The Register has an eye-catching eBay-related headline today, yelling that an eBay glitch wipes out 11 year-old account without a trace. They mention two accounts: stefan which they claim has vanished completely, and amishtaxi which they acknowledge has been restored to its owner.
The slightly less exciting truth is that stefan has his account back too. While any kind of problem with one’s eBay account is terrifying, the fact is that glitches do happen. Keeping regular backups of all your own eBay data in a safe place (just using Turbo Lister’s backup isn’t really enough) keeps your business more independent of eBay’s systems and ensures that you can restore it if they remove it. Any professional seller should have more than one selling ID: you don’t want a temporary glitch on one account to cut off your income. And, for the sake of your own sanity, don’t expect instant solutions from eBay Support: always have a plan B to follow while they sort things out.
The Reg finishes up with an even less spectacular story about someone who believes she bought some beads on eBay. Her PayPal account has been debited, but the transaction doesn’t show up in her My eBay. I’d bet money that what this buyer has done is to click the “Pay Now” PayPal button on the listing: this is a very well known problem going back years, that allows the buyer to just pay without having bought the item through eBay.
There are plenty of glitches on eBay, and plenty of problems which are seriously impacting on sellers and their businesses. Sadly, The Register’s perennial desire to put the boot into eBay has distracted them here, and they’re just fighting paper tigers.
