eBay’s iPhone App has a Critical Flaw

That’s a fairly drastic headline, but I had something happen to me today that was the result of a feature glitch on eBay’s app. 

Two weeks ago I sold my iPad on eBay. The buyer evidently didn’t bother looking at the pictures, and then complained about scratches on the 3 year old iPad 2. Because eBay bends over backwards for buyers in the Buyer Protection Program, the buyer disputed the product and eBay ruled that I had to accept the return of the product.

That’s where it got dicey. I moved 4 months ago. I’ve only accessed eBay from my iPhone in the time that I’ve moved. The app is actually pretty slick for getting things listed. However, there is only one address field on your profile, and despite it showing my new address as my primary shipping address, the actual eBay database still listed my old address as my primary shipping. Dual address entries across their CRM database.

Guess which one my whiny buyer picked to send the iPad back to. Yup. My old place.

I called eBay, and of course because the system still showed my old address as primary, they accepted no responsibility. I argued that if I only use the app and don’t visit the website, how am I supposed to know that there are other addresses that need updated? Or better yet, how about you reconcile your databases so that what I access most (iPhone) and set as a primary address on that platform, gets rolled over into the main profile.

The care rep did offer to waive the fees associated with the sell, and said he would submit a ticket to the IT team to address the issue. Yippie.

Final thought: If you’re selling on eBay just from the mobile app, make sure you check in on the web-version to make sure all of your profile info is accurate on both.