"Transaction Blocked"

i dont know, i'm only speculating, but possibly the seller didn't want to risk having all the items that he was selling be "won" by a single buyer such that if the buyer defaulted then the seller would be tasked to go through the whole auction process again . . . i think that the seller might have a way to not accept certain buyers, for example if a seller had previous bad experience with a high bidder (although that doesn't sound like you provided any bad experiences to anyone).

Thanks Psalmone for your input. That is actually understandable from the viewpoint that today was my first experience though I did email over the weekend letting them know that I was going to be bidding on a lot and we were discussing shipping options etc. But you may be right!

I had no idea sellers can block Auction Sniper bids.. that's really interesting... Wow, they're in for a shocker tomorrow then, because I'm going after about 7 or 8 of their auctions...

hello sue . . . once again, i'm just guessing, if you and the seller actually communicated with each other via emails then i would not have thought that they would have taken an action like that . . . especially if you tell them that you'd like to win several auctions and combine them to save on s&h; although last week i had 1 ebay seller email me several times AFTER i had won that they would not allow me to combine and save on shipping and handling . . . they only wanted a very modest amount for s&h and it was still worth it to me; but i'll leave feedback for them after i recieve the items . . . i've learned that some sellers markup the s&h and set it as a high fixed $ amount so as to reduce the commissions that they would otherwise have to pay ebay and also to possibly catch unsuspecting buyers . . . for example, 1 item that i bought today (which is the same as dozens of identical items on ebay) i had scoped out because the seller was willing to use the "ebay USPS calculator" for a buyer to calculate the shipping costs (which in my location in houston, texas turned out to be $3.75) but i've seen the s&h costs FIXED by some sellers on the same identicay type of item to run as high as $21.00 . . . because of the relatively low s&h costs, i knew what total price (bid price plus s&h) i was filling to pay so i could afford to bid a little more, and i was fortunate to win it. regards, steve

Steve,
Thanks for your info, and you're right about what you said, This user id that I've recently started to use, doesn't help because my feedback numbers are low. Yet, my intention is to resell the items anyway, n
But still.... I think it was definitely aggravating and You're also right about the whole s/h obsurdities.. That is truly taken to the absolute edge of what's ethically right and what's wrong. Now, I'm all for a handling fee, because to me that part does take the longest.. the actually posting the payment, doing packaging etc. I'm all for a handling fee to whoever is doing the handling but to mislead anyone, including Ebay is just wrong... But hey, what can you do?
On this though, I'm going to wait to see what AS has to say, hopefully they will read this pretty and will let me know some kind of official word.
Wishing you lots of luck and $$$$
Sue

quote:

---

I was wondering if there are sellers out there that have a blocking software or something.

---

Hi Sue, and Welcome.

eBay has a block bidder list for each seller to use. There are no rules about who may or may not be added to it. Any seller can block any eBay ID for any reason. Here's the link to it:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/block_bidders.html

Why were you added to theirs? Only the seller knows, and doesn't have to tell you.

Sue,

This may have already been answered, but did you contact the seller and ask them why you were blocked? Also, it's possible the seller doesn't like snipers and blocked you after your first two snipes.

Perhaps the seller will not accept bids from buyers with low feedback, and he missed the earlier one.

Hi, thanks for all your comments... I am actually writing to the seller now to find out what's their view on all of this, in the hopes that if they are blocking snipes that they just tell me so I'm not wasting my time.

I have a suggestion for AS though... I will be the first one to buy the t-shirt that says...
"IF YOU DON'T LIKE SNIPERS, THEN DON'T SET UP ALL YOUR AUCTIONS TO FINISH AT THE SAME DARN TIME!"

It makes no sense, really, especially when we are talking about time differences all over the world. I have a customer in New Zealand and he wants me to finish my auctions in the middle of the night so he can get in last minute bidding while he's eating his lunch!!!

I will post what I learn here. But I will say, this is my first time posting here and everyone has been so responsive, more helpful than any Ebay forum have been (sssh are they listening).

I wonder, did you disable the notice that is sent to your seller saying you are a sniper? If not, I sure would!

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mrs.M:
I wonder, did you disable the notice that is sent to your seller saying you are a sniper? If not, I sure would!

---

Based on the following, they probably did:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mslrip - sue:
... after a year and a half of using AS ...

---

OH MY GOSH! I DIDN'T KNOW THERE WAS SUCH A THING..

MRS. M.

HOW DO I???

SUE

quote:

---

Originally posted by mslrip - sue:
OH MY GOSH! I DIDN'T KNOW THERE WAS SUCH A THING..

---

Great call, Mrs. M!



