posted on March 29, 2001 02:47:32 PM new
[I posted this message on eBay's forums as well. It pertains to problems with PayPal's winning bidder notification service, including the troubling problem where PayPal emails winning bidders of past eBay auctions and of eBay reserve price auctions where the reserve price has not been met. My eBay id is calvinsauctions and my email is [email protected]]
I have a similar "horror story" with this new PayPal "service." Last night, I registered and opted-in to this service (yes - my mistake), assuming that it would send out a message with my customizations to winning bidders IN THE FUTURE.
I define "winning bidders" as bidders who have met the reserve price of the auction listing.
This morning I awoke to the realization that PayPal had decided to indiscriminately send out email messages, in my name, to high bidders IN THE PAST, days and days in the past, including high bidders who have NOT MET THE RESERVE PRICE for the auction listing. Furthermore, PayPal didn't send out the emails with the customizations I had made, but just sent out the generic PayPal email.
I spent the next hour going to through my email box and reviewing my past listings to email winning bidders who had already paid, assuring them that their payments had been received, and explaining to non-winning high bidders of the past (those who had not met the reserve price) that the email was sent in mistake and because the reserve price was not met, the item would not be sold to them.
In short, a nightmare. I am still trying to figure out how far back in the past PayPal has decided to send emails. I've ascertained that they've sent emails to bidders who won on 03.25 - nearly FOUR DAYS EARLIER than when I opted-in for the winning bidder service. I would be interested to know if other sellers had emails sent for them even earlier than those four days.
Needless to say, I promptly disabled this feature from my PayPal account.
[to PayPal: I would and other users may like to know how many days back in past PayPal is going in sending out these emails, and if PayPal could have a "oops! we made a mistake" email feature available for past bidders who should never have received the email].
posted on March 29, 2001 06:38:02 PM new
Hi everyone,
We have read several of your questions and complaints regarding Paypal's decision to automatically email end of auction notices to buyers. I wanted to take a minute to let you know that as a partner of AuctionWatch, PayPal already appears in your AuctionWatch Winning Bidder Notifications (WBNs) if you have selected them as an online payment provider. Our experience and the surveys we conduct consistently indicate that sellers and buyers appreciate the opportunity to transact using a variety of payment choices. For this reason, our WBNs cover a wide variety of payment options for sellers to offer their buyers, including money orders, checks, and of course online payments such as PayPal and BillPoint. Our WBN has been offered for several months as part of our Post Sale Management process that includes not only payments, but also shipping options, streamlined feedback posting, and the ability to print packing slips and mailing labels.
To avoid any confusion for your buyers that may result from receiving multiple sales notifications, you may want to consider only sending the AuctionWatch WBN that offers a variety of payment and shipping options. You can verify that your AuctionWatch WBN is turned on here https://secure.auctionwatch.com/my/acct/psm.html. You can adjust your PayPal settings by logging into Paypal, then entering this link https://secure.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_profile-autolink&wbn=1 . Should you have questions for PayPal, you may contact their customer service by e-mail [email protected] or phone (888) 221-1161.
If you are already using our WBNs, we appreciate the opportunity to make your lives a little easier. If you would like more information or would like to start using this service, please see the following link http://wsacp.auctionwatch.com/my/acp/pse_upsell.html.
(In general, I don't resort to a cut-and-paste approach, but I do need to in this instance. I do thank you all for your comments and suggestions, as they allow us to become a stronger service, while also giving us the ability to tackle your issues quickly.)
The issue surrounding Winning Bidder Notification has generated a great deal of concern on the boards.
Some earlier threads (before Wednesday) mentioned PayPal's email announcing this feature. Apparently, due to a technical error, this announcement email did not reach the impacted user base as early as intended and this has led to a fair amount of surprise and some complaints.
Winning bidder notification is currently not live and there is a change being made to make sure the messaging is as strong as possible. Modifications are being made to make the feature opt-in (instead of the current opt-out) to make up for the deficiency in the messaging not received by our users.
PayPal is dedicated to making features that are useful to you, so that you can do your transactions as quickly and efficiently as possible, and we do apologize for any inconvenience that the release of this feature has had. We hope you find Winning Bidder Notification a useful addition to the suite of PayPal auction tools!
As it relates to how the service works, please read the following:
PayPal's free, new feature, Winning Bidder Notification, just like PayPal's other automated auction tools (in fact, like all third-party vendor auction tool services, including AuctionWatch, Andale, Honesty, etc.) require the willing participation of the auction seller to allow us to access their auctions and perform certain tasks on their behalf -- such as updating logos, providing automated payment requests, and now, alerting winning bidders that the seller prefers to be paid through PayPal.
While we suspect most sellers will appreciate this new time-saving tool that will help increase their sales conversions and increase the use of their preferred payment service -- the only service that provides sellers protection from costly chargebacks and 1.5% cash back on debit card use -- there is no requirement that sellers take advantage of it.
![PAYPAL WBN [winner bidder notification] PROBLEMS!](/img/header/logo/vendio_logo_tag_2009.gif){kind=logo}
