eBay

missmelindalou · ‎09-05-2017

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

missmelindalou · ‎09-06-2017

Ok, thanks for giving an example.

missmelindalou · ‎09-06-2017

It would have been a lot better if they took the listing down and sent a nasty message. We must have thought the message was equivalent to messages like selling phone on ebay or top tips for selling and didn't notice it. Plus people tend to send very low offers on items which are not best offer. It just never occured to us some massively important message titled "Make sure your listings follow ebay guidlines" was different from all the other messages and was extremely urgent and needed to be looked at immediately. And since they never took the listing down we didn't see there was a problem there. Even better would be if something showed up on the seller dashboard which we check often.

missmelindalou · ‎09-06-2017

I'm guessing I spent one minute on writing the title. I didn't occur to me that "not working" is acceptable but "not great" is not acceptable. Btw, I do think using the word "cosmetics" was a trigger, but the message did not mention "cosmetics" all it said was "not great" is keyword spamming. And I think possibly a non-native speaker might have legitimately thought I was trying to divert people from cosmetics to Bose speakers, but I don't know why someone searching for cosmetics would also want to purchase Bose speakers. The two seem so unrelated it just seems improbable that anyone would use such a tactic to keyword spam. And I don't see why someone would keep relisiting a title that was viewed as keyword spaming if they noticed ebay was warning them about it.

It seems like if someone was really trying to keyword spam they would say something like Bose not Kenwood Marantz which are all audio companies, and then pay close attention to messages from ebay, and then they would have only one count against them instead of multiples.

Just seems like ebay is far more likely to punish people who are not trying to keyword spam and don't realize they are somehow violating policy than people who actually are trying to push the boundaries of what they can get away with.

rixstuff · ‎09-06-2017

@missmelindalou wrote:
Older Pokemon games use a battery to save progress in the game. I don't have much time now, will have to look at what you suggested for other listings later. Thanks for your input.

Well, yes - the game unit, not the cartridge. It pulls power from the game unit - powered by either its batteries or plugged in. Then the game unit records the level, progress, etc on the chip inside the cartridge.

a_c_green · ‎09-06-2017

@rixstuff wrote:
@missmelindalou wrote:
Older Pokemon games use a battery to save progress in the game. I don't have much time now, will have to look at what you suggested for other listings later. Thanks for your input.
Well, yes - the game unit, not the cartridge. It pulls power from the game unit - powered by either its batteries or plugged in. Then the game unit records the level, progress, etc on the chip inside the cartridge.

Um, not to get us too far off-topic here, but they did indeed have a button cell inside the cartridge to remember its settings, scores and such when not plugged in to the console. My kids were long-time Pokémon players and I had to replace the occasional dead cartridge battery.

If you Google "pokemon battery cartridge replacement" you'll see several photos showing the button cell inside the cartridge.

omgitlightsup · ‎09-06-2017

@a_c_green wrote:
@rixstuff wrote:
@missmelindalou wrote:
Older Pokemon games use a battery to save progress in the game. I don't have much time now, will have to look at what you suggested for other listings later. Thanks for your input.
Well, yes - the game unit, not the cartridge. It pulls power from the game unit - powered by either its batteries or plugged in. Then the game unit records the level, progress, etc on the chip inside the cartridge.
Um, not to get us too far off-topic here, but they did indeed have a button cell inside the cartridge to remember its settings, scores and such when not plugged in to the console. My kids were long-time Pokémon players and I had to replace the occasional dead cartridge battery.

If you Google "pokemon battery cartridge replacement" you'll see several photos showing the button cell inside the cartridge.

AC is right; I can confirm this. Many NES/SNES/Game Boy carts have batteries in them. I've never taken apart a Sapphire cart, but someone posted a photo of the guts online and there's a battery in there.

Some of them are rechargeable, but those batteries go bad too.

rixstuff · ‎09-06-2017

Admittedly it was a very long time ago that I had a gameboy and they didnt have batteries then. I defer to your wisdom.

missmelindalou · ‎09-06-2017

I did not say, or mean to imply that Filipinos are any more or less racist than anyone else.

I think all people have all sorts of prejudices, as there is simply no way to avoid it. Human brains seem to use all sorts of shortcuts to simplify the world, which is maybe why humans can do things that computers can't do despite computers obvious superiority in not making mistakes with all sorts of exact things like calculating numbers. People see things with four legs and a seat and it fits the category of "chair" and people assume it is safe to sit in.

Then people seem to prefer their own group and be suspicious of other groups, whatever those groups might be.

I think I remember something about Filipinos being treated badly in Japan. I know Chinese ancestry Indonesians and non-Chinese ancestry Indonesians don't like each other very much. I suspect Hong Kong Chinese have all sorts of preconceptions about village farmer Chinese and vice versa. Etc, etc.

