On 1 Apr 2003 at 2:04:10 PT sellers were not receiving end of item notices for their BIN sales on fixed price listings. At 9:42:39 PT users reported reloads were very slow. At 9:56:01 PT reloads continued slow across the site. At 13:59:26 PT sellers trying to list items were only showing the Merchant Credit Card option on the listing page - all other options were missing. At 14:16:05 PT posting to the chat boards was very slow with it taking up to 5 minutes to post. At 14:43:35 PT ebaY posted that PayPal's Winning Bidder Notification emails had been slow or intermittent over the previous week. ebaY claimed the problem was fixed. At 14:54:49 PT buyers were getting invalid item messages across ebaY when trying to access auction listings preventing viewing or bidding. At 18:02:21 PT users reported reloads very slow across ebaY. The chat boards were also continuing to show mixed and arbitrary time stamps on posts.
On 2 Apr 2003 at 8:03:58 PT Watch lists were showing up chronologically reversed. At 12:19:29 PT the ebaY chat boards site crashed. Those who were able to access the boards were getting reload times of greater than 10 minutes. At 12:28:35 PT users received, "HTTP Error Status : 504 Gateway Time-Out Description : Lost connection to origin server." At 13:02:35 PT users continued to report very slow page loads of up to 22 minutes. At 15:24:52 PT ebaY posted that the chat boards were not working properly from 12:13 PT to 15:00 PT. At 18:44:18 PT users again reported problems with chat board sign in and page reloads. At 18:47:49 PT users again complained that the search box on the chat boards continued to not be fully functional, lacking the ability to search by item number. This has been true since LiveWorld received the subcontract on the ebaY chat boards. At 20:41:24 PT seller's lists were not functioning properly with the times for auctions corrupted and garbled. At 20:46:29 PT the seller's lists were again functioning.
On 3 Apr 2003 at 10:03:39 PT users reported that search was not working properly, with only the first two pages of results opening and all subsequent pages returning blank pages. Sellers reported problems with listing as images were not loading properly and the continue button was missing. Sellers continued to report the 00 time glitch showing intermittently on their seller lists.
On 4 Apr 2003 at 7:35:50 PT sellers reported that ebaY was not recognizing the seller as the owner of the items the seller had listed, so preventing them from relisting or selling similar items. At 14:15:57 PT users received, 'We are sorry, but the file you requested has moved or does not exist on our system.' Users received this message when trying to click on the dispute resolution link on ebaY. At 14:20:23 PT, users reported that all the second tier help pages were not working, returning messages that, "We could not locate the page you requested". At 16:12:42 PT sellers reported that the My ebaY link from the chat boards was not showing any sales for the last 2 days, but bookmarked links were working properly. At 18:05:09 PT the ability to search for the word "ebay" was no longer available. In addition the word "lot" was not searchable. This included all searches that included either word in the search string. Messages to ebaY insiders confirmed that this was a glitch that ebaY was working on. At 19:37:59 PT users reported being redirected to an Earthlink page when reloading the chat boards. At 20:30:35 PT in addition, buyers could no longer search any word that has letters in it that might form a "vulgar" word when taken separately from the rest of the word, so searches for terms such as "Yoshito Nara" or "Yoshitotoshi", would not return search results. Search problems continued for the rest of the day.
On 5 Apr 2003 at 0:11:29 PT users reported they could not sign out, from the chat boards. At 4:40:03 PT the terms ebaY and lot continued to be non functional in search. At 6:29:56 PT users continued to report that not all the My ebaY links were working, and that from some links sellers could not view their sold items. At 6:45:26 PT Andale auction photos were coming up as broken images. At 7:28:08 PT sellers reported that some sold items were showing in the unsold items list in My ebaY. ebaY said via email that they were aware of the problem and were working on it. ebaY claimed that doing a re-sort of the sold list by an alternate sorting option (end price, quantity, etc.), would temporarily repair the lists and display correctly, but this did not work for all sellers. At 7:44:46 PT users continued to report invalid search problems with lot and ebaY. At 13:07:32 PT sellers reported that when trying to sell or modify an item for sale, the form keeps asking for the seller to log in, in a non breakable loop, preventing listing and revising auctions. At 19:07:40 PT some of the search bugs were fixed, but not the glitch that was connected to the vulgarity filter.
