Being accused of keyword spamming for using "not"

[missmelindalou]

We listed an item "Pair 2 Bose Double Cube Speakers Black Work Great Cosmetics Not Great" and our selling privledges are temporary restricted for keyword spamming because "not great" violates ebay policy of keyword spamming because "not great" is somehow a "brand name, celebrity name, specific product or much searched word".  Additionally this is apparently our 3rd or 4th offense, but all of the offenses are relisting this one item.  So we are getting close to getting kicked off ebay because we are keyword spamming when we have never keyword spammed.

We have spent hours and have got no where.  Both myself and my girlfriend have tried to explain that although using "not" plus some other word might be a typical way of keyword spamming, "great" is not a celebrity namebrand name, product name or typical keyword search.  Even though "cosmetics" was not part of the complaint in our email from ebay, we tried to explain that the word cosmetics has multiple meanings in english which seemed to be confusing to one operator.  The worst was one ebay rep who seemed to get more and more annoyed about our refusal to stop keyword spamming and all explanations were met with some sort of "if you don't stop keyword spamming you will be kicked off ebay" with the operator never acknowledging that there might be some mistake after we had explained the error many times.

I sort of feel like this comes into the general category of racism, where non-native speakers blame and accuse and punish and blame and accuse more because they cannot accept that their understanding of English misses certain nuances.  Sort of as though someone from the US were to accuse and blame and punish a minority or a foreigner because the majority US person did not understand them and could not accept that there might be a different point of view.

We are really concerned that we might be kicked off ebay for good

[castlemagicmemories]

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@dakotasmoke wrote:

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@myescape wrote:

If you had previous listings of this item taken down for the same issue you are on your last legs because you kept breaking the same rule and getting caught.After a certain number of times warning you the site is going to realize you have no intention of following that rule so the punish you more harshly each time

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The OP says they havent had listings removed but have had several warnings about the rules that they ignored.

In my own experiance, ebay usually removes the offending listing AND sends you a nasty gram telling you not to do what you've done but maybe thats changed.

 No. nasty grams are still sent!

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[pjcdn2005]

@z50com

I don't think that they are referring to putting in a fraction the regular way such as typing 2 1/2 using 5 keystrokes. They are saying that you can't put it in using superscript which would show the  fraction itself as smaller and higher than regular text  such as the fraction in the example they show for the  Levi  golf shoes.

[z50com]

Thank You for clarifying that for me. . .

[missmelindalou]

I can't remember why I didn't say "cosmetics aren't great."  Possibly I wrote the title and changed it and then forgot to change the "not" to an "are not" or "aren't."  Maybe I was thinking of adding something else and was trying to use as few characters as possible.  I might even be using the term "cosmetics" incorrectly, grammer has always been something I am bad at, but something like "the cosmetics aren't great" is a phrase I would normally use.

[missmelindalou]

I try to avoid words like great, poor, etc if it seems like there might be disagreement over subjective words like this.  One speaker has a crack on the top, but otherwise they look okay.  Our 1 negative feedback (or at least my memory of what it was over) is due to something like describing an item as "good condition" and buyer though it was "fair condition" or "poor condition."  Couple other people gave good suggestion of just saying "as is."  But I still sort of feel like saying something like "the cosmetic condition is not great" is a good way to describe item in the title as it avoids subjective terminology and does not unsell the item and it is pretty clear that it doesn't look very good so buyers looking for nice looking items won't waste their time looking at the ad. 

[missmelindalou]

Yeah, maybe it was because of the Mad Men character.  The suspension letter does not mention the word "cosmetics" it just says "not great."  I have never seen Mad Men.

[missmelindalou]

If we actually said "not cosmetics" I could see where it would be keyword spamming, but the suspension letter only mentions "not great" so I don't think we actually violated ebay policy according to ebays own wording of how we were violating policy, unless other poster is correct and we violated policy because "not great" is a mad men character.

[deep-garnet-red]

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@z50com wrote:

eBay?

Should I list a 3/8 drill bit as:  Three eights drill bit

would a 1/4 drill bit be:   Quarter drill bit?

and a 1/2 drill bit:   Half inch drill bit

Come one, let's use some common sense here. . .

I can conceed on the degree symbol but the fractions?

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they are talking about the alt character for 1/2, not writing it out like I just did. Sorry, I don't know how to actually type that character to show the difference.

[z50com]

Why do you want to use the word "cosmetics" instead of "condition"?

Are you selling eye liner or base?

[missmelindalou]

"It was the not cosmetics that got you
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/search-manipulation.html#
 

Not allowed
Comparisons between products aren't allowed. For example, you can't say things like "shirt not pants" or "video not Nano.""

For this to be true, wouldn't there have to be a brand or product line of speakers named "Great"?  I've googled around and can find no mention of a brand or line of speakers named "Great".

[missmelindalou]

Only thing I can think of that might have a brand name of "Great" is Walmarts line of "Great Value Food."

[mistressmime]

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@dakotasmoke wrote:

I'm intelligent enough to know the difference between a sell your phone message and something that mentions policy or compliance.

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This would have prevented the issue, and a long crying rant by the OP who never will get what he did wrong

[missmelindalou]

Again, you have only been a member since 8-8-2017 and have no feedback.  I wish people would use their real accounts when being extremely negative/trolling.  Only things I can think of is either ebay employees are being negative or people use multiple user names to create some sort of false consensus or people switch to false accounts so they can be out of line with no fear of consequences.

[dhbookds]

I'd really suggest you close the thread.......  Click on the 3 dots and then report thread to moderator......telling them you are the author and wish to close it so others can't reply......

It's going nowhere........

[missmelindalou]

To respond to the post anyway, using 20/20 hindsight we should have read the email, but it's easy to see things that one should have done using the wisdom of experience.  That email says "Please make sure your listings follow eBay guidelines" and the one about selling phones says "Cash in on your phone--make the most money on eBay."  We did not miss the suspension letter because it actually sounds scary:  "Your eBay selling privileges have been temporarily restricted"

But, also, I still don't think we actually violated policy according to the suspension letter ebay sent because I still don't believe that "not great," which is what the only thing the suspension letter states as being the violation, is actually a violation, which we apparently committed multiple times by relisting one item.

I mean I feel like if our account is in jeopardy and we are one step away from being permantely banned because we didn't see, what seemed to us at the time to be an innocuous sounding mass mailing, I feel like similar standards should be held for ebay representatives.  If they behave badly, make a mistake and miss something, do something innapropriate, or just make an honest mistake, then their livelihood should be in jeopardy as ours is because we missed something.

We had a small town around here that seemed to exist for the sole purpose of paying the salaries of the police by way of a sudden change in speed limit which police would use to gather income for speeding tickets to pay their salaries.  But so many people complained about this absurdity that the police force disbanded and the town that was never really a town disappeared.  I feel like this is sort of like that in that certain ebay employees can say they are victorious in catching evil keyword spammers without actually putting in effort to catch keyword spammers and just keep catching unsuspecting prey by way of agreeing with some search bot, that we were told doesn't exist.