eBay spokesperson Catherine England confirmed the existence of a glitch on its Shopping.com comparison-shopping engine website that caused some merchants' ads to appear when they were not supposed to. England said only a handful of merchants ("less than 20 of the more than 6,000 Shopping.com merchants in the US") were impacted by the problem, which was reported by former eBay Powerseller turned blogger Randy Smythe (http://rksmythe.blogspot.com/2007/12/is-shoppingcom-billing-for-non-existant.html). However, England said, "in no instance has a merchant been charged for clicks they did not receive."

England said that when merchants edited their bids to zero in order to prevent the items from being featured on Shopping.com, occasionally the system delayed in making the update. Because the products continue to be featured, they received clicks. "We have already refunded most impacted merchants and are in the process of refunding others. Our team is also currently working on a fix," England said.