Seiko 7A38 - by the numbers

Some of you may remember 'the good old days', when eBay was more forthright, honest and open - and you could actually trust the information presented. Lately it's become nearly as corrupt as some of the devious and downright dishonest sellers it allows to continue (ab)using its platform.

1) Write up history:

a) When did eBay introduce Best Offer function ?

Answer: A long time ago: http://understandinge.com/ebay-make-offer/

Believe it or not, eBay’s Make Offer feature is almost 10 15 years old now. It was introduced in early 2005 on the main eBay.com marketplace and since then it has perplexed many sellers.

b) Check timeframes of obfuscation / expurgation.

See: http://community.ebay.com/t5/Archive-Tools-Apps/eBay-eliminated-the-ability-to-see-what-a-Best-Offer-item-sold/td-p/2968930

2) When (and why) did I switch from using Goofbid to WatchCount ?

Answer: 2017.

See this thread: http://www.seiko7a38.com/apps/forums/topics/show/13410206

3) Reason for policy change - driven by eBay sellers

(Remember the Powersellers cabal)?

http://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/powersellers-are-you-busy-or/gp-p/g-1700000040

Obviously so many 'Pie-in-the-sky' Buy-it-Now prices are being asked lately - dispartity with lower Best Offer Sold For prices. In eBay's interest - makes it appear that eBay are helping sellers achieve much better prices than they actually are.

Well now it's official (except eBay naturally haven't officially announced it) !

API (Application Programming Interface) - a set of functions and procedures allowing the creation of applications that access the features or data of an operating system, application, or other service.

WatchCount.com Completed Item search error message (as was) at June 20th:

The small print text previously read:

Note: Items below that sold via Best Offer may not currently be displaying accurate selling prices, due to an eBay API data feed bug, since mid-June. eBay is aware of the issue and apparently is planning to make repairs. However this may take a few days (yay!) or several weeks (boo!). We know this is frustrating for some of our visitors, and we apologize; however, this is out of our control. Thank you for hanging in there, and we hope eBay sorts this out soon.

Some readers may have noticed that over the last two months, in various threads, where I'd been unable to determine the true Best Offer selling price, because of this alleged 'bug', I'd been copying and pasting exactly the same two lines of text:

Unfortunately that annoying eBay API feed 'glitch' means WatchCount.com look-up tools still can't provide any clue as to what price it may actually have been sold for.

My deliberate purpose in doing so, was to enable me to run a search on that text and subsequently go back and update the (now dozens of) posts with the missing price information, once the 'bug' had been fixed. I had my doubts all along whether it actually ever would be - and now my worst suspicions have been confirmed. 

Updated yesterday (20th August):

Small print text now reads:

Note: (updated 2019-Aug-20) Items below that sold via Best Offer (BO) may not display accurate selling prices, due to a recent change in eBay's API data-feed. Sadly, eBay just alerted us that this was an intentional permanent policy change, not a bug. This unannounced API update affects all 3rd-party developers. We know this is frustrating to some of our visitors, and we apologize; however, this is out of our control. However...

B*st*rds !

Finish off editing all 3 posts later.

Still haven't got round to post-editing those first 3 posts yet. 

But I may have some good news. 

I happened to look at WatchCount.com again, a couple of days ago and noticed their error message had changed again.

Small print text now reads:

Note: (updated 2019-Aug) Items below that sold via Best Offer (BO) may not display accurate selling prices, due to a recent change in eBay's API data-feed. Sadly, eBay alerted us that this was a permanent policy change, not a bug. This unannounced API update affects all 3rd-party developers. We know this is frustrating to some of our visitors, and we apologize; but this is out of our control. However... We've included some temporary links below that appear to often display proper BO pricing on an eBay item page (oddly, eBay login is required). Also, try this possible temporary workaround, if the aforementioned eBay BO pricing links fail: 1) View a completed BO item on eBay, and make sure you've clicked "See original listing" (tiny link!) or a "View original item" link earlier; 2) Have your browser open the HTML gobbledygook source-code of that eBay view-item page; 3) Use Control-F (or similar) in your browser to search the page for "taxExclusivePrice"; 4) What follows may be the true BO sold-for price. (FYI: We can't know for sure if these workarounds always function properly.)

The temporary links in the WatchCount.com search results are currently shown as:

(true? selling-price >> here on eBay)

Of more anon.

I'm pleased to report that it appears WatchCount.com has finally come up with a Most Excellent workaround to eBay's Bogus obfuscated Best Offer subterfuge.

Unusually, there hadn't been any new Best Offer / Sold For items (leastways, not that I'd added to my eBay watching page) over the last week or so, which I could cite as a 'worked example'. But I've just found one - and it seems to work. 

This two-tone 7A38-7289 in average worn condition, was listed by a US eBay seller on 30th August. Initially it had a 'pie-in-the-sky' Buy-it-Now price of $349.95, or the option to make an offer. It was offered through the GSP programme, which as we know is a pointless excercise for anything with 'Seiko' in the title or description. The seller subsequently applied a 12% discount, which reduced the Buy-it-Now price to 'only' $307.96 (plus the theoretical additional GSP charges of $108.61).

I didn't think to take a screen print of the listing as it first appeared, but FWIW, here's how it looks now - without the blue Buy-it-Now and Make Offer buttons.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/372753505453

It sold late yesterday morning (UK time).

The eBay Purchase History shows the seller accepted a sole 'best' offer:

Naturally eBay's standard ended item result falsely displays it as having sold for the 12% discounted Buy-it-Now price of $307.96.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/372753505453

I'd more or less given up using WatchCount's previously superb eBay item number look-up tool, when it stopped working around the 3rd week of June - deliberately disabled by eBay's change of API coding. I'd started using their Completed Items search tool instead. But once again, I was met with this overly-long apologetic note and an incorrectly displayed Sold price of $307.96.

