eBay buyers had trouble browsing and searching the site for several hours on Tuesday morning. And users of eBay's PayPal online payment service are complaining of prolonged delays in receiving transfer payments from their PayPal accounts to their bank accounts. eBay acknowledged both problems on its System Announcement Board on Tuesday.
eBay reported at noon that the problem of "intermittent errors when using Search and Browse" on eBay had been resolved.
Of the PayPal problem, eBay's Announcement Board stated, "Some PayPal customers may be experiencing a processing delay with bank account transactions. We are aware of the issue and are working to correct it as quickly as possible."
Late Tuesday evening, eBay announced PayPal’s bank account processing delays had been resolved. "All affected pending transactions will begin processing on July 21st. Please note, it takes up to 3-4 days for U.S. transactions and up to 7-8 days for international transactions to complete processing."
eBay boards resonated with complaints from users who had initiated transfers from PayPal to their bank accounts as early as July 15 and had still not received the funds (http://digbig.com/4bkpb).
eBay and PayPal users have complained of other problems in recent weeks. Last week eBay changed the way the item description area of the view item page displays, referring to the change as "View Item Optimization." The change inadvertently caused the text in some users' auction descriptions to display in an extra small font. It also prevents users from saving auctions. The changes affected members using Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser.
In rolling out the "View Item Optimization" changes, eBay changed the way the style sheets are served. Microsoft's Explorer browser blocks access to style sheets if they reside on a different domain or server. On Tuesday afternoon, eBay spokesperson Hani Durzy said eBay had identified the problem and the solution, and is working on implementing the solution.
PayPal users have also complained recently of problems sending payments internationally. A PayPal spokesperson is investigating those reports.
