There's nothing more embarrassing for an executive than bragging about a customer, only to find one's claims were incorrect. eBay CEO John Donahoe learned that lesson this week in a case reminiscent of a similar faux pas made by former eBay executive Stephanie Tilenius.

In Donahoe's case, he bragged during last week's conference call that Macy's had turned to eBay to reach Australian consumers. But according to StorefrontBacktalk, Macys.com was already selling to Australian customers using third-party vendor FiftyOne, and finding, in fact. The retail blog also found that Macy's eBay Australia store currently has no products. A Macy's spokesman told StorefrontBacktalk that Macy's is currently evaluating results of a test that ended in 2011.

"So Macy's wasn't depending on eBay to reach Aussies, and the eBay store was already closed when Donahoe did his bragging," wrote StorefrontBacktalk's Frank Hayes.

In the case of Tilenius, who now heads Google's commerce initiative, she told retailers assembled at the Internet Retialer conference in 2009 that Zappos had launched an outlet store on eBay. Not only did Zappos refute those claims ("We did a small test on eBay but are not currently planning on moving forward with it") - but one month later, Zappos sold itself to eBay rival Amazon.com.