPal who were not able to help her.

  4. It is so annoying. I have been watching this closely since the 19th of January. All my transactions are PayPal paid but no record with Ebay. PayPal was extremely unhelpful, ebay sellers are confused and I am left without the things i NEED! if anyone gets smarter please post so I could take additional action and get the things I ordered.

  5. I can confirm we’ve been affected too – a buyer just got in contact (he said that lots of his purchases didn’t go through correctly this week – I would never have known otherwise).

    >> eBay tell us that this looks like an issue which is affecting a very small number of payments

    Some transparency / clarity would be nice – I think the issue may be more widespread than PP / eBay are admitting to.

    S.

  6. and apparenlty, ebay also failing to notify us in any way shape or form when returns / cases are opened.
    just heard from a customer who it looks like i’ve ignored for four days, because ebay never mentioned he’d opened a case.
    – luckily a decent sensible customer who contacted us before escalating, another couple days ebay would have refunded him without return.

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