[Cupid]

Sellers can impose this restriction on an auction by auction basis.

It does not apply to BIN items, where instead the seller can request instant payment.

You can ask directly of the seller whether or not they placed the restriction in this case. If they claim that they did not then you need to contact Ebay with that information, since it would indicate a defect in their software if they are rejecting bids on that basis when the seller intended no such restriction.

From the Gixen side of things there is nothing that can be done or changed to avoid this issue occurring in the future.

From your point of view you must ensure that your Paypal account is linked to your Ebay account, on Ebay, otherwise you will encounter this issue again, at some point.

[notimportant]

I have received this message on several occasions from sellers i have bought from directly on ebay. item 382232054222 in particular i was the highest bidder and received "No linked PayPal account. Buyer does not have a linked PayPal account." The seller never cared when I bid directly.

[Cupid]

Gixen isn't worried about it, the seller is, and thus so is Ebay.

This is a restriction that a seller can place on any auction independently. Not many do, which is why you have not experienced this issue before.

You would have found your bid blocked if you had tried to bid manually.

There is no way for you to tell that the restriction is in place prior to placing a a bid, unless the seller also mentions it in their listing description.

I'd advise you to link your Paypal account on Ebay if you intend to continue using an automated sniping service, otherwise you are bound to encounter this issue again, at some point.

The only other option is to place test bids on every auction you intend to snipe in order to know that you are not prevented from doing so, but that would kind of negate the point of sniping at all, since you push up the price and show you are interested prior to the auction ending.

[allanhodgson]

Ebay item # 182743901020.

The auction finished this (UK Monday) evening. It was won by another bidder with the only bid for the item, GBP 20. I have a Gixen account with mirror server, and had some days previously placed a maximum Gixen bid of GBP 31; the bid was not grouped. Following completion of the auction, I found that Gixen had not made a bid on my behalf, but had put the following comment in the status box:
"No linked PayPal account. Buyer does not have a linked PayPal account."

Is the above message referring to me, or to the actual buyer of this item? Why should Gixen be interested in Paypal accounts? I have a Paypal account that I use for paying ebay transactions, but I do not have ebay and Paypal linked. This has never caused problems before.

Can anyone tell me why Gixen failed to bid on my behalf?

Regards, allanhodgson.