How to report GHOST LISTINGS

[comics-scifi-collectibles]

I am just sharing some information that I learned from eBay.  They now have a way to report GHOST LISTINGS.  As an active community member I know this has been a problem for a LONG time.   It's been hard to track down without a consistent reporting method and because the occurrences are random.  

The following is directly from eBay> 

A ghost listing occurs when an item that has been sold reappears for sale without the seller's intent to relist, seemingly relisted by eBay. 

When faced with a ghost listing, sellers are put in a difficult position. They must either cancel the transaction due to the item being out of stock, which unfortunately results in an “out of stock” listing defect on their account, or they must find an alternative solution, such as sourcing the item elsewhere to fulfill the order for the buyer.

We are actively working to address and prevent these occurrences, and your detailed reports are invaluable to our efforts.

To ensure we can address and resolve ghost listings efficiently, we request your cooperation in providing specific details when you encounter these issues. Here’s how you can help:

Note down the Item ID of the ghost listing.
If available, also record the Item ID of the original listing.
Utilize the feedback form located within the “Advanced Listing Tool” (pictured below), and include the following information:
Both Item IDs as mentioned earlier.
Include the phrase “ghost listing” in your feedback to help us identify the issue.
Provide as much detail as possible about the listing to aid in our investigation.

[brightlightbookseller]

Great!  I find these occasionally in our listings, not often, but more than we'd like.  That's good to know they're finally really looking into it!

[mcdougle4248]

@comics-scifi-collectibles 

Thank you for sharing this information!

[mam98031]

It is so important that sellers that experience this gather the information and submit it to Ebay.  It is the ONLY way they are going to be able to track this issue down and in time resolve it.

[brightlightbookseller]

I think I'm going to go check for any now, actually.  I have a sheet in our listings spreadsheet that lets me enter and compare the titles from an eBay Active Listings report and our own record of what is listed.  Sometimes I find things like extra spaces or misspellings instead, but when I find a ghost listing, I'll use this method to report it!

[ltldpr]

This post should be stickied so more people will see it. 

[squinkercat59]

I am glad they are finally addressing this. The first time it happened to me was about 14 years ago, and has happened a few times since. It's nice it's finally been acknowledged as a real problem.

[itscalledapostingid]

You said that's from ebay. Where was it posted?

[mam98031]

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@itscalledapostingid wrote:

You said that's from ebay. Where was it posted?

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It wasn't.  It was info shared with the Mentors and we are sharing it with sellers in the hopes of getting more detailed reports sent into Ebay, so Ebay can hopefully get a handle on this thing that has been a problem for years.

[tobaccocardyahoo]

I will state, without fear of being wrong, that this problem will never be fixed. It cannot be fixed. Any system which uses distributed databases cannot avoid this sort of problem.

It is a problem which was known in the late 1970s and early 1980s before there were any distributed database systems. It has never been solved because it cannot be.

All of the major internet marketplaces see it manifested as ghost listings. Amazon gave up trying to fix it years ago.

As the databases and number of processors grow the frequency of the problem increases.

[lacemaker3]

rebecca@ebay, devon@ebay, elizabeth@ebay, kyle@ebay, and griff@ebay.com,

(I copied all the eBay blue IDs from the About Us/Community post on the eBay Community board.) We need an official eBay response to this.

If this information (see below) is from eBay employees, then it really should have been posted by an eBay employee. Getting an eBay mentor to post information like this for you, without any attribution, link or reference to eBay, looks really shady on eBay's part. Very manipulative. Isn't eBay willing to stand behind this acknowledgement of the ghost listing issue?

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@comics-scifi-collectibles wrote:

I am just sharing some information that I learned from eBay.  They now have a way to report GHOST LISTINGS.  As an active community member I know this has been a problem for a LONG time.   It's been hard to track down without a consistent reporting method and because the occurrences are random.  

The following is directly from eBay> 

A ghost listing occurs when an item that has been sold reappears for sale without the seller's intent to relist, seemingly relisted by eBay. 

When faced with a ghost listing, sellers are put in a difficult position. They must either cancel the transaction due to the item being out of stock, which unfortunately results in an “out of stock” listing defect on their account, or they must find an alternative solution, such as sourcing the item elsewhere to fulfill the order for the buyer.

We are actively working to address and prevent these occurrences, and your detailed reports are invaluable to our efforts.

To ensure we can address and resolve ghost listings efficiently, we request your cooperation in providing specific details when you encounter these issues. Here’s how you can help:

Note down the Item ID of the ghost listing.
If available, also record the Item ID of the original listing.
Utilize the feedback form located within the “Advanced Listing Tool” (pictured below), and include the following information:
Both Item IDs as mentioned earlier.
Include the phrase “ghost listing” in your feedback to help us identify the issue.
Provide as much detail as possible about the listing to aid in our investigation.

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[downunder-61]

And if it is correct, needs to be pinned for all sellers to see

[itscalledapostingid]

I used to reply to posts about ghost listings with ideas on how to investigate and either debunk or find definitive proof that it wasn't user error: Checking the start time and revisions times to see for example if they occurred at a time when the user was relisting a bunch of other items or maybe actually camping in the High Sierras with no access to the internet... Or see if it was a duplicate that was already active when the original listing was still up. Just basic stuff. Nobody ever seemed to follow up so I never knew if they didn't bother to check or maybe they did and discovered it was user error. Most never shared listing numbers either so I stopped trying to help.

[itscalledapostingid]

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@tobaccocardyahoo wrote:

I will state, without fear of being wrong, that this problem will never be fixed. It cannot be fixed. Any system which uses distributed databases cannot avoid this sort of problem.

It is a problem which was known in the late 1970s and early 1980s before there were any distributed database systems. It has never been solved because it cannot be.

All of the major internet marketplaces see it manifested as ghost listings. Amazon gave up trying to fix it years ago.

As the databases and number of processors grow the frequency of the problem increases.

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A database error sounds like a simple logical assumption but I have a question about the mechanics of that theory.
How would a database error replicate a listing with everything identical to the original EXCEPT the item number? Is that possible? Because the item number would be forever tied to the sale of the original item right?

[comics-scifi-collectibles]

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@itscalledapostingid wrote:

You said that's from ebay. Where was it posted?

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It was shared to the eBay community Mentors team as to why eBay didn't share this themselves I have no clue.    I am just trying to be helpful and pass on what I considered knowledge that the community should have.