Listings in incorrect categories are making eBay worthless

[spoona555]

I'm a long time eBay user. I have sold some things, but am far more frequently a buyer.

There are certain categories that I regularly browse. One of these is Collectable Clocks.

Recently, the category has been swamped with listings that don't belong there - many of them are for car and motorcycle parts. So, not collectables, and not clocks.

The listings are invariably posted by recently created accounts. I have tried reporting hundreds of them, to no avail. It seems that eBay are happy for this nonsense to continue.

I have read another thread that suggests that accounts list in an incorrect category as a loophole to avoid eBay's money back guarantee provisions.

The same misbehaviour has now started to appear in the Vintage Electronics category.

It's frustrating and makes me feel like giving up on eBay altogether. What is the point of trawling through pages and pages of listings when not one of them is a relevant product for the category ?

[mudshark61369]

@spoona555,

You have posted your issue on the U.S. site's community(ebay.com)  but are located in Australia which has its own community (ebay.com.au).  However, because your topic is not a country specific one we can help you.

Searching ebay using such general search terms as Collectible clocks, will give you lots of irrelevant results.  You need to be a bit more specific with your search terms.

Example: Collectible wind up clock, Category; Collectibles. 

I used that search wording and there were 11 K results. However,  in the left hand column on the search results page were several filters that could have narrowed down your search.  The most specific filters are Time period manufactured, Features & Brand. There is the number of results each of those filters will return in (  ) after each of them.  Hope this helps you.

[kitschy*loot]

I do find that listings in wrong categories to be annoying, but my issues are a little different. I'm tired of clothing sellers listing things from 2020 in the vintage section because it's a replica... a modern replica from the 2020's is not vintage which I am sure they must know. Also tired of them listing other clothes they know aren't vintage as vintage, or girl's clothing as women's. It really makes no sense.

[spoona555]

Yes, thank you, I posted to the US community as I suspected that the issue was not just on the ebay.com.au site, but now I have discovered that the issue does not appear on the US site !

I used a VPN to browse Clocks within Collectibles on ebay.com, and there are none of the garbage listings for unrelated products like there are on ebay.com.au

You have assumed that I am searching eBay just using a general search term, e.g. "Collectible clocks", but this is not what I am doing, and it is not what I want to do. I am searching for "clocks" within the Collectables ( which USAmericans spell as Collectibles ) category.

I don't want/need to filter the results. I simply want eBay to stop allowing what are mostly mainland Chinese sellers abusing the listing practices and putting automotive accessories in the Collectables ( Collectibles ) category. If they were accessories that were collectable, I wouldn't mind. But the sellers are just posting in an incorrect category, and the problem is spreading to other categories.

So, here's a question: why is the situation different in AUS compared to USA ?  eBay might care to answer ?

[spoona555]

Your issue is not that different to mine. It's another example of sellers abusing the listing practices and putting their items in the wrong category. The listing of replicas as 'vintage' is occurring in other categories besides clothing, e.g. new retro-styled appliances show up in Vintage Electronics.

[klhmdg]

eBay isnt here to answer.

This is buyers and sellers like yourself.

[janet9988]

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@spoona555 wrote:

Yes, thank you, I posted to the US community as I suspected that the issue was not just on the ebay.com.au site, but now I have discovered that the issue does not appear on the US site !

I used a VPN to browse Clocks within Collectibles on ebay.com, and there are none of the garbage listings for unrelated products like there are on ebay.com.au

You have assumed that I am searching eBay just using a general search term, e.g. "Collectible clocks", but this is not what I am doing, and it is not what I want to do. I am searching for "clocks" within the Collectables ( which USAmericans spell as Collectibles ) category.

I don't want/need to filter the results. I simply want eBay to stop allowing what are mostly mainland Chinese sellers abusing the listing practices and putting automotive accessories in the Collectables ( Collectibles ) category. If they were accessories that were collectable, I wouldn't mind. But the sellers are just posting in an incorrect category, and the problem is spreading to other categories.

So, here's a question: why is the situation different in AUS compared to USA ?  eBay might care to answer ?

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Oh it happens on the USA site often.

 Scamming sellers purposely list items in incorrect categories to get around ebays automated blocks for illegal items.

I know this because I report those listings and they are not removed. So ebay knows this also.

[mudshark61369]

@spoona555,

"You have assumed that I am searching eBay just using a general search term, e.g. "Collectible clocks", but this is not what I am doing, and it is not what I want to do. I am searching for "clocks" within the Collectables ( which USAmericans spell as Collectibles ) category".

I was only going by what you wrote. We do get topics posted by experienced users sometimes who use very general searches an aren't happy with the number of results, or lack of them.  Because vintage/antique clocks are often listed in the Home and Garden category, limiting your search to collectibles / collectables may cause you to miss out on some listings, but it should limit or remove the clocks listed in the Motors category. 

FYI, The different spelling we use for some words is a product of two peoples being separated by a common language. It was probably started by our revolutionary forefathers, who wanted more than just governmental separation from England. I noticed some of the same thing from you Aussies, on my visits there. What better way to tweak the English Lion, than to play with the King/Queen's English?

"I simply want eBay to stop allowing what are mostly mainland Chinese sellers abusing the listing practices and putting automotive accessories in the Collectables ( Collectibles ) category".

That is an issue we have on the U.S. site as well, and ebay seems loathe to do anything about it. For a while several years ago, ebay was sharing trends in some categories with many vintage/ antique/ collectible items in them that were gaining in popularity.

  They well knew that sharing that info would lead to counterfeit/fake items being produced by the chinese but were doing it anyway.  All any of us seem to be able to do is to look for the use of our flag symbols and mentions of being U.S. or Aussie based sellers in your case, on the listings.  Then to look for syntax issues indicating that the person's first language who wrote the info, isn't English/American.

You might consider posting your issue on the U.K. site's (ebay.co.uk) community to see if this is an issue they too have, and what if anything they have been able to do to counteract it.

As for listing placed in the wrong category not being protected by the MBG, they are usually placed in one of the categories that does not offer MBG protections Ex: some Business and Industrial ones.  You woud have to read the MBG protection info by category  to see what is and is not protected.