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.

[quicksilverdiecast]

At first I thought it was me losing my mind....but after paying close attention to how and why this MAY have happened (when you spend 10-12 hours a day on ebay every day you tend to notice the little things that change) with that being said....follow along.  There has been a number of times where an item that has only a qty of 1 and sells is done and gone..sold, no inventory left...and only to have it show up sometime later when another buyer found the listing and purchases said already sold item!  I can accept on occasion I am human and make mistakes, but not repeatedly/consistenly! So I have carefully monitored this...and have come to this conclusion....ebay keep changing the platform constantly...and in order to do so they have at least two platforms they use...one that is live and one that is getting any changes that require it to be offline so to speak, so when they pulldown that platform it is a snap shot in time....meaning that when that platform was swapped with the mirrored one your item was still unsold. The current running live platform continues running and your items sells and is gone....but wait! Once ebay does whatever they needed to do to the offline platform and swaps it back out with the mirrored platform presto your item shows back up showing it as unsold and another buyer purchases it....and then the fun begins with the seller tearing his hair out trying to find the said item to ship...yet in the back of your mind you vaguely recall selling it!   How did I come to this conclusion, as I said I spend a great deal of time on here and notice little things as I go through my day..sometimes I update my listing and want to copy my own picture off the listing to do any number of changes I want do, which with what I will call the "OLD" platform I was able to do and save as a jpg. however on the "NEW" platform it is not possible to save your own picture form the live listing and when trying to do so it comes up as a .webp now rather than the OLD .jpg. This swapping of platforms happens occassionally...

I have also compared notes with a few other reputable sellers I know on here and they have had the same issue of items previously sold reappearing as unsold and then sold again to another buyer! (I polled them a couple days ago to confirm I was not losing my mind) Now this has happened a couple times in the past, but it has happened again recently where I now have 3 different items that were previously sold, back on my seller hub as being sold again, With 2 of them I am positive they were sold as they were odd balls one would remember selling. The 3rd one as I said in the back of my mind I vaguely recall it selling also. So when ebay swaps platforms for one reason or another I am sure they do not alter or change anything concerning a sellers listing including qty and when the board is swapped back it shows the qty again as being for sale AND any of the revised changes that the seller may have done while one platform or the other was swapped? The seller is oblivious to this until an issues crops up and is clueless at how it happened. In the end it creates a BBE for both the customer who bought the already sold item, and the seller.

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[brightlightbookseller]

That doesn't make sense, actually.  Only auctions are supposed to allow for duplicate listings, fixed-price listings always give us a warning if we try to list the same thing twice accidentally.  And it was the second one that sold, from what I saw, which by that theory shouldn't have been visible until the first one sold.

[brightlightbookseller]

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@dirk12955 wrote:

It's still good news,  even if a little late.

I can't report the past incidents but I can report the next one.

My problem,   With 3400 listings over 3 accounts I don't realize there is a problem

until it's really a problem.

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We have a spreadsheet with all our active listings (and sold/ended/etc) that I can run a match formula on compared to a download of our active listings from eBay and see which ones are either not on the spreadsheet but active on eBay (that means either they're a ghost listing or more often there was a mistake in the title in one place or the other and it didn't get copied correctly to our spreadsheet), or the other way around (which usually means we didn't mark things sold).  I only catch ghost listings every once in a while, but I try to run that test about every 2 weeks.  We still have occasionally had a ghost listing sell, which stinks, but some I've been able to catch that way.

[lacemaker3]

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@brightlightbookseller wrote:

That doesn't make sense, actually.  Only auctions are supposed to allow for duplicate listings, fixed-price listings always give us a warning if we try to list the same thing twice accidentally.  And it was the second one that sold, from what I saw, which by that theory shouldn't have been visible until the first one sold.

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@brightlightbookseller, the timing of those two listings is not a theory, it's a fact. They were listed on the same day, one second apart, so they were active at the same time, until one of them sold. I don't know if they were considered duplicates or not. Maybe eBay didn't catch the duplication.

I recommend using the duplicate listing scan from isdntek.com (@shipscript's website) to identify listings that may be duplicates. It may highlight some listings that turn out to be different in some way, but it's a good way to review your listings and identify ones that need to be double-checked.

https://www.isdntek.com/ebaytools/DuplicateListings.htm

[brightlightbookseller]

Sorry if I implied anything about what you saw!  I know the listings say they started right after each other.  It was the rest that didn't really make sense.  I have seen that duplicate finder before, but I'll bookmark it now, that's helpful!

