@newnewnewmann That is because this whole thread, and the many replies, were deleted a few days ago. I started another post to complain about that, and then the next day the orignial post suddenly reappears without all the replies, and without mine. My reply and none before mine were inappropriate or in violation of community guidelines/policies either. So now the most constructive replies are gone. I call that information control and a reason to doubt the fairness and trustworthiness of this forum.
As for when eBay will stop the abuse of how iPhones are described, apparently they won't according to others on this forum. They are not enforcing, (and havent for a long time,) their most serious policies in regards to abusing the search/browse features, describing the item truthfully to avoid false advertising, misleading the buyer, fraud, (yes, falsifying the item description is fraud if the buyer purchases based on that description.) The most abused descriptor, the condition, (New vs New(other) vs Used,) is violated every day by thousands of listings and nothing is ever done about it or any of the reports filed. Buyers have no ability to get proper results in their searches and some buyers are unknowingly paying higher for a used item believing it is unused. I recently did a search specifically for "New (other)" iPhones because I wanted to only see deals on brand new, unused, but open box iPhones. After sifting through several pages of results, I learned that 99% of the listings in the results were guilty of false advertising and tampering with the search/browse feature. All but three listings were actually used phones; described as pristine condition, like-new, or only used for x-number months. Well, that is still used and they should not have been in my results! Then I searched the completed and sold listings, and was shocked at how many buyers paid more than they should have because they believed the item was unused, new(other.) However, when something is only good for parts but the seller tagged it with the filter as "used", fraud doesn't usually occur because the buyers see in the description it's only good for parts and don't buy. However, it still violates the search browse functions which is supposed to be a serious offense on eBay, and causes potential buyers to have to sift through many unnecessary listings because the browse filters don't work. That makes this OP a reasonable and valid complaint.
I've decided this week I will no longer purchase on eBay unless it is for used items that I expect to be in used condition. Period. It takes an excessive amount of time to find any listings that are truthfully in the new or new(other) condition that I am searching for. Yet my biggest reason is simply because eBay won't do anything about the fraud, and I refuse to ever help them earn even one penny off my new/unused purchases ever again. I'll give my money to other more reputable sites who actually DO enforce these important policies.
eBay took their eye off the ball. They spent more time protecting abusive buyers and sellers than supporting the honest ones!! That's because there is always more money to be made from fraud.