Sue - "My Snipes" tab. "Modify account". Page down to "InstaMail".

Alrighty then, I have unchecked this instamail box so no one should get this message.

Next question! Do I now have to re-do all my snipes for today or has the updated account information updated all the snipes?

Changing the instamail option will in no way affect your snipes.

Well it may not affect my snipes, but it prevents people from knowing you're using a sniper option which some sellers just do not like. (I think I'm right in saying this?)

Hey, I'm a seller, and anything that drives up the price at any time is welcome in my book.

I did go ahead and bid on an item of the same seller's using the same user id just to see if my user id was blocked and it's not. The bid was accepted.

I will report back on how my sniper bids go... in two more hours...

quote:

---

Originally posted by mslrip - sue:
Well it may not affect my snipes, but it prevents people from knowing you're using a sniper option which some sellers just do not like. (I think I'm right in saying this?)...

---

Yes, of course, I was responding to your earlier question, asking if you needed to re-enter today's snipes, after de-activating instamail.

Good luck and let us know how things turn out.

Hi Sue,
I'd say time to put a support call into Auction Sniper.

If your ID isnt blocked, it must be that AS didnt get a reply from ebay, thats *usually* when you get a *Did Not Win* notification.

Use ... http://support.auctionsniper.com/ to file your support case and you might find you get some free snipes

Hi there everyone!

Firstly, to respond to Bartelby, yes, I believe you're right... and I will definitely be completing some kind of report with Auction Sniper because I really wanted those items yesterday and I was fit to be tied when I did everything I was supposed to and lost!

I (of course) did not hear back from the seller until much later today. However, you will remember that I ran a test on his auctions earlier and my bid was accepted without using AS.

I then also disabled Instamail... no offense AS but I don't want to throw up any red flags about my bidding practices... and while I'm not opposed to my buyers using it.. as a buyer, I want to keep as quiet and as sneaky as I can to get the best deal... That's how I can offer the best deals to my customers!

In 1 minute and 50 seconds AS won my nine auctions that were set up for today with this seller. Yeah! I was a happy sniper! There is just no way, I could have manually done this, even if I had help, there were just too many auctions all ending at the same time. It looked like my mailbox was going to erupt! LOL

Anyway, I heard from my seller who congratulated me on all my wins and made the comment, when you emailed me about the multitude of interested auctions, you weren't kidding.. but he assured me that there was no way he had blocked my auction attempts yesterday. He said he wouldn't even know how.. (He does have a 30+ feedback rating - not that that means anything if you look at mslrip - c'est moi).

He told me that any items that I do not win that are not sold, to be sure to let him know, he will send to me or re-list etc.etc.

So Bartelby, I'm with you, I think it was a glitch and I will file accordingly with AS.

Last but not least, I truly cannot tell you all how appreciative I am and grateful to all of you that helped me out with this. Truly, not to be cheesy but I didn't feel like I was fighting this alone...
...which I most certainly did a few weeks ago when I took on the Lance Armstrong thieves.. (another story).

Sincerely thank you and have a great evening! Sue

Hi folks! Sue here....
Following is response I received from AS Support... thought I would share it with you all just in case you have a po' ol' sniper like myself, come knocking on the same door!
Thanks again to everyone!
*********
The Transaction Blocked message comes from eBay and not from us. I think it‘s a bug or a false message response from eBay. We often see these when people use too short a lead time---but your lead time on both of these was great.

I can tell you they were sending all kinds of different messages to customers between 2:00-2:50 on the 13th and this is more of the same. My guess for these particular ones is that they may have had a faulty server that was receiving some bids. It couldn‘t be much more than that, or it would have been a much bigger problem.

Sorry you missed them, and I gave you a couple of free snipes for each of those, but this was an eBay issue, not an auctionsniper issue.
***************

quote:

---

Originally posted by mslrip - sue:

I can tell you they were sending all kinds of different messages to customers between 2:00-2:50 on the 13th and this is more of the same. My guess for these particular ones is that they may have had a faulty server that was receiving some bids. It couldn‘t be much more than that, or it would have been a much bigger problem.

Sorry you missed them, and I gave you a couple of free snipes for each of those, but this was an eBay issue, not an auctionsniper issue.
***************

---

I had a snipe not go through during these hours. The message I received was "unable to sign in," followed by an explanation that eBay did not respond to AS' attempts to sign in, three minutes before the end of the auction.

Thanks Heaps for the update Sue.

Ebay and AS had a bit of a communication problem it would appear.

You are so welcome! Thanks for the tip, by the way, I got myself a few freebies.....

See you all again on our travels.... I'm sure!