Email from Webinterpret saying Ive been opted in. Is this real? More fun stuff.

[soccerteeth]

I just woke up to 3 problems as usual. One big one is web-interpret cross border welcoming me and saying that ebay opted me in.   Im not clicking through anything and I know there were major issues in the past.   I never would opt in and have offered international shipping for 10 years.  Im at a point where I may stop all international shipping.  I had 2 - no pickups, 1 in Germany and 1 in the UK. Really Im at the point of about closing my store after almost 3 million in sales.

The last thing I want is being auto-opted into a program that is scammy. Also telling me I have to offer 30 day paid returns, which I will close my store before doing that. Ive always taken returns, Ive always shipped international but, I need to have some control over that. An overseas return is costly and buyers not wanting to pay customs is becoming common.

I want to sell to everyone, everywhere. Its in our best business interest but, when ever little thing is micromanaged poorly, we stand to lose more money and time which gives us no time to actually work on our store.

I called ebay while writing this and couldnt be told if I was opted in or not.  I was told to go to webinterpret and click a link and send a message and to report to spoof@ebay.   It seems rather antiquated that ebay couldnt tell me and that I have to write companies to see if Im opted in.  Its just one thing after another here.

Another issue some of you may be able to clarify for me.  Weve shipped everyday since the beginning.  Noone had to make us do this or threaten us with defects.  Yet of course they did. The most common feedback we get is super fast shipping or something like that.

it took us a long time to sort out usps as we had no full time carrier becasue our mail route was long and noone wanted it. For a long time, we were literally chasing carriers, running to the post office before close and always stressed out about something we already did but, to get that scan. We had 7 different carriers some weeks, all at different times. After a lot of begging, we got on a route for pickups becasue we did enough volume.  We have guy who comes everyday so it was a load off our shoulders.  Now we moved close by and the same guy comes and he's great.  The issue is now that due to our sales taking a dump, and some days we have 0-2 packages, it looks like we are losing our pickup.  USPS will not pickup on a route unless you do x amount of packages, which we no longer do and it is 100% ebays issues.  We never had blackouts and were on a constant climb until June 2018. 

Recently with the quadrupling of returns, we started charging shipping again. Things changed for the worse and free  shipping became an open invite to buy without thinking.  We have no discounts, I dont beleive anything we do can make Cassinni like us, so if we lose our carrier we will stop shipping daily. Not intentionally, as we will still do the packages but, we will not drive to the post office daily or have the stress of chasing down an unsuspecting mailman with a bunch of packages. We will have to put them out with scan sheet and cross our fingers.  We have a job box with a code and instructions on our porch. We can request pickups through the site again and add instructions but, we know how that worked out last time, which was sometimes packages wouldnt be picked up.  

This will surely tank our shipping % if a decent size load doesnt get picked up and I cant bare to call ebay everyday like the old days.  What will this do to our account ? We dont care about badges, weve been here long enough to have repeat customers and weve seen this terror ship coming at us for years so made lots of money and diversified, assuming that we wouldnt be selling here some day.  Of course I dont want to see the work weve put in to the store go away but sunk cost fallacy be damned.

So many unintended consequences have made doing business here harder.  We have almost always been 100% feedback sellers, we had all the discounts and shipped 6 days a week. 45k a month was average. Almost 3 million in sales.  Right now if 1 of of every item in our store sold, the value of current prices is 500k. much of that stuff we have in large quantities not listed on ebay. We also have enough inventory to quadruple the size of our store but, severely diminished returns if we go at it like we used to for much less. Many millions in inventory.

Weve done every edit and change over the years, weve tried free returns, done free shipping for years and now find ourselves selling much less but constant issues. The customer has almost become a unintended adversary. We block at the slightest hint of issue and look at feedback left by buyers when they ask questions.  This is the only protection we have when ebay stopped protecting us.  We have always been top sellers , never losing discounts and being crazy to get our scans and packages out as intended. Ebay has constantly made this harder to achieve through the one size fits all, treating us all like were crooks and not doing something right.  We used to rewards, now we get threats constantly. Psychologically, its pretty messed up. It doesnt matter if its un-intended, thats what it is. Constant problems, different solutions from different people and usually several cs calls or emails to get a halfway decent solution. 

This is different than what has ever happened here.  I would bet that some of us sellers were ebays best buyers as well. Now we see no reason to invest more and more time and money as the present and end looks bleak. I'll beleive seller protections when I see them. 

Started the day out with manufactured problems is becoming more the norm and it doesnt get ant easier, it just builds up until we are about to pop.