On 6 Apr 2003 at 6:35:08 PT, ebaY's LiveWorld partners failed to make the change to PDT. At 15:32:08 PT the 00:00 time stamp bug reappeared on seller's lists. At 15:38:46 PT the times on seller's lists returned to normal. At 17:47:11 PT users reported that the log in was not holding. At 19:08:50 PT the 00:00 time stamp glitch reappeared on seller's lists. At 19:44:14 PT buyers reported getting, "Web Site Not Responding The web site you have requested may be experiencing technical difficulties due to a busy or broken server." messages whilst trying to bud on items. At 19:48:17 PT buyers continued to report they could not bid on items, or open item pages. At 19:49:46 PT users reported getting 404 error messages across the ebaY site. At 19:50:38 PT buyers were still blocked from bidding reporting "page cannot be displayed" messages. At 19:51:35 PT users continued to report page not available messages across the site, preventing access to auctions and bidding. At 20:10:32 PT the ebaY counters provided by Andale went down. At 20:22:49 PT ebaY posted that the View Item Page, was down from 19:40 PT to 20:00 PT. At 20:45:38 PT sellers reported that Turbo Lister was down, preventing them from uploading their collections to ebaY.
On 7 Apr 2003 changes to My ebaY led to a daylong list of complaints on the boards. The biggest objections came from the buyers whose "items I'm watching" section became too long and cumbersome, adding information buyers did not want. At 6:32:16 PT, ebaY acknowledged via email that the latest changes to Turbo Lister were causing sellers problems because it now contained a "Compact Database" feature. This feature was supposed to clean up seller databases and reduce its size. This feature runs automatically when the program first opens, causing a 15 minute delay in the program opening completely. At 6:41:15 PT sellers trying to upload listings via Turbo Lister received network errors. At 7:44:42 PT seven day auctions listed the previous night were showing as 7 days + xxx hours and minutes remaining. At 8:22:58 PT the "vulgarity" search restriction was finally fixed, once again allowing search terms such as "Yamashita". As of 8:41:14 PT, the chat boards were still showing a "PST" time stamp. At 9:18:37 PT, users were reporting problems with log in, having to continually re-log in. At 11:41:34 PT users signed out of LiveWorld, but could still post, not able to log out. At 11:50:03 PT the search box on the chat boards was not working. At 14:32:46 PT sellers reported that My ebaY was not working again, with sold items not showing as sold. At 14:59:30 PT the sold and unsold items were reversed. At 15:24:31 PT sellers continued to report problems with My ebaY. My ebaY was showing incorrect totals of items sold. At 19:34:52 PT the bidder limit on (0) feedback bidders no longer appeared to be working. A 0 feedback bidder showed the bidder had already bid on 37 auctions with over $10,000 in commitments. At 20:55:01 PT buyers reported that newly listed items were showing up as invalid. At 20:58:30 PT the feedback forum was corrupted with some users missing 250 feedbacks. Cgi2 was not functioning. At 21:04:49 PT ebaY acknowledged the feedback problem and that it would take several days for it to be resolved. At 23:38:04 PT buyers were again reporting that auctions were ending and re-opening, accepting new bids and closing again, as ebaY's clocks continued their chronic glitches.
On 8 Apr 2003 complaints about the changes to My ebaY continued. At 7:24:56 PT some users were still missing hundreds of feedbacks. At 12:17:43 PT ebaY's free counters provided by Andale were not working. The site was stable for most of the day.