Real problems come when one group has all the power and they have some reason to dislike some other group and there are no checks and balances. Like poor whites in the old South were in competition for jobs with blacks and there was no mechanism keeping them from not being jackasses.

That's what I felt like when talking to Ebay Philippines and no one, except last rep, would listen to my explanations and just kept blaming and accusing. Like I felt like I was some stupid, rich, spoiled, **bleep**y American in their eyes, so no matter what I said it was going to be ignored. I just don't see any way that another American could not get that we were just trying to describe the item. And as far as I can tell, there are no checks and balances of reps who are out of line as I can see no way to give positive feedback and negative feedback when were on the phone forever and getting transferred around and talked to many people.

So I admitted that maybe my suspicions were incorrect and I think I used too strong a language as "racist" seems to have serious weight. And someone recently stated that their Indonesian girlfriend did not get good customer service.

But I think it's not out of line to think that there is some posibility that when people from group A have all the power and maybe have reasons to be jealous of or dislike people from group B plus there seem to be few checks on behavior of individuals, that there is a possibility of some sort of behavior that is not particularly good.

deep-garnet-red · ‎09-06-2017

I just don't see any way that another American could not get that we were just trying to describe the item.

I skipped from page 4 to here because I was wondering why this thread stll had so many posts...lol

What you still don't seem to be understanding is that it doesn't matter if you did it intentionally or not. An American would not be able to change anything. It's just one of those quirks of eBay that you have to work with. There is no reason to take things so personally.

dakotasmoke · ‎09-06-2017

Once again you're not understanding it's not personal the CSR wraps are not some evil overlords trying to punish you. You listed those speakers for times they can see this. They can also see that you were given a warning at least once.

Many Americans have come here and told you what you were doing is keywords spam. So no it's not a matter of the foreign Representatives not understanding your way of thinking it's a matter of they're going to enforce the rules they can't make an exception for the way you talk because then they would have to make an exception for everybody else who says this is just the way I talk.

missmelindalou · ‎09-06-2017

Alternatively, it may just be that reps are burnt out and because they hear complaint after complaint from members who have brought problems on themselves, they just assume that this is another example of someone who won't stop being difficult because they like to complain.

Or maybe it's just easier to blame and accuse than to put forth effort to address a concern.

Etc.

But we have a Top Rated status are forcast to have a future Top Rated status, we have no problems except we got suspended and are close to being thrown off ebay because we listed one item with a title ebay doesn't like and then kept relisting it because we did not see urgency in the wording of a form message and therefore did not read it.

I feel like there must be some way to have an obvious mix up be resolved, but it seems like this is entirely impossible. At the very least it would be nice to be able to give negative feedback to reps who were accusatory and not helpful or gave incorrect information or just transferred call when they said they were going to look at account and give positive feedback to last rep who actually listened and put forth effort, but this also seems impossible.

sidemouse · ‎09-06-2017

@missmelindalou wrote:
I understand that reps are getting yelled at all day, etc, but still if someone has a clearly legitimate frustration, it is not helpful to randomly transfer after rep says they will look at account, be given wrong information, argue over what a word means with a native speaker or just be a complete jerk. If I could rate individual reps, I would not hesitate to give last one a very high rating, because although he didn't help, he actually listened and acknowledged the problem and was willing to put forth effort to look into possible solutions.

Oh yeah they don't care, a few do but most are just playing the game and all they care about is jumping through the hoops in that specific way so that the computer "thinks" they are doing their job. That basically means getting the caller (you) off the phone in under a certain amount of time with as many positive "key words" as possible. I try and see the humor in it but know that I almost never call CS because I usually find it a big waste of my time (not to mention I leave feeling equally, and at times even more frustrated than before I called).

CS have a purpose, if a certain situation arises that I know I need their help with AND I know the "key words" I have to say to get them to act then I may call them. Also I find the CS useful when I'm stuck with a decision that I don't care which way it goes, for that I may call them and then whatever they say goes.

missmelindalou · ‎09-06-2017

I think maybe I am naive and expect customer service to actually help customers. Really ebay is at fault for putting the sticks and the carrots in the wrong places.

z50com · ‎09-07-2017

The customer service rep is asking themselves why this seller just won't "listen" to what they're saying!

HELLO, the word "not" shouldn't be used in the title.

What don't you understand about that?

If you had reached Draper Utah instead of the Philippines you would've got the same answer. . .

Ebay didn't write the title to your listing, YOU did!

dhbookds · ‎09-07-2017

I feel like there must be some way to have an obvious mix up be resolved

You still don't get it....... it's NOT a mixup to Ebay......... it's a seller mistake that was repeated 4 times........ how many times is a cop going to tear up a speeding ticket because you "didn't see" the speed limit sign?