Bait and Switch Tactics are okay with eBay !?!

[cybercop106]

How is it within policy for disingenuous Sellers to advertise something with a price that is NOT for the item described in the ad, instead it's for a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT item in the drop down menu.  I'm sick and tired of having to waste time on search results that are Bait and Switch. My complaints all come back with a determination that it is not a policy violation... WTH ? 

If Search and browse manipulation policy prohibits manipulating eBay's search and browse experience by adding popular keywords in your listings that don't have any RELATION to your items, why the hell is it okay to list a price that IS NOT FOR THE ITEM DESCRIBED IN THE AD (i.e. is unRELATED to the item described) !?! 

[slippinjimmy]

It's not ok but seller continue to do it.

Different prices for different but very similar items item is not the problem, having a variation listing with one 99 cent variation tossed in with a bunch of $20 items IS a problem but a difficult one to deal with because some variation listings have legitimate wide price variations such as a pack of 10 screws, or 50 screws or a box of 200 screws this would have a large price variation but is not really any sort of bait and switch.

[bonanza125]

Any listing you feel violates Ebay policy then report the item. Ebay agent will decide if its something they will remove or not. There really isn't much that can be done. It's system operated. The system isn't going to know and near Ebay agents in many cases will not know. The fact is you are stuck with browsing through those types of listings.

[eburtonlab]

Rather than sorting by "Price plus shipping: lowest first", try using a price range to limit the number of search results to a reasonable number, and sort by "Price plus shipping: highest first", then go to the end of the search results and scroll up.

This avoids putting all the variation listings with unrelated low-priced variations at the start of your search, and it also ensures that the listings that appear sort by the highest priced variation within your price range -- which is typically the variation you are actually interested in, anyway.

If you have more time than you know what to do with, you can report some of the tens of thousands of listings that abuse price variation rules to list unrelated items as "variations" for "search and browse manipulation", but most folks probably have better things to do with their time.

[mam98031 · Accepted solution]

Your viewing Variation listings.  Some seller do abuse them, I agree.  But then there are other sellers that so not.  I use them all the time in the way they were intended to be used.

I'm sorry you have ran into so many problems.