[gracieallen01]

Hello Trinton,

A suggestion on the issue of enroll vs opt in, as I'm afraid that you will find about as much support for the ebay definition of opt in to mean enroll - both in formal and slang usage, on and off the Internet - as ebay found trying to trademark 'IT' back in the days of Meg Whitman.

As you are fond of language, I'm sure that you know that 'opt' is short for OPTION.  OPTION means the choice to do so, ergo, opt in (option in) and opt out (option out).  If ebay wants it to mean something else on their platform, then they should publish a glossary, with all the terms that they wish to have re-defined, and make it mandatory reading by buyers and sellers, as well as staff, management and CSR.  Perhaps you can get that on some team's radar.

[gracieallen01]

@Anonymous 

Hello Trinton,

I notice that the opt out button goes to immerced.com, a Mark Ellis site.  Is that the same as Webinterpret or yet another company that does cross-boarder marketing?

[Anonymous]

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@soccerteeth wrote:

I just woke up to 3 problems as usual. One big one is web-interpret cross border welcoming me and saying that ebay opted me in.   Im not clicking through anything and I know there were major issues in the past.   I never would opt in and have offered international shipping for 10 years.  Im at a point where I may stop all international shipping.  I had 2 - no pickups, 1 in Germany and 1 in the UK. Really Im at the point of about closing my store after almost 3 million in sales.

The last thing I want is being auto-opted into a program that is scammy. Also telling me I have to offer 30 day paid returns, which I will close my store before doing that. Ive always taken returns, Ive always shipped international but, I need to have some control over that. An overseas return is costly and buyers not wanting to pay customs is becoming common.

I want to sell to everyone, everywhere. Its in our best business interest but, when ever little thing is micromanaged poorly, we stand to lose more money and time which gives us no time to actually work on our store.

I called ebay while writing this and couldnt be told if I was opted in or not.  I was told to go to webinterpret and click a link and send a message and to report to spoof@ebay.   It seems rather antiquated that ebay couldnt tell me and that I have to write companies to see if Im opted in.  Its just one thing after another here.

Another issue some of you may be able to clarify for me.  Weve shipped everyday since the beginning.  Noone had to make us do this or threaten us with defects.  Yet of course they did. The most common feedback we get is super fast shipping or something like that.

it took us a long time to sort out usps as we had no full time carrier becasue our mail route was long and noone wanted it. For a long time, we were literally chasing carriers, running to the post office before close and always stressed out about something we already did but, to get that scan. We had 7 different carriers some weeks, all at different times. After a lot of begging, we got on a route for pickups becasue we did enough volume.  We have guy who comes everyday so it was a load off our shoulders.  Now we moved close by and the same guy comes and he's great.  The issue is now that due to our sales taking a dump, and some days we have 0-2 packages, it looks like we are losing our pickup.  USPS will not pickup on a route unless you do x amount of packages, which we no longer do and it is 100% ebays issues.  We never had blackouts and were on a constant climb until June 2018. 

Recently with the quadrupling of returns, we started charging shipping again. Things changed for the worse and free  shipping became an open invite to buy without thinking.  We have no discounts, I dont beleive anything we do can make Cassinni like us, so if we lose our carrier we will stop shipping daily. Not intentionally, as we will still do the packages but, we will not drive to the post office daily or have the stress of chasing down an unsuspecting mailman with a bunch of packages. We will have to put them out with scan sheet and cross our fingers.  We have a job box with a code and instructions on our porch. We can request pickups through the site again and add instructions but, we know how that worked out last time, which was sometimes packages wouldnt be picked up.  

This will surely tank our shipping % if a decent size load doesnt get picked up and I cant bare to call ebay everyday like the old days.  What will this do to our account ? We dont care about badges, weve been here long enough to have repeat customers and weve seen this terror ship coming at us for years so made lots of money and diversified, assuming that we wouldnt be selling here some day.  Of course I dont want to see the work weve put in to the store go away but sunk cost fallacy be damned.

So many unintended consequences have made doing business here harder.  We have almost always been 100% feedback sellers, we had all the discounts and shipped 6 days a week. 45k a month was average. Almost 3 million in sales.  Right now if 1 of of every item in our store sold, the value of current prices is 500k. much of that stuff we have in large quantities not listed on ebay. We also have enough inventory to quadruple the size of our store but, severely diminished returns if we go at it like we used to for much less. Many millions in inventory.

