eBay

harlan17 · ‎11-22-2023

The vintage Spud gun is the same thing as a potato gun, yet ebay policy says can not sell a potato gun. The listing was removed do to the words "potato gun" yet is it the exact same item as the one listed as Spud Gun. Question; should it just be re-listed as a spud gun, remove the offending word? How does that change what the item is? will it be removed again or did the magic algorithm pick up the word potato, so if it is removed, the listing will be ok???

inceptions · ‎11-22-2023

If a spud gun is the same thing as a potato gun, and eBay policy is that you cannot sell potato guns, then you can't sell spud guns either.

Don't relist or you could earn yourself a suspension.

Inceptions
Volunteer Community Mentor, buying and selling on eBay since 2004

gosimus · ‎11-22-2023

@harlan17

< How does that change what the item is? >

It doesn't. The eBay bots that scan for prohibited items are essentially subroutines of a computer program. One thing that a computer does well, is to go through lists and make comparisons, really fast. A computer subroutine scans every word on eBay and compares them to the words on the bad words list. That's my terminology, not theirs. The bad words list evidently does contain the character string "potato gun" so the bots ding the listing that uses that term. But if "spud gun" is not on the bad words list, then the bots wouldn't know they were supposed to flag that listing.