Policy Violation: Offering to Buy or Sell Outside of eBay
Summary: adventurer_f48 shared their frustration with eBay's policy violation system, as their listing was flagged for offering to buy or sell outside the platform despite no such content being present. After multiple appeals and communication attempts, they were advised to remove and recreate the listing, which led to the same issue. adventurer_f48 insists their description complies with eBay's rules, confirmed by customer service. Other participants suggested rewording the listing to avoid triggering the AI system and highlighted the ineffectiveness of phone support. adventurer_f48 later updated that a supervisor confirmed their appeals were never human-reviewed, promising an escalation for resolution.
I've listed an item on eBay and it was hidden for a policy violation (Offering to Buy or Sell Outside of eBay). I am not actually offering to buy or sell outside of eBay. There is no such thing in my item description. However, the algorithm they use which I assume is not LLM based, flags my listing as violating their policy. I filed an appeal and it was granted but the listing was not reinstated. I called eBay three times already and chatted with them once and every time they assured me that the policy violation was granted and that they filed an internal ticket to resolve the "stuck" listing within 72 hours. I didn't not receive a single notification and had to keep calling. The last one I spoke with said that my appeal was granted therefore I should remove the listing then recreate it. I did that, now I have another policy violation. This is ridiculous, their policy violation detection is broken.
adventurer_f48
OP2 weeks agoUPDATE: spoke to a “supervisor” at eBay support and they confirmed that none of the previous appeals were reviewed by a human, it was always routed through their AI system. He escalated it and promised it would be resolved by Monday. He did confirm that the system is still very buggy.
simba6
·2 weeks agoGot to watch how you word things.
gurlcat
·2 weeks agoThere has to be something in the wording that the bot is deciphering as contact info. Did the listing have a '@' or '.com' anywhere? Any 10-digit numbers, with or without spaces or dashes between them)?
sin-n-dex
·2 weeks agoOr reference to a website?
adventurer_f48
OP2 weeks agoNone of that. What appears to trigger it is the following sentence at the end of the description:
"Multiple available. Contact me via eBay if you want to buy more than one and I will offer you a discount through eBay."
I was told by eBay customer service that this is perfectly fine and that my appeal was granted but they are having issues with their "code" and are not able to reinstate the listing so they asked me to end it and recreate it only to have the same problem again. I refuse to remove this sentence because it does not violate their policy - multiple agents have confirmed that.
sin-n-dex
·2 weeks agoYou might have to tinker to deal with the AI. I got a banknote from Oman removed because Oman rhymes with Iran which is banned and it has a guy wearing a turban on it that looks Iranian. And tonight I couldn't list a coin from Ukraine because some parts of Ukraine are embargoed. I gave up, the Ukraine coin can go in my collection instead.
gurlcat
·2 weeks agoAre you talking about the phone agents? 🤣 They don't know anything. They're contract workers with only basic knowledge of eBay policy and procedure, never mind what the bot software is trained to look for -literally nobody but the programmers know that, and for good reason.
But go ahead and refuse to re-word the thing that is probably stopping you from selling this item, and also probably flagged your account so the bots will be watching it like a hawk now.
adamcartwright
·2 weeks agoI would try "message me through eBay messaging" instead of "contact me via eBay."
asset_liquidators
·2 weeks ago"I refuse to remove this sentence because it does not violate their policy - multiple agents have confirmed that."
This is akin to banging your head against a wall and expecting a different result. As you see, being stubborn is getting you nowhere.
If you have multiples available then you should be doing a quantity listing. Problem solved.
adventurer_f48
OP2 weeks agoIt already is a quantity listing but I have so many buyers who can’t figure out if they buy more it gets cheaper. Anyways, I’ll give it one last chance then I’ll top bagging my head against the wall.
quadcitypickers
·2 weeks agoOddly I see a lot of businesses with listings including their phone number for support. How is that allowed?