[lacemaker3]

I was mostly trying to explain that in your specific case, the apparent "ghost listing" wasn't. It was actually a duplicate, which had to have been created by accident (seller error). If there was a glitch, I guess it was that eBay didn't recognize the pair of listings as duplicates of each other.

[dirk12955]

I'm not clear as to how to report another of these issues.

Had a listing made April 23rd and sold June 7th

Item got "Relisted"  July 2nd and sold a second time July 27th

Before anybody jumps in with Seller error,   My wife and I were on vacation and 

away from home and ebay on July 2nd

[lacemaker3]

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@dirk12955 wrote:

I'm not clear as to how to report another of these issues.

Had a listing made April 23rd and sold June 7th

Item got "Relisted"  July 2nd and sold a second time July 27th

Before anybody jumps in with Seller error,   My wife and I were on vacation and 

away from home and ebay on July 2nd

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Hi, @dirk12955, thanks for sharing this. After looking into this, I believe you do indeed have a ghost listing.

I did find the original listing, that sold June 7, and it does say that it was relisted. So it would appear that somehow (I don't know how) this was relisted from the original listing. That's a good thing to know (and not something I have been able to confirm before).

I looked up the timing on the relisted one, and as you say, it was relisted July 2. I believe you, when you say you were on vacation. I am not seeing an explanation for this one (to cut to the bottom line).

I checked, and I don't see any of your active listings that were also relisted on that day. I checked this because on a previous investigation, I found that the "ghost" listing had been part of a very large batch of items that were all relisted at the same time (or actually, they were batch relisted and went active a few seconds apart). But that doesn't appear to be the case here.

I don't suppose anyone would have had access to your account while you were on vacation?

Do you ever use your cell phone to check on your eBay account (while you're on vacation)?

Here's how you're supposed to report ghost listings like this, thanks to @comics-scifi-collectibles :

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@comics-scifi-collectibles wrote:

...

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.

---

[dirk12955]

I'm the only person using ebay in the household and my Laptop was with me.

I'm baffled how this happens.    

With over 3,000 listings and daily sales and new items being posted on a regular basis,  ,  It's impossible 

for me to find these until it's too late.

Another irritated buyer for me.  

I do use "Sell similar" on sold listings to make a new listing.    But not on July 2nd while on vacation.  

[itscalledapostingid]

........................................

[lacemaker3]

@dirk12955, please, report these two listings as suggested by eBay (via comics-scifi-collectibles ).

Please also keep us informed about the response you get to the report. Many of us, I'm sure, would like to know how eBay responds to these reports.

Especially since all the eBay employees have been silent on this issue, after @comics-scifi-collectibles  started this thread on their behalf.

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

We really do need a response from eBay blues about this.

[oaklandmaryland]

the sad thing is Ebay denies ghost listings occur and always places the blame on the seller saying the seller has erroneously  relisting the item. Most sellers experience them so you have to keep a close watch on your inventory to remove these listings.

[chubbycatcollectibles]

Oh how I wish this problem can be fixed, but alas, I doubt very much that it ever will be.  I just wish we sellers had a better method for dealing with them.  I can't tell you how many times this has happened to me over the years.  Ebay regarding them as defects is an even bigger problem.  But at least now I know I am not crazy when it occurs and I swear I didn't list it. 

[mam98031]

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@oaklandmaryland wrote:

the sad thing is Ebay denies ghost listings occur and always places the blame on the seller saying the seller has erroneously  relisting the item. Most sellers experience them so you have to keep a close watch on your inventory to remove these listings.

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@oaklandmaryland 

If you want to hang onto this particular position, then nothing changes.  Ebay is now admitting they happen but need our help to try and resolve the matter.  

You nor I know if "most" sellers experience them.  Certainly some do.  I've been selling here for a very long time and I only had my first Ghost Listing a couple months back.  

It is your choice, you can stay upset with Ebay for what they have said in the past, or move forward and work with Ebay to try and resolve this issue.  It is a decision for each of us to make.

[mam98031]

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@chubbycatcollectibles wrote:

Oh how I wish this problem can be fixed, but alas, I doubt very much that it ever will be.  I just wish we sellers had a better method for dealing with them.  I can't tell you how many times this has happened to me over the years.  Ebay regarding them as defects is an even bigger problem.  But at least now I know I am not crazy when it occurs and I swear I didn't list it. 

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If we are defeated before we even try to provide Ebay with the info they are requesting, then you are correct.  It will likely never be fixed, so why try.