On 9 Apr 2003 the chat boards still remained on PST. At 4:26:27 PT buyers continued to complain about the My ebaY changes with entries on two lines in stead of one on the watch list. At 7:24:42 PT sellers reported that PayPal emails were very unreliable, forcing sellers to check there accounts for payments. The chat boards finally converted to PDT at 7:36:41. At 9:01:34 PT some users were still missing hundreds of feedback due to glitches in cgi2. At 15:09:19 PT ebaY's end of auction emails were showing up with bad coding, with stray words attached to email addresses. The corruption of the email address would invalidate it. At 15:19:16 PT sellers could not list items, either not accepting information and asking for the same blocks to be filled in again and again, or forcing the seller to repeatedly sign in. At 17:50:42 PT sellers could not get Turbo Lister to connect to ebaY preventing its use. At 17:53:31 PT one user recorded that they had to sign in to ebaY 27 times as of the posting because the cookie was not holding. Previously they would stay logged in for weeks or months at a time. At 18:33:09 PT sellers reported that My ebaY was not showing bids on items, though the bid had been received 5 hours previous. At 21:07:50 PT users with missing feedback reported cgi2 had finally been fixed and their feedback was once again correct. At 21:21:01 PT a seller received the following message on trying to list, "Based on your activity this week, you have reached one or more limits on selling activity. To protect your account and the community from misuse, we limit the amount of business sellers can do on eBay. However, you can easily increase your selling limit by providing us with additional verification information." ebaY wanted the seller to provide their Social Security Number, an illegal request for ebaY to make. The seller was willing to provide their Federal Tax I.D. number, but after three days had had no response from ebaY. At 21:30:57 PT users reported that attempts to sign in was sending the users to a redirect page.
On 10 Apr 2003 at 9:22:14 PT, sellers reported that ebaY Checkout was miscalculating their shipping and handling on items and undercharging bidders. On multiple item purchases Checkout was only reflecting the S/H on 2 of the multiple items sold. ebaY acknowledged that they were aware the problem was happening, but had not been able to identify why or how to fix it. Users also reported that buyer and seller addresses were no longer showing on Checkout, where they had previously.
On 11 Apr 2003 ebaY took the ebaY system and ebaY payments down from approx 01:00 PT to 03:00 PT. At 4:54:14 PT sellers reported they could not delete "Items I've Sold" from their list in My ebaY. At 4:56:56 PT users continued to report not having winning bidder shipping information in Checkout. At 5:18:32 PT users reported that the link in the ebaY email on the revision of the User Agreement and Privacy Policy was a redirected URL, just like those used by SCAMMERS, though this was a real ebaY email. At 19:55:04 PT sellers reported that PayPal was not working or showing up as a payment option.
On 12 Apr 2003 ebaY was stable throughout the day
On 13 Apr 2003 at 7:23:49 PT Netscape users could not view descriptions on auctions. At 8:44:57 PT users reported they were having problems posting on the ebaY chat boards, with posts not showing and returning messages that the boards do not exist. At 16:46:16 PT users reported ongoing problems with deleting items from their My ebaY pages. At 17:15:24 PT sellers reported that items listed 22 hours previous were still not showing in Title search. At 18:12:55 PT users reported they were not receiving ebaY email notifications, though their preferences indicated that they should get them. At 22:06:08 PT users reported having problems with ebaY scumware spyware toolbar. They could not get the toolbar to work.
On 14 Apr 2003 at 12:19:42 PT the feedback numbers were once again corrupted with problems on some users numbers. For example on users had over 1,000 total feedback with 20 negatives, showing a 951 for their feedback number, but when the number was clicked on it shows 210 feedback with zero negatives. At 13:37:10 PT time left on auctions was fluctuating from refresh to refresh with variations of 10 hours. At 18:44:56 PT ebaY crashed. No auctions were accessible to bidders. At 18:45:19 PT users reported widespread 404 errors whilst trying to bid. At 18:45:49 PT buyers continued to report they could not bid receiving page can't be displayed messages, and unable to process your request messages. At 18:55:03 PT users reported that ebaY UK, Australia, and New Zealand were all returning error messages. At 18:55:37 PT, users reported PayPal down also. At 19:02:42 PT buyers continued to report they could not bid on items receiving messages that, "We were unable to process your request. We are sorry, but we were unable to process your request. Please check the eBay Announcement Board for updates on recent and upcoming changes, major system issues, and other important eBay news." At 19:03:05 PT buyers received messages saying, "unable to display the title of this item". At 19:12:33 PT ebaY posted that ebaY users were receiving error messages when attempting to use View Item pages, the Sell Your Item form, or Announcement Board. At 19:17:39 PT the information about item sold in the previous week was missing from My ebaY. At 19:25:55 PT listings continued to be unavailable. At 19:47:32 PT buyers were once again able to view some listings. At 19:48:09 PT users continued to report search not working. At 19:54:03 PT ebaY posted that "***View Item Page, Sell Your Item, Announcement Board*** From 18:44 PDT to 19:32 PDT, some users were not able to access the View Item pages, use the Sell Your Item form, or view the Announcement Board. This issue has now been resolved. " Once again ebaY blatantly lied about the extent of the outage and violated their own user agreement by not issuing automatic refunds for an outage of over an hour.
