eBay

[wuvvum]

Has anyone else noticed that the eBay website has become even more resource-hungry over the last week or so? I'm now having to shut down and restart Internet Explorer after four or five pages of searches as it just gets too slow. Last night I timed how long it took from me hitting the "back" button to actually getting back to where I was before, and it took a minute and five seconds. According to Task Manager, Internet Explorer was using 100% of the computer's CPU capacity for the whole of that time. My CPU is apparently running at 2.68GHz, which means it carries out 2,680,000,000 binary calculations per second. Multiply that by the 65 seconds I mentioned earlier and that means it took 174,200,000,000 binary calculations for Internet Explorer to return to the page it had open and fully loaded 30 seconds earlier. Am I alone in thinking that this is excessive? It's bloody annoying too as I keep having to restart my searches halfway through, with the corresponding fannying around trying to reset my search preferences which eBay has invariably reset to its idiotic defaults. OK, rant over...

[r.welfare]

Had noticed this. Mind you, my whole machine is ridiculously slow these days - takes a full 5 mins from loading Windows XP to actually opening Outlook and/or IE. This from a 3Ghz Pentium 4 thingymajig. I'm sure it was quicker to load "International Soccer" on my Commodore 64 from a tape than this

[Milford Cubicle]

eBay's working OK for me, and I have a computer that's about 5 or 6 years out of date, but I don't use dirty Internet Explorer.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Hey this is autoshite innit, so we're not supposed to have mega swish PC's. Mine's a reject from work, about 8 or 9 years old, its got windaz XP on it and playing fuggin minsweeper on it is enough to make it go cross eyed and start shakin like a shitting dog.

[nigel bickle]

I'm with you Wuvvum. However-if you 'opt back' into the 'old'system, it does seems a wee bit quicker

[Ross_K]

The piece of crap just opts me out until next time I search for something.Infuriating

[fordnut]

It can be seriously slow for me although 128MB RAM is barely enough to run XP let alone browse the internet! The more you go on it the slower it gets.I've got a monster spec PC due at the end of the week though as I am wasting far to much time on things that should only take a few seconds. I can make a cup of tea and drink it in the time it takes for pages to open / go back when using IE.I use Opera normally rather than Internet Explorer as it's sh*te. Opera was light years ahead of the current IE when I first started using it although it's not fully compatible with ebay which is shame (no good for uploading pics/listing).

[keef]

but I don't use dirty Internet Explorer.

Same here.Try Firefox and don't load plugins like Flashplayer.W2k here with 256M RAM on a P3 450.

[r.welfare]

I suspected it might be all those damn plug-ins. For years I used a Pentium 2 400, GR8 machine, then it stopped communicating with the PDA my wife uses for her business. Thought it was the PC that was at fault, so upgraded it...then realised the PDA needed resetting. Doh!

[Father Ted]

Just been on the dreadded bay of e via the works network - its bloody frighteningly slow. Which is odd, because every other web page loads almost instantly - but not the bay.What are the cockmunchers doing now?Talking of which got thoroughly stung by paypal over somthing I sold - can they legally charge a credit card to refund someone (over a totaly spurious claim I might add) when the money has been withdrawn from the paypal account?

[AXrescuer]

Just been on the dreadded bay of e via the works network - its bloody frighteningly slow. Which is odd, because every other web page loads almost instantly - but not the bay.What are the cockmunchers doing now?Talking of which got thoroughly stung by paypal over somthing I sold - can they legally charge a credit card to refund someone (over a totaly spurious claim I might add) when the money has been withdrawn from the paypal account?

Yeah they can. Also now they're based in Luxembourg, they can bypass some UK finance laws. Robbing barstewards.

[fiatdaft]

they just froze my payal as i have had over £650 go through it,in 4 years!something to do with money laundering twunts

[Mr Lobster]

Anyone else having the problem viewing items on ebay.fr where it restricts you viewing if you are outside France? You get the following message -

Cher membre,Malheureusement, l'accès à cet objet a été bloqué en raison de restrictions légales en vigueur dans certains pays. Conformément à ces restrictions, nous nous efforçons de bloquer l'affichage des objets concernés. Nous regrettons de vous informer que pour des raisons techniques, certaines annonces ne rentrant pas dans le cadre de ces restrictions peuvent ne pas être accessibles aux utilisateurs. Nous vous prions d'accepter nos excuses pour tout désagrément et nous espérons que vous trouverez d'autres objets intéressants sur eBay.Merci.Cliquez sur le bouton Page précédente pour revenir en arrière.

Which translates to -Dear Member Unfortunately, access to this object has been blocked because of legal restrictions in force in some countries. Under these restrictions, we are trying to block the display objects. We regret to inform you that for technical reasons, some ads does not fall under these restrictions may not be accessible to users. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience and we hope you find more interesting objects on eBay. And its really pissing me off All I want to do is perv at old French cars!