I thought I'd try giving their old Item # Look-up tool a shot. It still wasn't displaying the Best Offer sold for price (which previously used to be highlighted in yellow). 

But someting else had changed. Next to the greyed out Sold For price of $307.96

What had recently been displayed as (true? selling-price >> here on eBay)

Now had some of the amended text in red (>> true? price here on eBay)

Clicking on that embedded link takes you here:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemVersion&item=372753505453

Not only does this version show the true Best Offer sold for price in bold red type, with the correct UK Sterling equivalent underneath, but the original (undiscounted) Buy-it-Now price of $349.95 is also displayed in smaller type, but struck through.

So Well Done to WatchCount.com's back room boys for coming up with a 'back door' workaround. I wonder how long it will be before eBay slams this one shut. 

Whereas that workaround may provide the true selling price in a Buy-it-Now / Best Offer situation, it doesn't appear to work in the other Auction / Best Offer scenario, which are becoming increasingly prevalent of late.

Here's a non-working 'worked example' to demonstrate what I mean.

Yesterday evening, a regular UK eBay seller listed a non-running 7A28-7120 RAF Gen. 1 Head Only, in what has lately become his standard format: a 3-day auction, with a low-ish opening bid price of £300, with the option to make an offer. As I had intended to write it up in the 7A28-7120 RAF Gen 1 PriceWatch thread, later this morning, I'd already taken a screen print last night, in anticipation.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/401872101439

Before I got the chance, it had sold earlier this morning against a Best Offer.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/401872101439

The eBay Bid History falsely displays that it sold for a Best Offer of just £300.

Unlike the previous Buy-it-Now / Best Offer example, there are no links whatsoever, shown in WatchCount.com's Item Number look-up tool. 

Their Completed Items Search results look-up shows the same erroneous £300.

Note the seller's previous similar 7A28-7120 recently sold for £498 as an auction.

Sadly, in this case, the 'Alternate Version' eBay link gives the same false result.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemVersion&item=401872101439

I checked an ended eBay item on WatchCount.com this morning (to confirm that it had actually sold for its full Buy-it-Now price, rather than a Best Offer). Their Item # search screen looks just the same as it did a week or so ago (still without the true selling price highlighted in yellow), but the message displayed on the Completed Items search result is now somethat shorter - and slightly more positive sounding:

It now reads:

Note: (updated 2019-Sep-14) Items below that sold via Best Offer (BO) may not display accurate selling prices, due to a recent change in eBay's API data-feed (sadly, a permanent policy change, not a bug). This unannounced API update affects all 3rd-party developers. We know this is frustrating to some of our visitors, and we apologize; but this is out of our control. However... As a temporary workaround, we've included some inline links below that appear to often display proper BO pricing on an eBay item page (oddly, eBay login is required).

Over the last 8 months, I have regularly been using those online links provided by WatchCount.com, to provide 'true selling prices', in situations where a Best Offer price was accepted against a Buy-it-Now listing - to enable me to post accurate updates to eBay results. They had worked infallibly - almost without exception.

It seems that overnight, eBay have implemented another counter-measure to further obfuscate this handy workaround. It appears they have now finally succeeded in completely withholding this valuable information. This morning, every attempt I have made to use the alternative 'true selling price' link (regardless of the eBay domain selected) has resulted in this screen:

Unless they happen to be keeping the true best offer selling prices on a separate server (in every eBay domain), which is extremely unlikely - that error message is just plain Bnllsh!t !

I'm not going to offer any kind of apology, because it is eBay's stated policy to withhold best offer selling prices, but perhaps they've relented. Or maybe just temporarily let their guard down. Dare I whisper it ? 

The alternative 'best offer true selling price' link appears to be working again. 

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum. 

Earlier this afternoon, I belatedly posted this in the eBay Craziest Prices thread.

Originally posted by myself on July 21, 2020 at 2:47 PM:

Checking my eBay watching page, I see that 7A28-7000 'Ripley Aliens' sold (again) this morning. Not for the UK eBay seller's much reduced Buy-it-Now price of £1500.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/133468432050

But as revealed by the alternative 'true selling price' link, for a best offer of £1025:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?viewitem&item=133468432050

A far cry indeed from his original ludicrous 'pie-in-the-sky' asking price of £3000.

No great surprise at the outcome of that one, really.  But what did surprise me, was that when I clicked on the alternative 'true selling price' link again (just to be sure that I'd copied it correctly) - I got THIS screen !!

I can't remember seeing that screen in a very long time, literally years. I suspect, rather than eBay reverting to 'full disclosure' it was just a fluke, because I haven't been able to get it to do it again.

Seiko7A38 at June 8, 2020 at 9:22 AM

I'm not going to offer any kind of apology, because it is eBay's stated policy to withhold best offer selling prices, but perhaps they've relented. Or maybe just temporarily let their guard down. Dare I whisper it ? 

The alternative 'best offer true selling price' link appears to be working again. 

Seems I spoke too soon. 

Since last weekend, it appears to have been kyboshed yet again. All the then good links I posted last month now return just a completely blank screen. Any attempts to uncover the true factual best offer selling prices of more recently ended items now redirect you to the full screen version of the ended listing (showing the frequently false Buy-it-Now price). eBay you're nothing but a bunch of lying b*st*rds ! 

More by luck than judgement, I came across this recent update on WatchCount.com which confirmed what I'd been seeing.

I've tried searching the HTML 'gobbledygook' of a couple of ended 'Best Offer' listings, as they suggest, but not met with any success.