mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999
@lacemaker3 wrote:
Another general question.
Why have collections been removed from eBay.com?
The help page about collections still says they are available, and gives instructions for using them, but none of these instructions work any more.
There are no "Add to collection" links or buttons on listing pages any more.
It has not been possible to create any new collections for months. I tried to create a new collection for my 2018 purchases several months ago. Although it appeared to create the collection, and at that time I was able to go through the motions to add items to it, I was never able to access the collection itself so it was useless.
At that time, I was still able to add items to other collections, but now even that doesn't work any more. For a while it was still possible to add fixed price items to collections but not auctions, now you can't add anything to a collection.
Collections are a very useful way to maintain records, they used to be more reliable than the Purchase History, which has had several long-term and poorly-responded-to glitches, as well as never accurately showing the price of international items. Also, many buyers used Collections to organize items that they were considering purchasing. They are more functional and effective than the watch list, or other lists.
I have asked about this before, going back at least a year IIRC, and I have been told that alan@ebay and other blues are contacting the team involved and will get back to me with the response. But, you have never shared any information or response, just the promises.
Collections are very useful. Please bring them back. If they are not going to be available, then at least acknowledge that, make an announcement, and remove the help pages that say they are available.
Hi @lacemaker3 - thanks for the reminder! We are still looking into the situation with Collections. We've been working with the team involved, but they may have gotten distracted. We'll light another fire and hopefully get an update. 🙂
@Anonymous wrote:
@mam98031 wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@mam98031 wrote:I received this email regarding a product I sell.
I am in-house counsel for xxx., the parent company of xxx, the owner of the xxxbrand. xxx holds numerous trademark registrations for its xxx trademarks, including U.S. Reg. Nos. xxx and xxx for various personal care and fragrance products.
You have a listing for a xxx fragrance. The photo looks like product previously manufactured by an Italian company called xxx under a license agreement from xxx that ended in 2004.
Therefore, either your products are unauthorized or they are at least 14 years old. Yet they are identified in the listings as "Brand New." We trust that you do not want to sell counterfeit or outdated products. Please remove your eBay listings, agree to not sell such products again, and identify your supplier to us. If so, we will consider purchasing your remaining inventory.
Thank you for your assistance.
xxxx
Senior Corporate Counsel, IP
This was NOT coupled with a Vero violation. Which I find odd. Not only that, much of what this person is saying is NOT true.
1. Labeling something Brand New does not mean it was manufactured on any given date.
2. This product IS still in production.
3. The assumption this is extremely old stock is just not true.
4. The photo is accurate for currently produced product.
5. It is manufactured by the company in which I state in my listing and this person states in this email as being incorrect or it would have to be 14 year old product. And on top of that there are other websites and sellers on Ebay that sell the same product, labeled the same way.
I'm not trusting this email to be accurate or proper. There are holes in what they are saying. But with that said, I don't want to cause issues with the health of my Selling account on Ebay. But there is something wrong with this email. In all my years I've never gotten anything like this and I have had Vero violations in years past. But the mere fact of a Vero violation does not mean they are accurate, it only means I got one. Nothing more. They are next to impossible to fight.
Hi @mam98031, while we do encourage a seller to work with the rights owner of a product if they reach out to you, we have a process in place for concerns to be submitted with verification of the intellectual property the other party has concerns with. I recommend you reply to the message and instruct them to review the Verified Rights Owner program to submit formally so we can confirm that this party owns the rights and has the authority to make this request. Feel free to share this link for them to review.
So I should invite them to give me a Vero violation? What kind of damage will that do to my account?
Hi @mam98031, the initial warning from a rights owner won't have any negative impact on your account. The reason I recommend directing this other party to VeRO is that we verify that they have the rights to the intellectual property they are lodging a complaint over, ensuring that you are not asked to make changes by someone who is not in a position to make this request. While I know that receiving a warning from removed content can raise some concerns, there are no consequences unless the same product is listed again after being educated. It is possible that some parties who make these requests do not actually have the rights the claim to, and our VeRO program will filter out these kinds of requests on your behalf.
THANK YOU !! I had not realized that. There is something fishy about this email and now I feel better about this. I will certainly take your recommendation and follow through with what you have suggested. Thank you again for the further clarification. I REALLY appreciate it.
brian@ebay wrote:
@lacemaker3 wrote:
Good afternoon Alan. I hope you are doing well.
I have a General Topic question today.
I would like to know why this seller is able to, and is permitted to, post listings with a banned payment method. Since this is not permitted, I would have expected these listings to be removed after they were brought to eBay's attention. This shooting star seller still has 741 listings up that do not accept a safe online payment method as eBay requires.
You can contact me for the seller's ID. Or, you can ask Brian.T. who posted on the thread after I tagged you guys.
Since this is a shooting star seller, they really should be aware that this is not allowed. They insisted to the OP that this was an allowed payment method, and started an unpaid item case when the OP, quite understandably, refused to share their cc information with a potential scammer.
Hi @lacemaker3, thanks for reporting this to us! Sellers can accept credit cards through a merchant account. When they do this, they do not need to accept PayPal. However, if a seller doesn't link a payment gateway to eBay then the "Pay with Other: Card payment by phone/in-person" options will appear. Since the seller doesn't accept PayPal this is the only option buyers will be given. This doesn't seem to go along with our accepted payments policy.