Weve done every edit and change over the years, weve tried free returns, done free shipping for years and now find ourselves selling much less but constant issues. The customer has almost become a unintended adversary. We block at the slightest hint of issue and look at feedback left by buyers when they ask questions.  This is the only protection we have when ebay stopped protecting us.  We have always been top sellers , never losing discounts and being crazy to get our scans and packages out as intended. Ebay has constantly made this harder to achieve through the one size fits all, treating us all like were crooks and not doing something right.  We used to rewards, now we get threats constantly. Psychologically, its pretty messed up. It doesnt matter if its un-intended, thats what it is. Constant problems, different solutions from different people and usually several cs calls or emails to get a halfway decent solution. 

This is different than what has ever happened here.  I would bet that some of us sellers were ebays best buyers as well. Now we see no reason to invest more and more time and money as the present and end looks bleak. I'll beleive seller protections when I see them. 

Started the day out with manufactured problems is becoming more the norm and it doesnt get ant easier, it just builds up until we are about to pop.

---

Hi everyone, just wanted to update with a little more information on this. I am still looking into the specifics of @soccerteeth's situation, but in general: 

• Some seller's have been identified to be automatically enrolled in this promotion and receive a notice of this a month prior to their listings being translated. At anytime during this month, they can proactively opt out using the link provided to them in the email they received or by going to the eBay.com/webinterpret page and selecting the opt out option there.
• Other sellers received an email encouraging them to join this promotion, but would not have any of their listings translated until they selected the option to opt in.
• While we aren't able to share specific statistics on the success of this promotion, translating a seller's listings into the local language of their buyers and posting to eBay sites in locations that they already ship directly to increases the likelihood of sales, as the listings are more relevant and understandable to those buyers. They also experience increased visibility, as they bypass any related filters that may prevent listings that were not actively listed on those sites (example: an item listed on eBay.com that ships to Germany may not naturally appear on eBay.de. A translated listing that is posted directly to eBay.de will reach more German buyers that the seller already has indicated they are willing to ship to.)

For those who have received an email related to Webinterpret's services, I encourage you to review the details of the email you received to confirm what version of this promotion you have been offered.

[gracieallen01]

@Anonymous 

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@Anonymous wrote:

---

For those who have received an email related to Webinterpret's services, I encourage you to review the details of the email you received to confirm what version of this promotion you have been offered.

---

Have you an idea of how many versions of the promotion are being offered?  And, how would one tell the difference between the various versions?

[Anonymous]

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@gracieallen01 wrote:

@Anonymous 

---

@Anonymous wrote:

---

For those who have received an email related to Webinterpret's services, I encourage you to review the details of the email you received to confirm what version of this promotion you have been offered.

---

Have you an idea of how many versions of the promotion are being offered?  And, how would one tell the difference between the various versions?

---

Hi @gracieallen01, a seller just needs to read the email they received to understand what they are being offered. The details of the promotion are outlined in the communication we send them.

[dasarock]

@soccerteeth 

am glad to hear you are now out.  good luck!

[wastingtime101]

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@myjunqueyourtreasure wrote:
As an aside - all my IDs have been getting messages claiming You're In! but that was about Seller Hub. Though god knows why they feel the need to send these emails now when I've been dumped into Seller Hub already and have been for months...

---

Yeah, I got one of those messages this month and I've been using the hub for years...

[dtexley3]

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@Anonymous wrote:

---

---

Hi everyone, just wanted to update with a little more information on this. I am still looking into the specifics of @soccerteeth's situation, but in general: 

• Some seller's have been identified to be automatically enrolled in this promotion and receive a notice of this a month prior to their listings being translated. At anytime during this month, they can proactively opt out using the link provided to them in the email they received or by going to the eBay.com/webinterpret page and selecting the opt out option there.

---

In real internet marketing terms (not your personal re-interpretation) automatically enrolling a customer into a program that requires an action on the part of that customer to disenroll before a trial period ends (and fees begin)  is (legally) defined as an Opt-Out program.  Opt-Out programs are banned in multiple states, including my own.  I hope the "legal eagles" in the eire are watching to make sure this Opt-Out program is not being offered to sellers in those states.

[soccerteeth]

There certainly was not a button to tick anywhere for me.  I just read up on some stuff and in the least its very shady.  Noone at ebay even knew if I was opted in or couldnt see until monday.  So technically i was enrolled in a 3rd party program of a company who now has my login credentials and in order to opt out, I haad to spend time finding out what was what and noone at the company who did it knew whether we were or were not in until after the weekend.

