Contacting another ebay member who has no items listed

Avoriaz

Does anyone know how I can contact another ebayer?

I occasionally watch a listing and, if it ends with no bids, I contact the seller and make a cash offer outside ebay. I have bought a few bargains that way.

Ebay appear to have made it impossible to contact a member who has no items for sale unless you are in an active trade with the seller or buyer. Probably partly to discourage people doing what I am doing.

In future I will make sure I have already established contact before a listing ends by asking a question.


This is the ebay response I get.

Attention!

We have determined you are trying to contact an eBay member with whom you are not currently involved in an open transaction. For the protection of the eBay community, we sometimes block these types of communication. To prevent this occurrence from happening in the future, we recommend the following:

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If you are a seller, respond to all bidder questions before the auction ends.

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If you are trying to contact the seller of an item that has not yet ended go to the item page and click the “Ask seller a question” link.

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If you are the winning buyer of an item go to your My eBay page under the items I’ve Won section. Click the action drop down menu and choose the “contact seller” action.

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If you are a seller trying to contact your wining buyer, go to My eBay and under the Items I’ve Sold section, click the action drop down menu. Choose the “contact buyer” action.

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Reply to seller/bidder through personal email provider (if the sender has not hidden their email address).

Thank you for your understanding.

frivolous_fay

Avoriaz wrote:

Ebay appear to have made it impossible to contact a member who has no items for sale unless you are in an active trade with the seller or buyer. Probably partly to discourage people doing what I am doing.

Nail. Hit. Head.

Amazombie

Ive just sent a message through the ebay system to a friend without any trouble and I dont have any transactions whatsoever with them.

Just went to advance search and then did a bidder ID search which brought up their feedback history and there was a contact this member button to use?

Will see if I can contact someone else that way.

Amazombie

Yes just tried someone else this time doing an advanced search on their selling ID and again no problem - contact this member button appears on feedback page.

StaffsSW

There is also a limit on the number of messages a user can send in a day - around 30, but it is not stated exactly in the T&C's.

I have run a few publicity auctions, which generate numerous ASQ's, as well as writing one of the top rated guides on eBay that leads to plenty of questions and messages - I have hit the limit a few times this month and try getting a straight answer from Customer (dis)Service?!

The Contact Member button feedback pages is a bit hit and miss - if the user has recently bought something of high value then it tends to be temporarily disabled.

Avoriaz

Amazombie wrote:

Ive just sent a message through the ebay system to a friend without any trouble and I dont have any transactions whatsoever with them….:

Perhaps you can contact your friend because ebay recognises that you have had previous dialogue.

Amazombie wrote:

Yes just tried someone else this time doing an advanced search on their selling ID and again no problem - contact this member button appears on feedback page.

Did you actually send a message successfully? I can get all the way to composing the message and filling in the blurred security numbers but as soon as I click on "send" my message is blocked as above in the first post.

Maybe ebay have been monitoring my off ebay cash offers and don’t like me. I suppose I can’t blame them too much as they lose relisting fees.

Avoriaz

frivolous_fay wrote:

Nail. Hit. Head.

Even I can occasionally hit a barn door at 10 paces.