You are not eligible to bid on this item due to seller rest

[ssateneth]

I put in a number of bids through gixen but I lost them all because \"You are not eligible to bid on this item due to seller restrictions\" message in my gixen emails on both primary and mirror.

Do you know what happened? I lost like $1800 of stuff because gixen didn't work and the bids werent accepted. The bids were like 10% higher than the winning bids

[Cupid]

Generally these restrictions as the message implies are chosen by sellers.

They can relate to payment methods you have registered with Ebay, the number of cancelled sales you have in the past year, the amount of positive feedback your account has, the shipping address on your account, etc.

Do any of these sound like restrictions that might apply to these auctions? e.g. having a shipping address in a different country from the seller ...

If it's a problem you're having with multiple sellers, it's probably best to try to place a small initial opening bid on the auctions before setting up your snipe, just to prove to yourself that you can place bids on those auctions... and then if you still get Gixen messages indicating this same issue let Mario know via email which auctions they apply to as a difference with operation between manual and snipe bids is something that Mario can take up with the Ebay development team themselves.

If you want Mario to look into the log files that are produced while a snipe is being processed please provide some example auction ids, either here, or directly to Mario when you email him.
_________________
Mark

[ssateneth]

item IDs 146009850811 146009830229 146009770141 146009760014 146009693278

[ssateneth]

it happened again, same seller, same bid reject reason. item ID 146031627124

[Gixen]

[Cupid]

This time did you

[ssateneth]

[ssateneth]

and after I put in the payment information and bidding manually, it still says an error message on ebay itself.

\"Problem with bid You are unable to purchase this item due to restrictions from the seller. Please contact the seller for more information. (3008)\"

i.imgur.com/VNo6X6m.png

item ID 146051462960

[ssateneth]

hmm. maybe that seller blocked my account. maybe ebay changed how they present the buyer an error if the buyer is blocked. i was able to bid with an alt account but i dont want to do it since i have to pay sales tax on that account.

[Cupid]

Yes, I don't think you can avoid the requirement for a payment method, other than using an Ebay account that hasn't been flagged as requiring it, yet, or asking the seller to remove that restriction from their account. Note that once you've entered a payment method Ebay use it for all auctions that you win... I've had one set up and subsequently removed it on one of my Ebay accounts as I wasn't happy with the way it affected the shipping discounts that you are entitled to for multiple purchases from some sellers... Ebay really haven't thought that through properly.

Since entering a payment method still didn't allow you to use that account to bid on items from that seller, I think you do have to ask the seller what restrictions they have that you might be failing and whether they are prepared to add you to their preferred bidders list, or just remove that restriction for everyone.

Not ideal I know, but Ebay allows sellers to impose these restrictions for their own protection... when doing so it should be pointed out to them that it could also reduce the amount of money they get, particularly for auction items.

Is the sales tax issue related to the home location of that account ?... I don't know where you are located.

Is this USA state sales tax or due to import from a foreign country ?
_________________
Mark

[ssateneth]

The sales tax issue is just a sales tax exemption applied to my account (there is an ebay process to ask for tax exemption) because I have a seller's permit with my state that allows me to make purchases without paying sales tax if they are for the purpose of resale. I am in USA. It essentially lets me purchase goods about 6% cheaper.

In any case, I was able to locate the seller's phone number, called them, figured out that they had blocked me for raising an issue with shipping price on an item I bid on and won 3 months ago. I apologized, wanted to make amends and promised not to make issues here onwards. They were able to unblock me and my manual bids went through on the primary account.

I was still required to put in payment information when putting in a manual bid. I don't know how it will affect gixen bids yet. I am interested to figure it out when I buy from them in the future.

[Cupid]

OK, understood, I'm glad you were able to resolve this issue with the seller.

On the sales tax issue, I would guess that it's possible to put more than one Ebay account through the same mechanism of being provided with exemption for sales tax in the USA... based on the fact that it's possible to have the same payment methods associated with different Ebay accounts, that you own... But not being a US resident and therefore not registered with any US state it's not something I can attempt myself... Perhaps worth someone else investigating this and reporting back though.

On the payment method, as I said previously, because they started using it automatically, for everything I won, I removed it again from one of my accounts because that in turn removed the possibility of obtaining postage discounts for multiple purchases from the same seller that I paid for at the same time. That hasn't restricted my ability to snipe using Gixen, yet.. but there's the distinct possibility that, at some stage, it will do so.
_________________
Mark