How to report deceptive ads to ebay

[thetwohales]

I have been seeing an increasing number of items for sale that list range of prices; where the low price is false.  For example, one current listing for shoes, item 314630350085, lists a price of “$18.72 to $44.90”, even though every choice of shoes is over $40.  How do I report this to eBay?

[eburtonlab · Accepted solution]

Every listing has a "report this item" link in the body of the description -- it is on the right side if you are using a desktop browser, just above the item specifics. I suggest using the "Listing Practices" "Search and browse manipulation" "other search and browse manipulation" categories.

Lots of folks have been complaining about those listings, but I do not think eBay has been very proactive in actually dealing with them, though. Since many unscrupulous sellers get away with that, other sellers copy them and make the lowest price sort unusable for many keywords.

It is possible to avoid those listings when searching. If you can limit your search results to a small enough number by using a price range -- say, enough to fit on one page of search results -- then try sorting your results by "Price plus shipping: highest first" and skip down to the bottom of the results, and scroll up. 

This forces eBay to sort the results by the highest priced variation in your price range, which most often is the variation you are interested in, anyway.

[thetwohales]

Thank you for the answer.  Regrettably, although I did report this listing as deceptive (as well as several others), within minutes I got identical replies in which eBay said there was no policy violation.  Will paste one below.  So I guess it looks like eBay will continue to become less honest and more problematic to use.  But thank you for responding, and trying to help.

"We looked into your report and didn’t find the listing to be in violation of our policy. This determination was made using automation or artificial intelligence."

[rock.star]

If you look on down they have some insoles for $18.72 so it not a violation but yes very misleading. 

This is another reason to stay away from sellers in China.