[wuvvum]

Not had that problem myself. Maybe there's a glitch in eBay.fr's server and it thinks you're trying to access the site from China?

[Renault18]

I'm with you too Wuvvum. Were it not for searching for Renault items that I don't really need, I'd be tempted to give up on Ebay. In the past two weeks things have really slowed up. As I recently added extra memory to my pc - and all other webpages open straight away, I can only assume the problem is caused due to them.

[mouseflakes]

Anyone else having the problem viewing items on ebay.fr where it restricts you viewing if you are outside France?

Me too Mr Lobster - was okay last week - now it's no go.

[fotorabia]

we dont have Ebay here..its Trade Me..costs $40 to list a car..and tonnes of stuff has wack prices..but if i look at Trade and Exchange..the ol traditional classifieds..its free to list..in mag or online..and the prices much more realistic..last look came up with Riley Kestrel 200quid..66 Prinz Gloria 400 quid..Mk10 Jag 1000 quid...plus ure in for a chance cos it gets so few hits!..

[Justin Case]

It seems to be only certain categories If I want to buy a Lancia Ypsilon, I can get a list of cars, but get that message when I try to click on an individual car, but if I want to buy a magazine, I can get to the listing, ie:http://cgi.ebay.fr/AUTO-JOURNAL-PEUGEOT ... dZViewItemdoes that link work for others? If so , the mystery deepens

[Albert Ross]

Link works for me, I'm on a mobile dial up USB stick on a laptop aswell..................

[Father Ted]

Works for me on Virgin cable

[Justin Case]

I asked this on the Ebay boards and got a very quick reply. It appears that if a French seller lists something they can only sell it to France if they don't offer Paypal, and who would on 5,000+ euro car The ads were also classifieds, but I don't know if that matters. Someone on Ebay has also had the same problem with Germany and cars.

[wuvvum]

Just tried going on eBay.fr and it's doing the same thing for me now. Interestingly I found that if I have eBay.co.uk open in a separate window I can copy the item number from the url on .fr and paste it into the search box on .co.uk and it comes up fine.

[r.welfare]

Works for me on Virgin cable

Excellent - you're keeping me in a job then

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Just tried going on eBay.fr and it's doing the same thing for me now. Interestingly I found that if I have eBay.co.uk open in a separate window I can copy the item number from the url on .fr and paste it into the search box on .co.uk and it comes up fine.

thats right, if theres something you want to look at just replace the .fr in the url with .co.uk and you're back in business.

[r.welfare]

I'm about to list my "spare" 405 wagon on eViLbAy tomorrow (to get the full benefit of a 10day listing to end on a Sunday y'see), and I've unticked the "Paypal" option. Seems to have scheduled up properly, so let's see if the Nazi powers pull it once it's live.Oh, if anyone here wants to buy it, lemme know

[Father Ted]

 

Talking of which got thoroughly stung by paypal over somthing I sold - can they legally charge a credit card to refund someone (over a totaly spurious claim I might add) when the money has been withdrawn from the paypal account?

Yeah they can. Also now they're based in Luxembourg, they can bypass some UK finance laws. Robbing barstewards.

Total gits, flogged an item, as new for a lot less than i paid for it, bloke knew I was going on holiday (as I had emailed him and told him to get his arse in gear regarding paying me owing to the fact I was going away on x date) and filed a "item not as described" complaint (probably hoping that I would not be back before the 10 day deadline). Email from paypal to the effect that if it was found aganst me in the buyers favour they would charge my credit card on file (despite being paid by postal order).

 

Utter robbing bastards.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I think in cases like those you can ring your credit card company up and state the truth, i.e. you did not authorise such a transaction and do not agree with it, having paid by other means, and they will reinstate the dough on your card, and take it up with ThiefPal on your behalf. However ThiefPal then go mental and they/eBay wil probably freeze your account for some spurious reason that they will make up on the spot. Pretty amazing really how ebay and paypal operate, they are amazingly shady for the size of them, dodging banking laws and the like. hats off to the Germans who dont tolerate it!

[wuvvum]

Does anyone fancy clubbing together to hire a legal firm and file an anti-trust suit against eBay? I'm sure their forcing of Paypal on sellers has echos of Microsoft's forcing of Windows Media Player, and Microsoft lost that lawsuit if memory serves. Anyone know a good lawyer who owes them a favour?

[nigel bickle]

Hells teeth. Just made my weekly foray into the European sites- why do they have to make it so hard? Wuvvum's right- you can get the details by transcribing the item number- but why the need? Surely cross border sales are as important as 'domestic ones'? Seems they are further limiting the market -every move they make seems to make it harder to use. Makes my blood boil -sorry for the rant.Belgium is still 'normal' (if they ever were!)-if that helps......

[Mr Lobster]

Its annoying me more than a little.... I've bought quite a bit from ebay.fr so this isn't making life easier at all.