Hey, Trust and Safety concerns? I just got a weird error code on my last snipe, and now I see "Authorization Required! Your authorization with eBay has expired (or was invalided by eBay for Trust & Safety concerns). Please login with eBay to renew."
Is this some sort of stupid behaviour by eBay? The error code was: "You are unable to purchase this item due to restrictions from the seller. You have winning bids, submitted offers or bought 5 item(s) from this seller in the past 10 days. Please contact the seller for more information. (5001)" 5 items in 10 days? What's the big deal? Seller wants to spread the wealth and not get maximum sale price?
By the way, I still see that I have a limited number of snipes at the moment. Is that something that you are still looking into? It seems that you reset it from around 12 to up around 31 or 32, but I am supposed to have unlimited snipes in my subscription. Thanks, Craig

Hello Craig,
We pass on those errors verbatim. We send an email that explains if you're blocked it's considered a private matter between you and the seller. The error seems pretty clear to me (limit of 5 purchases per customer)...but you can contact the seller for more information. eBay chat can also tell you.
All we can really do here is place the bid and return the result. A few of the T&S errors are awful, like "TUV Error" (whatever that means), which is why the next article will probably have to explain all of this as the errors are growing in frequency.

Yes, I was in touch with the seller. Nice guy it seems, but probably somewhat inexperienced. He has never had someone win 5 auctions within a 10-day period it seems. He was having some trouble earlier and messed with some eBay settings, and somehow got this restriction put on his buyers. He will try to remove it. And he is now giving me free shipping, but I missed out on some of his auctions which he would have combined shipping on.
It didn't make sense for a seller to put restrictions on auction items, as the more bidders the better, but he didn't do it intentionally.
However, I wonder why eBay invalidated my authorization when this error occurred. Did your system or I do something wrong? I don't think so -- it seems that eBay allows your site to operate as it does. Maybe eBay was just being too cautious, or maybe it is just one of eBay's silly things.
By the way, I got 2 'response' emails from you. Did you edit your response and it sent another email? That wasn't clear from the emails. I thought i would see 2 differently-timestamped responses above.
For completeness, below is the email that I sent to you following my above ticket. I'm curious as to your thoughts raised below, such as regarding prepending the original snipe amount when a snipe is moved to the Watch list.
On Mon, May 27, 2024 at 6:36?PM Scratchley (gmail) <[edited]> wrote:
Re: A2-OE40
Hi. Just noticed the below email that came from you. The last communication from eBay was:
* On Mon, May 27, 2024 at 5:47?PM eBay <[edited]> wrote:
* eBay
*
* You won with a US $31.00 bid! Next, make your payment.
But the last snipe that you placed did get that strange error message, and I tried to place a bid manually on one of the items from that seller as well (I think the Sedin Silver Coin). So if I hadn't done the manual bid, then the snipe error from eBay would have been the last information from eBay.
Is there a way to return my snipes from the Watch list back to the Current list with my former snipe values? I spent a fair bit of effort determining many of the snipe values, like looking up the values of various coins, and it will be a hassle to recreate those snipes. Maybe when the user re-authenticates, you can just move snipes for the next hour or so to the watch list and not everything for the next week+. I don't have too many snipes at the moment, but a week ago I had multiple pages of current snipes. One idea would be for you to prepend the original snipe value on the note entry for each item that got transferred from current to watch list.
Thanks,
Craig
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: BidSlammer Support <[edited]>
Date: Mon, May 27, 2024 at 5:44?PM
Subject: [Action Required]: Re-Authorization Required
To: <[edited]>
Urgent Account Attention Needed.
Please click to enable images.
Hello Craig,
The last snipe we attempted to place for you was unsuccessful because eBay indicated your token was expired or revoked.
Unfortunately, we do not receive details on why this occurs as it involves personal account information directly managed by eBay. eBay doesn't expose anything that is personal or security related. They limit access to certain types of data to protect its users' privacy.
This can happen for several reasons, including:
If you changed your eBay password.
If you made certain changes to your eBay account settings.
If eBay has recently sent you a security alert.
We automatically test it every 8 hours in the 72-hour period before every snipe, but unfortunately we couldn't catch it in this case.
To continue sniping and using other services such as Import Watch List, please reauthorize our app as soon as possible. This process is straightforward and helps ensure your account security.
As a safety precaution, we set the bid values to zero (0.00) to avoid any unexpected outcomes once you re-authorize. You will find these items in your Watching tab.
If you have any concerns about your eBay account security, we recommend checking any recent communications from eBay or reviewing your account settings directly on eBay.
Kind regards,
Your Friends at BidSlammer
You joined as "slow_fox" on March 2, 2022.

If I understand your major points,
1. You were blocked due to the seller's inexperience with eBay settings, leading to unintended buyer restrictions. Despite his willingness to help, you still missed out on free shipping.
2. You question why eBay invalidated your authorization, suspecting eBay's caution or an error.
3. You requested to return snipes from the Watch list to the Current list with original values and suggested temporarily moving snipes upon re-authentication.
All three of these are out of our control, unfortunately. I know (1) was just a Use Case description. (2), is the bane of our existence. (3) eBay contract requires a complete cutoff.
On 2, we snipe services occasionally communicate, and this is the bane of our existence. eBay could have cared less about sniping until a few years a go (2021) when they officially made it "legal," but the error messages are something we have been begging them to change. In fact, if any of us get negative reviews it is always related to this error. We've learned not to co-speculate as it makes us look unaware. So we just ask people to contact the seller.
Not only that, but they lump all the Trust and Safety errors into a single number "12310", which you can search --- there are dozens of issues that get lumped into one vague error: Cosmetics, cutlery, antique weapons, and yes.... rare coins.
I appreciate the opp to explain this---there is an announcement in the works for a few months on this.
I think I covered everything. We aren't normally this chatty but I do think the information here needs to be shared in a help page.

Was pondering this... the log has a record of bid changes. Possible the system could remember the last bid value somehow.

I just heard back from my contact over at The Bay. He said it would be fine to have a feature to "restore all bids to previous values" as long as it is voluntary action.
btw I'm a collector myself (comics) and I would love for the service to have a rep of being great for collectors. The dev cycle is cyclic and will start up again in holidays (Dec.) but rest assured you're being heard.
Thanks -