Sellers demand compensation as eBay goes down in Europe

Auction site eBay has been down for millions of people across Europe, with swathes of angry users raging that they were unable to bid on items. Some sellers demanded compensation from eBay , complaining that most of northern Europe was unable to bid on any items.

The prolonged downtime, which lasted from early in the morning until mid-afternoon, was the tenth time eBay had gone down thiis year. The latest foul-up was the longest to date, with eBay unable to explain why the site was unavailable for so long.

The website was not down for everyone in the UK, with people still able to connect using mobile broadband or using the eBay app. The auction site said that the website was running normally by 12:40pm BST, but some users still complained they couldn’t access it.

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Earlier in the day eBay said it was "investigating reports" that some customers couldn't get on the site. Twitter users reacted angrily, with some calling for compensation:

In a statement eBay said it couldn’t speculate on what had caused the downtime, nor did it confirm how widespread it was. Informaiton from website availability checker Downdetector.com suggested eBay was unavailable in the UK and much of northern Europe.

The company has had a difficult year, with its website suffering one of the biggest ever security breaches. In May eBay was forced to ask all its 233 million users to reset their passwords after hackers gained access to its internal systems.

A post on the eBay UK Twitter account confirmed the website was back up and running by lunchtime, but some users were still complaining that they were unable to access it.