Ebay and Paypal have **bleep**ed up their international software for older G4 macs.

[wbmcleod1]

The two companies have changed their international shipping software for macs.  Unfortunately they assumed that all macs were Intel macs that run windows.  The older macs, the ones that ran early programming up to Leopard 10.5.8, do not run windows at all, and now cannot print an international shipping label.  I have requested, and been granted refunds in every instance, but that does not get the package shipped.  I also get tired of Paypal operating on my money for 3 weeks at a time!  Any one have a solution for this?  Today I went to the post office and filled all the forms by hand.  Tonight I have a new package going to Brazil!  Here we go again!

[spupilup]

It's amazing the way I have been treated by PayPal.  I ran into this problem with my G4 Mac running OSX 10.4.11 a little earlier than you did.  I called PayPal.  Talked with a tech who told me PayPal was aware of an interface problem between them and Pitney Bowes.  He never mentioned anything about my older Mac being an issue.  I went around in circles with tech and they eventually told  me that the problem was being worked on but was not a priority!  Meanwhile. PayPal had about $100 of my money for upwards of three weeks before I was refunded for labels that wouldn't print.  If I EVERY treated my customers that way I wouldn't be in business for long.

Best of all, today I get an email from tech saying they have investigated my issue and could not replicate it so it wasn't their problem! 

Meanwhile, I have no problem printing labels from my Intel based iMac running 10.6.7.

I guess they just want me to buy a brand new Mac to be able to print international labels.  What BS.  What customer service.

[wbmcleod1]

I had a long conversation with an ebay tech.  The upshot was that yeah maybe the programmers made a tiny little mistake, but they won't admit it, and it is simply not worth the gazillion dollars it would take to satisfy such a small segment of their market.  Since I live on a very small Social Security, I can't afford a new mac, and don't want a windows, so I just don't ship overseas any more.  It's easy!

[spupilup]

It may be easy for you but I have a business that ships many items all over the world.  For years I have been successfully generating international labels through PayPal.  It is only in the last couple of months that I have been denied the ability to conduct my business fully. through PayPal.  I am not retired and do not collect social security and don't treat eBay like a hobby.  I take my business seriously and resent that due to an error completely outside my control, I am no longer able to generate shipping labels at work.  Rather, I have to collect all the information, bring it home and print labels there.

To me, the way PayPal has addressed this issue with me is the height of arrogance.  As I stated before, if I treated my customers the way eBay and PayPal have treated me, I wouldn't have the thousands and thousands of positives that I do.

And, frankly, as an Apple user for almost 25 years, I am sick and tired of the way we get treated like second class citizens in cases like this.  There are countless millions still using older Macs with earlier OSX versions but we get cast aside will an ancient OS like XP lumbers on like the fat sloth it is.  Both eBay and PayPal don't mind taking their cut in the iPhone, iPad, Mac business that gets generated on their sites but when it comes to taking care of the users, forget about it.  Have you tried to use the disgraceful eBay app for iPhones?  What an embarassment.  I wonder who the dunces were that wrote that app?

[wajitzu]

This is crazy! It's bad enough they are a monopoly--how do they get away with that?--but now they're taking money for international shipping and not letting me print labels on a mac. whyshould we wait 3 weeks for a refund?

[wajitzu]

I have a brand new mac and it still wont' work. what's the solution? Why do we have to wait 3 weeks for a refund?

[spupilup]

I'll say it again.  The way PayPal and eBay treat Mac users is disgraceful. 

Last Friday I needed to ship a number of international orders.  I was on the PayPal site using my Intel based iMac (PayPal has decided my G5 isn't worthy).  I generated several labels and then when I tried to print my last label I got the banner on top of the page telling me that PayPal shipping was down and to try later.  I tried a couple of time later that afternoon to no avail. 

Saturday morning, I decided to try eBay for shipping.  I could ship internationally with my newer Mac with PayPal so what could possible go wrong using eBay's shipping system.  Two hours later I finally had a label come out of my Brother printer. 

My first attempt at using eBay shipping for creating a label, nothing happened.  I filled in all the boxes, when through the procedure but when it came to actually printing the label I was continually told that FIrefox had plug ins I needed to download.  When I clicked on the button to download the plug ins I was informed there weren't any.  Went around it circles without getting anywhere.