On 15 Apr 2003 at 13:55:39 PT users continued to report not being able to delete items from My ebaY. They could delete items from the watch list but not the completed sales or the bid on but did not win items. At 16:53:11 PT sellers reported not being able to fix their galley images. ebaY was stable for the majority of the day.
On 16 Apr 2003 ebaY was stable throughout the day.
On 17 Apr 2003 at 0:00:59 PT more bidders reported they were not able to delete items they did not win from their My ebaY pages. At 3:25:27 PT sellers reported that they could only schedule an auction within 19 days. They kept getting messages saying "selected day and time exceeds maximum time". At 4:49:13 PT sellers reported that store listings had not updated for 17 hours. At 7:55:01 PT store listings has still not updated, now 20 hours behind. Store listings finally updated at 12:32:57 PT. At 8:49:52 PT users complained they still did not have their store tag on the LiveWorld boards, losing them potential sales. At 17:12:35 PT a seller reported they were getting "Only U.S.-registered sellers on eBay.com may access this feature" messages whilst trying to access the merchandising features on ebaY. This despite the fact that the seller is a U.S. registered seller. At 19:39:46 PT users reported problems with search, as they could not open the 3rd and subsequent pages of search results. Page 3 would show zero results despite the fact that the search returned multiple pages of items. At 21:39:13 PT users reported that ebaY partner Andale was down and images and counters from Andale were not showing on auctions.
On 18 Apr 2003 ebaY took the ebaY system and ebaY payments down for maintenance from approx 01:00 PT to 03:00 PT. At 15:24:57 PT users were still reporting not being able to make deletions on My ebaY. The site was stable overall through the day.
On 19 Apr 2003 at 16:00:28 PT users reported that search was slow. At 19:27:59 PT users reported having to enter PayPal several times to actually be able to get in and get the site to function. TAG found the user agreement page hanging and not downloading. At 19:36:12 PT, users reported the "Ask Seller a Question" link was not working.
On 20 Apr 2003 users reported that the fix your gallery image link form the site map no longer works, but the one form the help page works. More and more links are broken from some pages but work from others - you get to guess which are working. At 17:45:30 PT sellers reported pages hanging whilst trying to list, particularly when trying to add images to listings. At 17:43:40 PT sellers reported Turbo Lister problems. At 18:31:27 PT users reported not being able to sign in to My ebaY. At 18:41:46 PT ebaY crashed briefly. At 20:18:56 PT buyers reported search was not working, retuning zero results on common searches. Subsequent refreshes would finally bring up results, indicating that one or more of ebaY's servers were down.
On 21 Apr 2003 at 13:39:29 PT users reported cgi5 not working preventing sellers from listing. Sellers received messages saying, "We could not locate the page you requested. We are sorry, but the file you requested has moved or does not exist on our system. Please check the Site Map or the Home Page for the new location of the file you seek." At 14:39:18 PT users reported the ebaY scumware spyware toolbar was not working. it would not install. At 16:30:23 PT more users reported the toolbar not working, returning "the page cannot be displayed" messages using IE. Repeated removal and reinstall made no difference. At 16:51:21 PT sellers could not revise auctions receiving "We could not locate the page you requested. We are sorry, but the file you requested has moved or does not exist on our system." messages.
