Nectar Points ebay.co.uk

Prawnographer · Guest

I had been scratching my head as to why I was not getting Nectar points on all my ebay.co.uk purchases, and finally got hold of eBay this morning and spoke to them about it. They said it was on transactions completed through eBay.com as the Nectar scheme points aren't honoured from the US site.

A recent purchase of a laptop for 565GBP (from a Buy it Now listing) resulted in an award of 300 Nectar points, whilst a winning bid placed on a desktop PC at 500GBP resulted in zero points (item no' 333522199015).

It turns out the Nectar points are forfeited whenever I snipe with Gixen. I've just had a look back at my Nectar history to make this connection. The amounts I am losing as a result of this are, worryingly, worth significantly more than I pay Gixen for the sniping service, which is a huge disappointment.

Is there something Gixen can change to avoid this continuing to be an issue for your United Kingdom subscribers? Confused

Cupid · Joined: 09 Aug 2007 Posts: 7837 Location: Bristol, UK

I have collected Nectar points on ebay.co.uk via Gixen for many years without issue.

I've just checked it and I'm still getting credited with them according to Ebay.co.uk, even with the introduction of the use of the new API by Gixen.

You do need to set your target to be the UK site on the Settings page though.
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Mark

Guest · Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2020 5:40 am Post subject:

Hi Mark,

My target is already eBay.co.uk

The mirror server is configured to the US site.

If this was a one off I could understand it was a transient failover to the mirror, but I'm seeing this behaviour repeatly.

One transaction on 26 February was affected, another on 28 February was too, and then another cropped up on 01 March - whereby all these purchases were denied Nectar points by eBay.co.uk (screenshot has posted at... imgur.com/a/NfmXVkF)

When I spoke to eBay CS they were adamant I had been logged into eBay.com as opposed to my own ebay.co.uk site, except I wasn't.

Yulia

Cupid · Joined: 09 Aug 2007 Posts: 7837 Location: Bristol, UK

I have both Main and Mirror targets set to the UK site.
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Mark

Gixen · Advertisements

Guest · Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2020 6:03 am Post subject:

In terms of failover protection I rather thought setting your main and mirror options to the same site was completely futile.

Cupid · Joined: 09 Aug 2007 Posts: 7837 Location: Bristol, UK

Not really... The redundancy available via a Mirror subscription is on the Gixen side... Ebay handles redundancy on their side. They already have many servers for each of their domains... and all their servers are in California, no matter which domain they serve.

I guess it does help if Ebay roll out software, that doesn't work well, on different domains, which seems to be have always been their roll out strategy. Then having different ones targeted by Gixen would help, but I haven't seen that cause an issue to Gixen for many years now.

If you prefer to keep the Mirror targeted at the US site it might be an idea to set it's default offset much lower than your Main offset so that the Mirror only ever wins when the Gixen Main server has definitely not managed to place the bid. I can't be certain that is going to work for you though, as I have not tried it since the new API was introduced a couple of months ago.
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Mark

Guest · Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2020 12:24 pm Post subject:

As there is no indication on the snipe history page, or anywhere else to be perfectly honest, exactly how a snipe has been executed (eg; which server sent the last minute bid...) and given that failure of the "UK server" is undeniably resulting in your subscribers losing Nectar Points, it would seem to me that either the terms and condition of Gixens service, or your transparency of how exactly snipes are fired off, need up-dat-ing (hyphenated because of your silly spam filter...)

It's not very pleasant to discover the only way of determining this is to refer to your Nectar account regards your losses, and a fairly good indication of what's been happening at Gixen.

I have looked back over my Nectar Account for twelve months and I reckon my losses amount to eight times the annual Gixen subscription Evil or Very Mad

Cupid · Joined: 09 Aug 2007 Posts: 7837 Location: Bristol, UK

I can't really see any 'failure' here, Gixen is operating as described, placing bids as requested on the target site requested, all of which is configurable by the user.

There has never been any commitment to operate in conjunction with Ebay features like this and it's really a bonus that it can be configured to do so at all.

It actually isn't possible to configure Gixen to work with most cashback sites because the way these are implemented is completely incompatible with having bids set from a remote server at the end of the auction.

I have also managed to get it to work with easyfundraising, but I keep having to remember to reconfigure that otherwise those donations get missed too, but I'm not about to complain about that.

I think there's a valid argument for an item about Nectar to be included as an item on the Gixen FAQ page, and I'm sure if anyone would like to suggest the specifics as to how that could be worded that Mario might look favourably on including such a section there.
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Mark

Guest · Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2020 6:43 am Post subject:

Guest · Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2020 5:48 pm Post subject:

The mirror server bid is always sent, it's not switched off whether the main server comes before or after it. If you have both servers set to the same offset then there's no way to specify which server's bid reaches ebay first.

The best solution here is to set both servers to ebay.co.uk and/or set the main server to 8 or 6 seconds with the mirror server set to 6 or 4 seconds (at least 2 seconds later). Then you'll be guaranteed to get Nectar points.

Guest · Guest

Cupid · Joined: 09 Aug 2007 Posts: 7837 Location: Bristol, UK

UPDATE: Nectar points are no longer credited for auctions won by sniping services, including Gixen.

From 1 September 2024 ebay.co.uk removed the ability to link Nectar cards on their site.

They do still offer Nectar points if you log in via the Nectar website (www.nectar.com). However, this no longer works if the auction is previously won by an automated snipe. If you examine the Nectar 'Terms & Conditions and Privacy Information',here it contains this statement.

'. Rewards are not available on bids place with a sniping service/tool.'

.. and I can confirm that accessing Ebay this way does NOT result in any credit of Nectar points for any auctions won here... so that's the end of that, sorry.
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Mark