I called eBay and the first rep (Trent) told me that printing international labels with ANY Mac was a crap shoot.  Those where his exact words.  He told me Firefox, Chrome and Safari were not compatible with the software which was developed for IE.

There was nothing he could do.

Now, remember, this was at about 8 am on Saturday so I called back in the hopes of getting a more cooperative rep.  This time I got Scott.  He said, for the life of him, he had no idea why Trent would say the things he said as they were not true.  He swore that he had many friends who were Mac users who had no trouble whatsoever with eBay shipping.  At least he was willing to try to find a way around the problem stemming from the inability to print a PDF (an assinine way of generating a shipping label if you ask me).  Well, after about an hour of failed attempts he located a workaround that required selecting "image" as the way to print the label (as opposed to document, photo and a few other choices).

The bottom line is these companies, PayPal and eBay, love to make money off Apple products and users but don't give a **bleep** about us as sellers.  It is disgraceful that we should not be able to use our equipement whether it's five years old or five days old. 

[wbmcleod1]

I quite agree.  In all my conversations with both paypal and eBay, they have never admitted that they made any mistake at all.  One rep told me, and I believe him, that they have no interest in spending huge amounts of money to pacify a very, very small segment of the ebay sellers'  base.  And in all honesty, I can't blame them for that decision.  Now I no longer ship overseas.  Its just not possible to fight the dragon when you are armed with a safety pin.  Thanks for your views, Bill

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@spupilup wrote:

I'll say it again.  The way PayPal and eBay treat Mac users is disgraceful. 

Last Friday I needed to ship a number of international orders.  I was on the PayPal site using my Intel based iMac (PayPal has decided my G5 isn't worthy).  I generated several labels and then when I tried to print my last label I got the banner on top of the page telling me that PayPal shipping was down and to try later.  I tried a couple of time later that afternoon to no avail. 

Saturday morning, I decided to try eBay for shipping.  I could ship internationally with my newer Mac with PayPal so what could possible go wrong using eBay's shipping system.  Two hours later I finally had a label come out of my Brother printer. 

My first attempt at using eBay shipping for creating a label, nothing happened.  I filled in all the boxes, when through the procedure but when it came to actually printing the label I was continually told that FIrefox had plug ins I needed to download.  When I clicked on the button to download the plug ins I was informed there weren't any.  Went around it circles without getting anywhere.

I called eBay and the first rep (Trent) told me that printing international labels with ANY Mac was a crap shoot.  Those where his exact words.  He told me Firefox, Chrome and Safari were not compatible with the software which was developed for IE.

There was nothing he could do.

Now, remember, this was at about 8 am on Saturday so I called back in the hopes of getting a more cooperative rep.  This time I got Scott.  He said, for the life of him, he had no idea why Trent would say the things he said as they were not true.  He swore that he had many friends who were Mac users who had no trouble whatsoever with eBay shipping.  At least he was willing to try to find a way around the problem stemming from the inability to print a PDF (an assinine way of generating a shipping label if you ask me).  Well, after about an hour of failed attempts he located a workaround that required selecting "image" as the way to print the label (as opposed to document, photo and a few other choices).

The bottom line is these companies, PayPal and eBay, love to make money off Apple products and users but don't give a **bleep** about us as sellers.  It is disgraceful that we should not be able to use our equipement whether it's five years old or five days old. 

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[forwardgear]

Can you tell me where this setting to render labels as images is? Is this a setting in eBay or in the browser (Firefox?)?

Thanks,

Chris

[spupilup]

When you hit the print button or use the pull down menu to print, a window will pop up.  Keep in mind this was using Snow Leopard on a duo core iMac.  Anyway, the window has, near the bottom, a pull down menu (IIRC) that allows you to choose what form you want the file printed as.  I forget the three choices but one of them was "image" and that worked.  It was the only way I was able to print an international label with my iMac through eBay.  I have no problem printing international labels with this iMac using PayPal.

I NEVER USE AND NEVER WILL USE EBAY'S SHIPPING FEATURE.  IT IS TOO UNRELIABLE.