On 22 Apr 2003 at 18:22:19 PT buyers attempting to bid received messages that, "The page cannot be displayed. The page you are looking for is currently unavailable. The Web site might be experiencing technical difficulties, or you may need to adjust your browser settings. " The site was stable for most of the day.
On 23 Apr 2003at 3:21:21 PT users reported that the bidder's lists were returning different results on each refresh. At 10:04:00 PT sellers reported the revise feature was not working. Sellers could not switch categories, though a message would come up saying that the change had been made. At 11:11:05 PT users reported the feedback system was not working. Buyers could not leave feedback for recently closed auctions, receiving messages that the item was not found. Users were able to leave feedback via the "find all transactions for last 90 days" page, but not from the auction page. At 20:33:24 PT a user found a URL on their website left by a LiveWorld Moderator. This URL led to all the ebaY/LiveWorld snitch records, as they were all posted on publicly available web pages. The pages were numbered chronologically from 1 to 64000+ and were from all the threaded boards and more recently from the chat boards. At 21:18:34 PT users reported 404 errors, turning to 404 and 405 error messages by 21:20:59 PT. At 21:25:33 PT more users reported problems and were getting peer reset messages. At 21:31:38 PT users reported receiving error messages on reloads. The problems disappeared at 21:35:32 PT.
On 24 Apr 2003 ebaY/LiveWorld removed so many posts from the DNF chat board that posters thought the board had been hacked. At 15:07:46 PT users reported that an ebaY survey form was showing up on a persistent pop-up.
On 25 Apr 2003 ebaY took their site down from approx 01:00 PT to 03:00 PT. At 12:22:26 PT buyers found they could no longer use a slash "/" in search
On 26 Apr 2003at 03:30:50 PT users reported the ebaY spyware toolbar was not working in that clicking the My ebaY button or any of the items in the alerts yielded no response. At 4:25:42 PT user reported the ebaY toolbar would not download. At 17:37:49 PT users reported receiving a message that, "for security purposes please type in the numbers you see" and could not make out the jumbled numbers. Even when they could read the numbers, 4 out of 5 times the sign in did not work. At 17:45:40 PT sellers reported listing problems, on the screen to add images. The seller would upload the image as normal but instead of uploading the screen would go blank and then show an input error.
On 27 Apr 2003 05:45:30 PT a videos and laser disks seller reported they have been getting a 10% sell through rate and more bids from people with less that 10 feedback. At 06:15:18 PT users reported problems with the ebaY spyware toolbar.
On 28 Apr 2003 at 14:36:12 PT Sellers reported they could not get Turbo Lister to work either from the download or the disk. At 16:08:24 PT potential sellers could not get their credit card information accepted to open a selling account. Entering the credit card info would take the user back to the user id and password page. Entering the password etc returned the user to the screen to enter credit card information in a never ending circle. At 21:35:50 PT buyers reported that attempting to search on ebaY was redirecting them to Half.Com. The results page would appear, but instantly redirect to Half.com.
On 29 Apr 2003 ebaY posted at 01:41:44 PT that from 01:02 PT to 01:25 PT, users were unable to view sellers other items. sign is was also down. At 06:42:49 PT buyers reported getting survey pop-ups when accessing auction item pages. At 09:54:11 PT sellers reported auctions were listing as Buy It Now instead of the selected auction option. At 12:56:10 PT buyers reported that every time they bid or win an item on ebaY, by the next day their mailboxes are filled with SPAM. These are buyers who have User IDs not email addresses as their ID. At 16:09:05 PT users trying to use ebaY's secure log in, received an alert saying, "Security Alert: You are about to be redirected to a connection that is not secure. The information you are sending to the current site might be retransmitted to a non-secure site." At 19:35:55 PT users reported that PayPal had double billed for a debit purchase. Users need to watch their accounts for similar problems.
On 30 Apr 2003at 17:45:12 PT users reported receiving daily notifications from PayPal that if they were going to continue to use PayPal they had to accept their new user agreement. At 22:17:10 PT buyers reported getting more ebaY pop-ups, this time on search.
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