I had to email the company, then get requested reasons why I was opting out, even though I already stated them.  Erodes trust faster and further for everyone. I do go to great lengths (I think) to protect y passwords.  Ebay basically gave another company a backdoor into our accounts to duplicate our listings internationally. I wonder how many arent paying attention and will get a surprise.

It would have been ok to offer the program in seller hub and give people the option to use it vs second shady way of opting us in.  Also in the least an opt out button would have been great, although we know how clicking webinterpret ads worked out.   Not to mention, I dont click any random links that are sent to me.

[straybooksoz]

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@Anonymous wrote:

---

@soccerteeth wrote:

I just woke up to 3 problems as usual. One big one is web-interpret cross border welcoming me and saying that ebay opted me in.   Im not clicking through anything and I know there were major issues in the past.   I never would opt in and have offered international shipping for 10 years.  Im at a point where I may stop all international shipping.  I had 2 - no pickups, 1 in Germany and 1 in the UK. Really Im at the point of about closing my store after almost 3 million in sales.

The last thing I want is being auto-opted into a program that is scammy. Also telling me I have to offer 30 day paid returns, which I will close my store before doing that. Ive always taken returns, Ive always shipped international but, I need to have some control over that. An overseas return is costly and buyers not wanting to pay customs is becoming common.

I want to sell to everyone, everywhere. Its in our best business interest but, when ever little thing is micromanaged poorly, we stand to lose more money and time which gives us no time to actually work on our store.

I called ebay while writing this and couldnt be told if I was opted in or not.  I was told to go to webinterpret and click a link and send a message and to report to spoof@ebay.   It seems rather antiquated that ebay couldnt tell me and that I have to write companies to see if Im opted in.  Its just one thing after another here.

Another issue some of you may be able to clarify for me.  Weve shipped everyday since the beginning.  Noone had to make us do this or threaten us with defects.  Yet of course they did. The most common feedback we get is super fast shipping or something like that.

it took us a long time to sort out usps as we had no full time carrier becasue our mail route was long and noone wanted it. For a long time, we were literally chasing carriers, running to the post office before close and always stressed out about something we already did but, to get that scan. We had 7 different carriers some weeks, all at different times. After a lot of begging, we got on a route for pickups becasue we did enough volume.  We have guy who comes everyday so it was a load off our shoulders.  Now we moved close by and the same guy comes and he's great.  The issue is now that due to our sales taking a dump, and some days we have 0-2 packages, it looks like we are losing our pickup.  USPS will not pickup on a route unless you do x amount of packages, which we no longer do and it is 100% ebays issues.  We never had blackouts and were on a constant climb until June 2018. 

Recently with the quadrupling of returns, we started charging shipping again. Things changed for the worse and free  shipping became an open invite to buy without thinking.  We have no discounts, I dont beleive anything we do can make Cassinni like us, so if we lose our carrier we will stop shipping daily. Not intentionally, as we will still do the packages but, we will not drive to the post office daily or have the stress of chasing down an unsuspecting mailman with a bunch of packages. We will have to put them out with scan sheet and cross our fingers.  We have a job box with a code and instructions on our porch. We can request pickups through the site again and add instructions but, we know how that worked out last time, which was sometimes packages wouldnt be picked up.  

This will surely tank our shipping % if a decent size load doesnt get picked up and I cant bare to call ebay everyday like the old days.  What will this do to our account ? We dont care about badges, weve been here long enough to have repeat customers and weve seen this terror ship coming at us for years so made lots of money and diversified, assuming that we wouldnt be selling here some day.  Of course I dont want to see the work weve put in to the store go away but sunk cost fallacy be damned.

So many unintended consequences have made doing business here harder.  We have almost always been 100% feedback sellers, we had all the discounts and shipped 6 days a week. 45k a month was average. Almost 3 million in sales.  Right now if 1 of of every item in our store sold, the value of current prices is 500k. much of that stuff we have in large quantities not listed on ebay. We also have enough inventory to quadruple the size of our store but, severely diminished returns if we go at it like we used to for much less. Many millions in inventory.

Weve done every edit and change over the years, weve tried free returns, done free shipping for years and now find ourselves selling much less but constant issues. The customer has almost become a unintended adversary. We block at the slightest hint of issue and look at feedback left by buyers when they ask questions.  This is the only protection we have when ebay stopped protecting us.  We have always been top sellers , never losing discounts and being crazy to get our scans and packages out as intended. Ebay has constantly made this harder to achieve through the one size fits all, treating us all like were crooks and not doing something right.  We used to rewards, now we get threats constantly. Psychologically, its pretty messed up. It doesnt matter if its un-intended, thats what it is. Constant problems, different solutions from different people and usually several cs calls or emails to get a halfway decent solution. 

