With many sellers affected by this Auctiva crisis, eBay items where the sellers are using Auctiva checkout are, in many cases, not only spitting back errors but also preventing buyers from completing checkout.

If you are a buyer affected by this issue, there are a few ways to work around this issue (or, for that matter, any checkout issue).

Simplest:

• Contact your seller (via eBay messanging, Skype, email, phone, whatever seller offers for contact) and ask them to send you a PayPal invoice and tell them what email address you would like it to. Then you will get an invoice in the mail and you can pay it when it arrives. In the same way, if you previously arranged to send payment via mail, you can get the mailing address. Either way, you will be able to pay while bypassing checkout.

If you are in a rush or otherwise cannot seem to get an answer from your seller, this might work for a some buyers:

• To start with take a careful look at the listing you purchased. Selles often have their PayPal address (or even snail mail address in the listing if you have already had the seller OK a mail payment).
• If they PayPal address is there, go to PayPal, then click the Send Money tab and then Send Money Online. There you can create an payment to your seller’s email. (HINT: Sometimes PayPal throws a hissy fit if you try to put the eBay item number in the designated slot and tries to force you back into checkout. If this happens, do not fill in the item number field but, instead, just put the item number in the subject so the seller knows what the payment is for.)
• Then send the payment. You may wish to also then email your seller with the relevent transaction number so that the seller knows to look for the payment. 

Warning: Do not try to send a payment unless you are certain that you have the correct PayPal address for the seller.

Before we continue, I do have to caution that, despite what Auctiva is recommending, DO NOT turn off your security settings. Until we have a clear idea of what exactly is wrong, I cannot in good faith recommend that anyone trust Auctiva’s word on this, no matter how much I like their services.

For now, the better option is to work around Auctiva checkout until their issues are resolved.