eevBLAB #22 - Ebay is BROKEN! - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 21, 2016, 08:20:24 am
content: Ebay Australia is BROKEN!, and Dave isn't happy.Half the test equipment categories are either screwed up or not functional. What the hell is going on?

author: AndreasF
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 21, 2016, 08:45:22 am
content: Similar issues with ebay.co.ukGoing for the "Business, Office & Industrial > Electrical & Test Equipment > Test & Measurement Equipment > Oscilloscopes" section returns no results.Multimeters are OK, though.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 21, 2016, 09:01:05 am
content: Quote from: AndreasF on May 21, 2016, 08:45:22 amInsane!

author: kb0nly
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 21, 2016, 09:15:49 am
content: Seems fine in the US for now at least.Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

author: dmg
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 21, 2016, 09:47:17 am
content: Same for ebay Spain. As a bonus they enforced automatic translation of listings titles and sometimes descritpions. You can't turn it off and the translation quality is as bad as it gets. At least the search engine still works in english...

author: Towger
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 21, 2016, 10:11:48 am
content: The eBay app is another piece of crap. It has a fraction of side the search capabilites. Older versions at least properly used searches saved on the Web site, but the last few updates don't. You can't even search for items sold as 'Spares or Repairs', they now come under 'Used'.It also no longer handles country searches correctly, no doubt rewritten by people in America who just use eBay.com.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 21, 2016, 10:28:26 am
content: Quote from: wilfred on May 21, 2016, 10:25:27 amAh, thanks. Deliberate and recent. Explains everything except why it's so buggy and basically broken.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 21, 2016, 11:45:00 am
content: Count yourself lucky. In the NL there is just a category called 'test equipment' under business & industrial. Has been like that for years.

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 21, 2016, 01:49:46 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on May 21, 2016, 10:28:26 amAhhhh ... no ....That is explained in full right here..........Quote from: wilfred on May 21, 2016, 10:25:27 amCall me cynical - but they do provide a lot of material.

author: joseph nicholas
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 21, 2016, 03:55:44 pm
content: I wish ebay would let you search by country.

author: malekia
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 21, 2016, 04:15:26 pm
content: What is that text in the "From AU" box? Is that normal? I don't see that on (US) Ebay, Firefox or Chrome.

author: botcrusher
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 21, 2016, 04:43:14 pm
content: Quote from: Towger on May 21, 2016, 10:11:48 amYeah, the mobile app is definitely broken. It's updated about 5 times in the last two weeks, each time tweaking the UI and making it near impossible to communicate with the seller.I wanted to communicate with a seller about shipping timeAND IT AUTOMATICALLY OPENED A CASE!

author: bitwelder
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 21, 2016, 06:12:56 pm
content: Quote from: malekia on May 21, 2016, 04:15:26 pmThat's the LastPass plugin icon. It detected that there are 9+ valid entries for that website (though, in this case it has mistakenly taken a price field input for a login one).

author: Skimask
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 21, 2016, 06:46:40 pm
content: Noticed that last Tuesday (5 days ago). They fucked it up royally.P.S. I can't find the EEVBLOG BM235 via the US ebay but I haven't looked very hard. Doesn't come up with a search from the base ebay page.

author: altaic
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 22, 2016, 03:41:05 am
content: Quote from: Skimask on May 21, 2016, 06:46:40 pmI noticed the same thing. Tried all sorts of stuff, and it doesn't appear to be there.

author: bitseeker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2016, 05:24:49 am
content: Quote from: Brumby on May 21, 2016, 01:49:46 pmAt least the Australia site got an announcement of the changes. On the US sitehttp://announcements.ebay.com/, no news, just chaos.

author: Muttley Snickers
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 22, 2016, 05:41:28 am
content: I gave up searching for it because during the process I was finding way too many other gadgets that I didn't need yet started to save them in a list.Oh look I just found it again.http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/EEVblog-Brymen-BM235-Multimeter-/222125712857

author: screwbreaker
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2016, 09:44:38 am
content: Quote from: Skimask on May 21, 2016, 06:46:40 pmI got the same on ebay.it yesterday. And now I can't find it on ebay.com.au too.Plus, according to ebay the user eevblogstore has no items for sale:even if there are 7 available at the moment.I think there are more than category changes.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 22, 2016, 09:57:29 am
content: Quote from: screwbreaker on May 22, 2016, 09:44:38 amThey sold out. I could only list 10 for the month being a new store.Got my account limit upgraded, and can only list another 7 this month!

author: station240
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 22, 2016, 10:10:52 am
content: Industrial > Electrical > Power Suppliesis also screwed up, and that covers everything from DC-DC converters to bench supplies, to transformers.Ebay are monumentally stupid.

author: Muttley Snickers
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 22, 2016, 11:18:07 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on May 22, 2016, 09:57:29 amIs it permissible to place a link on the Ebay listing back to the main EEVblog site/store either permanently or just for the interim period ?, there is already a link to the PDF manual but some may find the meter via Ebay then start to wander off if no other options are available should you max out again, it is possible that some potential purchasers will not even know about EEVblog/forum/videos/etc such as plumbers, auto electricians and so on.

