Numerous people are getting limited by eBay with regards to the number of purchases we can make in a given time frame. Even non-gift card purchases are being limited. I bumped into this issue, along with many DoC readers.
After making some eBay purchases, the eBay system will stop you from buying more for a given amount of time. Sometimes it will stop you from adding the item to your cart and other times it will stop you when you click ‘Proceed to checkout.’
This restriction is different from previous eBay problems which exclusively revolved around Paypal, and usually revolved around buying e-gift cards from Paypal Digital Gifts. Our issue here is an eBay limitation.
Some people report being limited after two transactions, and that was my experience as well. In my case, one transaction was for a single $100 Staples gift card and the second transaction was for two $100 Staples gift cards. A friend got limited after one transaction for two $100 Staples gift cards and one transaction for three $100 Staples gift cards.
Once you are limited, you can’t buy ANYTHING on eBay, not even a $6 soap dish.
- It seems that the limit is two separate checkout transactions, unrelated to the dollar amount of each transaction.
- Unclear if buying multiple items in one checkout (e.g. a laptop and a soap dish) counts as two transactions or counts as one. But buying multiples of the same item (two soap dishes) appears to count as one.
- It might be that buying e-gift cards gets you limited more than buying other stuff.
- I imagine that not everyone is getting this max-2-transactions limit, YMMV. And some people may find their limit to be something else.
- Unclear how long it takes until eBay lets you buy again – one reader says to give it until tomorrow to reset.
Most likely, this limitation is a temporary thing, but it’s worth keeping in mind and trying to buy as many things as you can in one transaction and not breaking them up into two. Also, if you want to buy a few things, be sure to first purchase the one you want most.