I've sent all of these details onto the appropriate teams for review.
Brian, that explains how they were able to do this, but it really didn't answer the main question.
Why is this seller still permitted to have listings that violate one of the most important policies eBay has to protect buyers?
These listings should have been ended by eBay, until the seller can relist them with an acceptable payment method. They should not still be active on eBay. Other buyers may not be aware of how easy it is for their cc to be stolen when they pay this way.
@mylittlegeneralstore wrote:
Thanks. The one question I have is when I click on the specific policy, it opens to all active items listed and not just that policy. That has been my frustration. It does not open to just those listings associated with one policy.
Hi @mylittlegeneralstore,
I see what you mean, that's not a good experience. I will contact the Seller Hub team to share this with them in the hope that they improve this flow.
Thank you. 
@lacemaker3 wrote:
brian@ebay wrote:
@lacemaker3 wrote:
Good afternoon Alan. I hope you are doing well.
I have a General Topic question today.
I would like to know why this seller is able to, and is permitted to, post listings with a banned payment method. Since this is not permitted, I would have expected these listings to be removed after they were brought to eBay's attention. This shooting star seller still has 741 listings up that do not accept a safe online payment method as eBay requires.
You can contact me for the seller's ID. Or, you can ask Brian.T. who posted on the thread after I tagged you guys.
Since this is a shooting star seller, they really should be aware that this is not allowed. They insisted to the OP that this was an allowed payment method, and started an unpaid item case when the OP, quite understandably, refused to share their cc information with a potential scammer.
Hi @lacemaker3, thanks for reporting this to us! Sellers can accept credit cards through a merchant account. When they do this, they do not need to accept PayPal. However, if a seller doesn't link a payment gateway to eBay then the "Pay with Other: Card payment by phone/in-person" options will appear. Since the seller doesn't accept PayPal this is the only option buyers will be given. This doesn't seem to go along with our accepted payments policy.
I've sent all of these details onto the appropriate teams for review.
Brian, that explains how they were able to do this, but it really didn't answer the main question.
Why is this seller still permitted to have listings that violate one of the most important policies eBay has to protect buyers?
These listings should have been ended by eBay, until the seller can relist them with an acceptable payment method. They should not still be active on eBay. Other buyers may not be aware of how easy it is for their cc to be stolen when they pay this way.
Hi @lacemaker3, I'm sorry if I wasn't clear in the other thread that I had responded to, but I have reported the seller for review. Once the appropriate team review this they will definitely take the needed actions.
@a_c_green wrote:
@mam98031 wrote:Therefore, either your products are unauthorized or they are at least 14 years old. Yet they are identified in the listings as "Brand New." We trust that you do not want to sell counterfeit or outdated products. Please remove your eBay listings, agree to not sell such products again, and identify your supplier to us. If so, we will consider purchasing your remaining inventory.
That particular paragraph bent the needle on my Bee Ess detector round the peg. This sounds more like a hamfisted attempt to not only stifle your business but also purchase from your same source (and I'll bet they wouldn't actually buy your remaining inventory if you did give up your source; they can get it much cheaper the other way).
As I've said before, I see no benefit to responding to such cartooney nonsense at all. If they're scammers, you'll target yourself as one who might be pushed around by further attempts at intimidation. If they really are patent trolls for the original manufacturer, responding to them will confirm that you're reading their messages, and again this opens you up to further quasi-legal intimidation.
The fact that they haven't simply signed up with VeRO suggests that either they're just naive rivals who don't know what they're talking about and have never heard of VeRO (in which case there's no advantage to you in educating them about it), or they know very well what VeRO is and, for whatever reason, don't want to get involved with it (if for no other reason than that they don't qualify as the actual manufacturer in the first place).
If you do think there's any valid argument to their claims (and you seem to have done a good job of disproving that already), then invest in an hour of consulting with your own legal counsel to see what you might be up against. The main point here is that anything you may hear from the sender of that email will be for their benefit, not yours, and you have no obligation to respond to unsolicited email threats in any way, shape or form.
That is a VERY interesting observation. It was never even a consideration to me to give this person my supplier name. I did feel uneasy about that statement from the first time I read it. But I didn't think of what you see. Good observations, thank you so much for sharing this with me.
@ittybitnot wrote:
Hi @dtexley3 - I can clarify that eBay doesn't offer protection for a credit card chargeback under any circumstances. A seller would need to work with PayPal and the financial institution if a chargeback is filed.
There isn't a contractual agreement between the card issuer and eBay or Pitney Bowes, a chargeback is a direct dispute between financial processors.
We are NOT just talking "credit card chargeback". It appears that SNAD claims specifically filed via PayPal for 'damaged in shipping' GSP shippings are not to be honored by anyone....PayPal doesn't have to honor any GSP issue regarding damage in shipping regardless of the payment source. Buyer files with the Pal, the seller is thrown under the bus. We are seeing this to be true.
Hi @ittybitnot - definitely want to clarify that PayPal does have the ability to hold GSP accountable in the event of a claim for damage or loss in transit through PayPal Purchase Protection. Sorry for any confusion! The specific situation that @dtexley3 references is for a chargeback with the financial institution, and while PayPal does work with the seller in the investigation, the final decision would be made by the financial institution and not PayPal themselves.