author: HwAoRrDk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2016, 11:59:13 am
content: In recent years, eBay have been just ****ing awful with the consistency and reliability of functionality of their stuff. It's like they don't do any QA or testing on their code. Finished development of a new feature? Hey, let's just hit the button to deploy to the live servers - no worries, she'll be right!I got extremely pissed off with eBay just a month or so ago, when I was lucky enough to experience a farcical sequence of broken crap.Using their API for developers, I was trying to write some code to retrieve listings for a certain seller for products in a certain category with particular attributes. Despite being able to browse this seller's store and see that they hadmanyproducts meeting the criteria, the API search results would only return a random half-dozen results.Again using one part of their API, if you tried to specify the method name of the operation you wanted to perform in an HTTP header, you'd get an error. Even though the docs specify this is a supported option. It only works if you put the method name as a query string parameter. So either the docs are blatantly wrong, or the implementation is screwed.Being the good little boy I am, I thought I should at least try and notify them, file a bug report, or whatever. Try and log in to the developer portal. Can't, because the damn login page is utterly broken! Nothing would happen when you try and log in. Just a little spinner animation for a few seconds, then nothing.Alright, let's try and get some help with this login problem. For that you're directed to a contact form. I fill it in - blah blah, can't login, page broken, etc. Get down to the CAPTCHA image and it's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. There is supposedly a series of characters shown, but some of them aresosmall they're just 3-pixel-high blobs. I had to refresh the thing about 3 times before I got even a vaguely legible one.Eventually, form submitted. But, all that happened was I got redirected back to the main developer portal home page. No confirmation, no 'thank you', no message, nothing. Was my form submitted successfully? Who the hell knows.It doesn't surprise me one bit that they would now mess up the browsing of products in categories in an attempt to reorganise their category hierarchy.

author: uncle_bob
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 22, 2016, 01:43:01 pm
content: HiWell, just *try* to buy anything from Russia or the surrounding countries. At least if you are in the US, you get a cryptic "something went wrong" message. No explanation. No FAQ. No practical way (other than Google) to figure out what the crap DID go wrong. Not quite sure why we have the Ukraine under eBay embargo, but apparently we do.Bob

author: linux-works
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2016, 01:53:19 pm
content: I had a job interview at ebay, in san jose (corp HQ and main development site) about a year ago.let me just say, seeing the inside of the place, how they treat everyone and who they hire - well, I understand how their software quality is, uhm, 'outsource quality'.just being there for the interview, it felt quite a lot like a sweat shop.look, you pay peanuts and you get monkeys. this is not rocket science. and since tech companies ONLY care about 'how little can I get pay to get any work done', this is the end result.this isn't just ebay. its all of software 'engineering'. I don't expect good designs or implementations anymore. and it won't be getting any better, either, over time. if anything, this trend of underpaying and overworking people is still on the race-to-the-bottom track.

author: SilverSolder
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2016, 02:39:03 pm
content: eBay is a good example of a "natural monopoly", i.e. a monopoly where the barriers to entry give the largest supplier (often the first supplier) in a market an overwhelming advantage over potential competitors. We are beginning to see the results of the lack of competition.eBay is definitely decaying technically. Look at the loss of ability to use wildcard characters in searches, for example. And then there is the hopeless amounts of bugs, including the ones Dave pointed out. The mobile app started out pretty good but has been "dumbed down" to become nearly useless (I stopped using it several versions ago). My (admittedly old) browser hasn't been able to "auto log in" to Ebay for about 6 months now, due to some non-standard feature of their login page that stops it working.Another irritating "dumbing down" of eBay is how much "air" there is on their pages - no matter how large your monitor, you will only see 4 search results (or records of any type actually, including My Ebay) on a page before you have to scroll - totally crazymaking how they can waste so much space, treating a big PC as if it only has the same space as a mobile phone.

author: uncle_bob
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 22, 2016, 03:32:50 pm
content: HiBoy I really do miss the good old days when they were much more technically on top of it all. That was back when the whole site crashed about once a day and individual auctions regularly locked everybody out in the last couple of minutes ....====Indeed they are not as good as they should be given their resources and scale. They are nowhere near as bad as they once were.Bob