This is different than what has ever happened here.  I would bet that some of us sellers were ebays best buyers as well. Now we see no reason to invest more and more time and money as the present and end looks bleak. I'll beleive seller protections when I see them. 

Started the day out with manufactured problems is becoming more the norm and it doesnt get ant easier, it just builds up until we are about to pop.

---

Hi everyone, just wanted to update with a little more information on this. I am still looking into the specifics of @soccerteeth's situation, but in general: 

• Some seller's have been identified to be automatically enrolled in this promotion and receive a notice of this a month prior to their listings being translated. At anytime during this month, they can proactively opt out using the link provided to them in the email they received or by going to the eBay.com/webinterpret page and selecting the opt out option there.
• Other sellers received an email encouraging them to join this promotion, but would not have any of their listings translated until they selected the option to opt in.
• While we aren't able to share specific statistics on the success of this promotion, translating a seller's listings into the local language of their buyers and posting to eBay sites in locations that they already ship directly to increases the likelihood of sales, as the listings are more relevant and understandable to those buyers. They also experience increased visibility, as they bypass any related filters that may prevent listings that were not actively listed on those sites (example: an item listed on eBay.com that ships to Germany may not naturally appear on eBay.de. A translated listing that is posted directly to eBay.de will reach more German buyers that the seller already has indicated they are willing to ship to.)

For those who have received an email related to Webinterpret's services, I encourage you to review the details of the email you received to confirm what version of this promotion you have been offered.

---

So you are, in fact, flooding other countries with US listings. Whether they like it or not. Where is the reciprocal? Why shouldn't MY Australian listings be spammed onto other countries' listings?

[dasarock]

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@Anonymous wrote:

...

---

Hi @gracieallen01, a seller just needs to read the email they received to understand what they are being offered. The details of the promotion are outlined in the communication we send them.

---

per previous post,  these members were involuntarily opted in/involuntarily 'enrolled' in etc...

but now they are being 'offered'?  which means they have the choice to 'opt in' themselves or remain OUT without any action on their part?  

this is becoming very circumvential (new word? ... if we can make up words and definitions here on ebay then i choose this to mean 'extremely shady and political style of actions, intents and responses that do not in any way allow for the intended recipient's values or rights).

[a_c_green]

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@dasarock wrote:

---

@Anonymous wrote:
Hi @gracieallen01, a seller just needs to read the email they received to understand what they are being offered. The details of the promotion are outlined in the communication we send them.

---

per previous post,  these members were involuntarily opted in/involuntarily 'enrolled' in etc...

but now they are being 'offered'?  which means they have the choice to 'opt in' themselves or remain OUT without any action on their part?

---

Per @Anonymous, there were two different messages sent out to different recipients. One stated that they had already been enrolled; the other was just an invitation that the recipient would have to accept first.

[songofsnow_photo]

We've been spammed by Webinterpret this week to the point of unsubscribing, which after reading this thread makes us wonder if we've been opted into this stuff. It is a newsletter hawking all that webinterpret offers with free trials offered for Google shopping, cross border selling and off Ebay selling, upping our selling on Amazon (which we don't currently do) We only sell using Global shipping because we've had items go missing in "customs", so we won't ship direct. I don't know how they got our seller name and email address except through ebay but it certainly seems like this Google adjacent tech shop is trying to lure sellers off Ebay and onto various Google platforms. I'm sure Ebay did not intend for them to raid their sellers when they exposed our seller information to them

[gracieallen01]

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@songofsnow_photo wrote:
We've been spammed by Webinterpret this week to the point of unsubscribing, which after reading this thread makes us wonder if we've been opted into this stuff. It is a newsletter hawking all that webinterpret offers with free trials offered for Google shopping, cross border selling and off Ebay selling, upping our selling on Amazon (which we don't currently do) We only sell using Global shipping because we've had items go missing in "customs", so we won't ship direct. I don't know how they got our seller name and email address except through ebay but it certainly seems like this Google adjacent tech shop is trying to lure sellers off Ebay and onto various Google platforms. I'm sure Ebay did not intend for them to raid their sellers when they exposed our seller information to them

---

Webinterpret has had an 'association' with PayPal, as well, since 2017, for cross-border payment resolution.  There is the possibility they got the information from them. For that matter, you probably should check your PayPal account to see it there is a Webinterpret token on their platform.