eBay has been quiet about a problem that is causing draft listings to disappear. On Tuesday, it created a ticket and posted it on a thread devoted to technical issues under investigation.
But some sellers question why eBay hasn’t been more proactive in letting sellers know about the problem, saying it would have spared them the headache (and heartache) of losing their drafts.
Years ago, eBay used to post alerts on the Technical Issue board, but that has been replaced with a dumbed-down dashboard.
Now, eBay uses that dedicated thread on its forums that sellers may not know about or think to check until after they experience a problem.
Nevertheless, sellers who were aware of it found it helpful – but now eBay hasn’t been updating the thread, according to some sellers. One user with the User ID Wastingtime101 went into great detail about the value of the thread and how it helps eBay as much as it helps eBay sellers.
“I worked with Tyler a while back to get that pinned post up because having access to the site-wide tech ticket number meant we could streamline our contact with CS and save tons of time when reporting a problem on our account – just give them the ticket number, account name and other necessary info. A 30 min call whittled down to a 5 min call or a single message sent through social media.”
Wastingtime101 explained what it takes for eBay to create a ticket and prioritize it, and urged sellers to report problems when they encounter them:
“In order for a site-wide ticket to be created, a certain percent/number of IDs have to contact CS to report the same issue.
“All those account-specific tickets need to be reported correctly by the CS agent so they can be connected – this can sometimes mean getting past language barriers, lack of tech knowledge from both user and CS, inability to recognize cause of problem, etc so the problem is correctly identified/reported.
“Once enough people report a problem and those individual tickets can be connected to the same issue, a site-wide ticket is created. Depending on the severity of the issue and how many people are reporting it, the higher priority the ticket will get for a fix.
“This is why it’s so important to report tech issues to CS and not dismiss it as too much of a hassle, a waste of time, or rely on others to do the reporting. The more people reporting, the better chance it will get a site-wide ticket and higher priority for a fix.”
We wrote about the problem of disappearing drafts in Monday’s AuctionBytes Blog post. Because each deleted draft can represent an enormous amount of preparation work, sellers have suggested eBay compensate sellers, such as a seller who wrote in part, “Why I ask when there is an issue like this an Alert is not flashed on screen when viewing your account to advise the problem and suggest ways to avoid. It’s happened from what I can see on the Community before. Yes I am frustrated and do hope EBay compensates those effected.”
In a letter to EcommerceBytes, another seller also asked why eBay hadn’t been proactive about alerting sellers to the problem and wrote, “I can’t help but wonder if eBay needs to be held responsible for these problems and start reimbursing sellers for the extra work they are creating.”
The Technical Issues thread says the following about reporting issues and about the specific issue regarding deleted drafts:
If you are impacted by one or multiple of these please consider contacting Customer Support (link here) to be added to the open tickets.
We have included the reference number for these reports to help your contact to CS be as quick as possible – provide the teammate the applicable Reference ID, and have the required information on hand so they can include it as well.
Sellers are claiming all their drafts were removed only the current draft were left (January 10, 2023)
Reference ID: ALERT14357
Provide Member ID:
Provide Screenshot:
Sample Draft:
Created Date:
Funny. None of my drafts have disappeared. Of course, I only have a handful so maybe that’s not enough to take up too much space on eBay’s server storage?
“I’ve created a ticket” is eBay-speak for “I really don’t want to talk to you any longer, so I’m going to give you a meaningless code number so I can get off the phone with you.”
I once saw an eBay rep post on eBay’s discussion boards about an issue I was having. They said if you were having the same issue to go into the chat and report it to a rep with the number provided. I did so, and the rep in the chat asked me what I wanted them to do with the number I gave them!
Ebay does one thing great, creating tickets for something that doesn’t work and passing them into the dark hole of some obscure office in the basement. That is ebays was of getting rid of the fool on the phone. Its works per cent of the time.