author: Carl_Smith
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2016, 06:06:13 pm
content: I've been selling on eBay for almost a year now, and it's unbelievable how many stupid problems they have that they can't seem to fix.I have also had the problem where the auto-login doesn't work. I use KeyPass and KeyFox plugin in Firefox, but there is something about the eBay login page that prevents KeyFox from entering the login info. A small issue, but it gets annoying when you have to log in so often.Another problem is that every once in a while it just forgets the second line of my return address on the packages I ship. This line has my apartment number. It just disappears. I go to my "ship from" address in my account setup and find there are like 100 duplicate addresses in there all without the second line and one with it. I spend ages deleting each one and waiting for the page to refresh between each time I click a "delete this address" link, and finally get it back down to the one correct address. It will be fine for a few days to a month or so, then it happens again.Sending messages to eBay support is equivalent to sending to /dev/null. I've never EVER received a response from their customer service.I do get a response if I tweet to @AskEbay. They respond quite quickly but often seem to be unable to address the issues, like the address issue. When I complain on twitter to @AskEbay about customer service not responding to messages they tell me to call the customer support phone number. Really? I don't want to talk to a person, I just want to send a message, where I can write what I need to say without some phone person insisting on following some script that doesn't pertain to why I'm calling.Then there are all their new policies to make things difficult for the seller. I had one buyer who wanted to return an item. From his message it was clear he had no idea what he bought or how to use it. I had the listing set as "No Returns." That doesn't matter to eBay. If the buyer says the item was defective or not as advertised they will let the buyer return it anyway and charge the seller for shipping, which is what the buyer did. I ranted to eBay about that and they said they are trying to create the best experience for buyers. I complained that I shouldn't have to pay return shipping since the item worked fine, and now I have an open item returned that I can't sell as new. They refunded the return shipping cost.So then I started listing my stuff with 14 day returns. At least that way I can specify that the buyer pays return shipping. After nearly a year and 170 packages shipped with only one return and one late shipping (post office's fault) they "awarded" me "Top Rated Seller" status. Except that the top rated seller logo won't appear on any of my listings unless I offer 30 day returns. Guess that doesn't matter since I've never had a buyer return an item except for that one guy who didn't know what he bought. So I changed all my stuff to 30 day returns.Oh, I offer all my stuff with free shipping. Nobody seems to want to buy cell phone batteries and commodity stuff like that if you don't. But I noticed on lots of my listings the "Free Shipping" logo was not appearing. It turns out that if I just click the "offer free shipping" check box, most of the time that orange "free shipping" symbol they overlay on the corner of the pictures doesn't show. But I found if I checked that I wanted to specify my own shipping and enter the size and weight of the package, wait for it to tell me an estimated cost, then check the box that lets me specify a cost, enter zero, then click back to the first tab and check the box that says "free shipping" then the logo will show on the images.And don't even get me started on their eBay VeRO program crap where anyone who lays claim to a trademark can kill any listing on eBay they don't like with no recourse for the seller. If I rant about that it will be another 4 paragraphs to tell that story.

author: KJDS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 22, 2016, 07:23:03 pm
content: I'm glad that I've gone back to designing stuff.

author: switch998
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2016, 03:26:40 am
content: Oh man, this bug doesn't even scratch the surface. eBay has been broken for so incredibly long.My "favorite" bug is when you try to list something that's $1000+. Putting a comma in the the price (as one normally would) will cause the form validation javascript to freeze, requiring a refresh of the page, erasing your entire listing. It's always fun to do a listing twice.

author: bitseeker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2016, 04:37:44 am
content: Next year will be my 20th year on eBug. It's a wonder I still have hair.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 23, 2016, 11:20:06 am
content: ebay.be for some time, I was not able to scroll down the search results on 2 or 3 different browsers (yes, because thanks to standardization, you need those) for some months.How impotent stupid do you have to be as a site runner, not to find that problem and fix it. Did they even go to their website at all?And the listings are shit. And no english website. Like that is something that you dont do in 21 century, in a country, where 15% of population is born somewhere else (and was stupid enough to come here)

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 23, 2016, 11:22:35 am
content: Quote from: Muttley Snickers on May 22, 2016, 11:18:07 amEBay don't allow links on listings. They are paranoid that a seller might draw buyers away from their bottom line... but THEY will drop crap all over the place - even offering adverts to competing merchant websites. But that's ok - because they're getting paid.But don'tyouventure there!

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 26, 2016, 05:37:49 am
content: So it turns out a Systems Manager at @eBay is a fan, saw my video about the category FAIL, SHTF inside ebay, & it's now fixed.You're welcome world

author: Towger
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 26, 2016, 06:40:56 am
content: Any chance of getting the app searches fixed? I tried finding a direct contact for them, but could only find developers profiles on LinkedIn. If I was responsible for that app I would not be boasting in public about it. They obviously didn't use it to find obscure items if interest.

author: bitseeker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 26, 2016, 05:49:57 pm
content: I guess the rest of eBay makes so much money, our broken little corner of it didn't even make a noticeable dent.

author: uncle_bob
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 27, 2016, 11:50:07 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on May 26, 2016, 05:37:49 amHiSo obviously the answer to all this is to have "some really big important guy" complain about it.Bob

author: bitseeker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 27, 2016, 09:43:22 pm
content: As well as have that big guy make a video about it and put it on YouTube.

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 29, 2016, 06:04:31 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on May 26, 2016, 05:37:49 amYou found a Dilbert inside eBay?!!!!!!!!!Keep them on side!