A weird thing happened and it's got me totally flummoxed.
I've been routinely ending my Store GTC listings just before they roll over (gradually moving away from eBay and over to Etsy). I then run an AW update, and the Profile for the ended listings is changed to my Pull profile at which time I also change their Status from Off Line to Hold. Later, I generate the Pull Report and remove them from inventory.
One item that was ended about ten days ago and removed from stock the following day sold on eBay last night. I couldn't believe it when I got the sale notification and the Paypal payment! Its AW record had been deleted, but thanks to AW's versatility, I was able to recreate the Lot and generate an Invoice. Thank goodness the item hadn't hit the trash can yet.
Ok, so that's the first puzzle -- that something which I'd ended was still active on eBay (and AW wouldn't have allowed me to change its Profile or its Status unless it had recognized it as Off Line in the update; and I never had more examples of this item -- never listed a duplicate). The listing page has no images! I can only assume the buyer had seen it before it ended and knew what it looked like. But how did they manage to use the BIN on an ended listing???
Now, some other mysteries.
The eBay Item-Sold notification included the buyer's actual email address. I haven't received an EOA for at least 3 months with the buyer's email address. If you click Reply on the new EOAs, the To address is always something like buyer@members.ebay.com. For this weird sale, it was the buyer's actual email address.
Last night, I notified the buyer I'd received their payment, and today, they send two messages:
(1) [responding to my letting them know, via My Messages, that their email address is bouncing back; they seem to think they'd sent an inquiry about the price; they obviously don't know they already bought and paid for the item] "sorry, we just moved and have not set up email...I wanted to ask if your price is firm on this [old thing]?"
Huh?!! The price was $1.98, so I guess it's possible they'd seen someone else's higher-priced listing and had mine mixed up with the other one.
(2) [ok, now I guess they went back and checked the listing; basically this question proves it had ended] "o.k., now I really am sorry....I was wondering if you are relisting this [old thing], or may I still purchase it at end of auction price?"
If you visit the listing now, it shows this person as the buyer, shows they submitted payment, and there are still no images (because my image host took them down a week after the listing ended).
And I'm still waiting for them to reply to my informing them that they DID buy it and DID pay and it's going to be shipped today. The buyer has over 2200 FB ratings, all positive.
By the way, I checked and as of right now, there are no other listings for the same item (it's not something totally unique; ordinarily, you'd expect to see 2 or 3), and mine is the only completed sale of this item that shows up. Any thoughts?
Sue
An update:
The buyer wrote:
"Sorry to act so confused...I thought I had bid on this but end of auction showed "no bids". I have been watching several ads and lost track."
So she saw the listing at some point when it had ended but showed "no bids" -- yet she won it. Curiousier and curiousier. Edited by tictictic_OnEbay on 09/28/10 06:26 PM (server time).
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You are right about the buyer's email address -- it is in the EOA. What I was thinking of is the messages sent via My Messages -- can't reply directly to those any more.
This item was absolutely, positively not listed twice. There is no other example of it in my AW database in any Status.
And remember that the buyer said she saw the listing had ended with no bids and wanted to know if she could still buy it............but she already had.
Another peculiarity showed up tonight. I tried to leave Feedback, but it was rejected by eBay, saying no such member. Turns out the buyer's email address is in the User ID field (can't change it).
Sue
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