eBay sellers complained of strange results when searching or clicking on eBay Stores and regular listings over the weekend. Items listed by other sellers were appearing in their Stores search results, and some users were taken to eBay international sites instead of U.S. eBay Stores.

"I clicked on my store icon and another sellers' list of items appeared! I clicked the icon again, and it was our stuff."

Several sellers were quite upset, complaining that listings for pornographic items were showing up in their eBay Stores.

Despite pages of postings complaining about the glitch beginning on Saturday morning (http://digbig.com/4cdxd), eBay's System Announcement Board had nothing posted about the problem late Sunday night.

It's not clear if eBay's new search features were responsible for the problem. eBay announced Friday it would be rolling out new search options in the coming days. The new search options allow users to refine search results for active listings by a specified time range, date range, and number of bids. To use the new search options, users must first conduct a search, then go to "Search Options" in the left-hand side of the page and click on the "Customize options displayed above" link (http://www2.ebay.com:80/aw/marketing.shtml#2004-11-19163636).

One AuctionBytes reader wrote of the problem:

"The first problem that appeared early Saturday morning is that other sellers items (that are from all global eBay sites) are appearing on the pages of people's eBay stores. Many people, including myself have had mature audience appear in the pages of our ebay stores as a result of this "glitch" or database hack or whatever it is,... The second glitch, which many first reported Sunday morning, happens when they click on the "view sellers store" link. Instead of being taken to their store, clicking on the link brings up another seller's ebay store on a foreign site."