Retail arbitrage attempt's on my listings

[carolinavintage]

How do I get help when I believe that there is retail arbitrage occuring? In the last 24 hours I've had several extremely lowball offers, followed by badgering messages, demeaning my products and asking for very specific details that really can be obtained in the description or photographs. Followed by messages insisting that my listing is not authentic or really as great as I said, followed by extremely low-balled offers. Then it appears they have taken the image of my items, which are very rare and currently are no other listings just like them, and then created their own listing as if they were the ones selling my items. In their new listings, they describe the item in the way that tried to tell me my item wasn't tem was actually not. In other words, they've lied to me, told me my item was not something, then turned around and posted it as their own saying that it was actually what they said it wasn't. The problem is that this activity has caused my items to not be revisable or editable. Every time I try to edit one of the items that I believe has been the victim of a retail arbitrage attempt I receive an error notice that says "lds downstream error" if I try to revise a posted item that I do not believe is a victim of retail arbitrage I have zero issue with any kind of updates. I would like to take my rare items down off of eBay to protect them from being posted by a third party without my permission. But unfortunately, I'm not able to make those changes because I'm not able to edit these items. Additionally, I'm not able to figure out how to communicate with eBay about this issue, and from Reading through these community forum posts, it doesn't sound like eBay cares. I'm personally not comfortable or okay with a third party pretending that they own my item and are selling my item. I'm not comfortable with a third party using my photos and pretending that it's their photos and pretending that it's their item. This is just dirty, bad business, and not something that I'm interested in participating in. How can I get help for these issues?

[carolinavintage]

Pretty sure you're the only one going on about drop shipping. Except for those who are just coming here to say that" drop shipping is okay" without understanding my question

[carolinavintage]

Don't really know what that means about old lady or"flex". But it's nice to know that there are people on here who understand the policy and appropriate selling practices. 

[carolinavintage]

Thank you. However that is not what this post is about, I am perfectly familiar with global offer policies, best practices and how to address them. I'm sorry that my attempts to explain the situation confused you.   Yes, somebody is absolutely trying to do that type of prohibited arbitrage, and causing technical errors. 

[carolinavintage]

I'm sorry that you feel that correcting misinformation is quote "snapping"  perhaps you can speak with your therapist about that. 

[jonathanbrightlight]

You are definitely being rude, and it needs to stop.

[albertabrightalberta]

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@albertabrightalberta wrote:

Are the questions you're receiving from buyer/sellers who have listings for the same item, possibly with their own pictures or description? 

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@albertabrightalberta wrote:Please post some of these (your word) "scammer listings" that use your pictures and are selling the item you have in your possession and they don't have.

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@lacemaker3 wrote:

please share an item number so we can take a look and try to figure it out for you.

@carolinavintage keeps insisting that other sellers are selling their items with the OP's pictures. But having been asked to post example(s) more than once, those requests are ignored.

Please give an example please @carolinavintage 

[gone.c-33]

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@carolinavintage wrote:

Don't really know what that means about old lady or"flex". But it's nice to know that there are people on here who understand the policy and appropriate selling practices. 

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Sorry, @tarotfindsandmore was saying that this wasn’t the proper meaning of “retail arbitrage”, that “children” came up with it but that as an old lady she knew better.

I might not qualify to be an old lady yet (I’m actually aiming to become an old forest crone but that’s a story for another day), but we have many venerable board members with excellent eBay policy understanding, including the policy regarding drop shipping and retail arbitrage.

[lacemaker3]

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@carolinavintage wrote:

I think you misunderstood my question, I cannot make any changes to my offer amount. I am not able to make any changes to my posts that have been hijacked by inappropriate scamming. So I'm not able to change offer amounts, I'm not able to do anything because I'm getting an error message. This error message does not occur on my regular post, it only occurs on the posts that scammers have decided to take for their own.

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@carolinavintage,

You have said that these other users have made offers on your items ... that is almost certainly why you can't edit those listings.

You can't edit a listing if it has an active offer on it, so if you decline the offer and make sure there no active offers on it, you should be able to edit the listing again.

If that doesn't work, please share the item number or numbers that you can't edit, so we can try to trouble shoot this.

[grand-and-glorious-purpose]

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@carolinavintage wrote:

The offer is not what's bothering me, what is bothering me? Is somebody taking my item pretending they own it and trying to sell it as if it were theirs. 

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Do you have any tips or tricks on how I could have this problem?

[fbusoni]

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@carolinavintage wrote:

Thank you. However that is not what this post is about, I am perfectly familiar with global offer policies, best practices and how to address them. I'm sorry that my attempts to explain the situation confused you.   Yes, somebody is absolutely trying to do that type of prohibited arbitrage, and causing technical errors. 

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@carolinavintage 

Sir / Madam:  there is no eBay solution to your problem.  eBay does not care about individual sellers or their concerns.  

eBay does not care if others are using your photos.  (Only an idiot would use someone else's photos, incidentally, since only the person who posted the photos has the actual item depicted.) 

I and others have already given you advice about what do to: block the buyers who are messaging you.  They are imbeciles, amateurs of the most primitive sort, and will eventually go away.

Meantime, end your listings and then re-list them to make any changes you desire.

I am not sure why these suggestions are not satisfactory.  eBay is not going to bend to your will, and your concerns are actually quite banal, given all the other horrors that take place regularly on this platform. 

[gloryglorygifts]

Well it seems that you have it all figured out, so good luck to you.

[moondogblues]

What you're describing is drop shipping.  Drop shipping is also legal, and what may be happening when you say you're concerned about other sellers listing your items as their own. That too is perfectly legit but not a very wise move for most resellers, especially with used or vintage items where condition can cause problems.  As far as (potentially) stealing your photos goes, that too is permitted on eBay.  Your photos essentially become eBay's photos when you use the platform and eBay does allow other sellers to use what is now their photos.  

What you're experiencing is 100% legal and eBay will tell you the same if you manage to get someone on  phone.  Other sellers can see exactly how your store is doing and are just trying to take advantage of what they believe may be a seller who might be feeling the pinch associated with low sales. Neither eBay, nor any of your buyers/sellers, give a hoot about what you're comfortable with.   There is no help to be had because there is no actual issue.

The solution here is quite straightforward.  End your listings, edit them to get rid of best offer, and then "sell similar" your items at the prices you want you for them.  If you plan to send out offers on the new listings, don't allow counteroffers when you relist.  That will eliminate a huge majority of the lowball offers you're getting.

Which is why I will hopefully never sell here again.  Unless I end up homeless.

[moondogblues]

I did NOT copy that whole thing....the last sentence was mine....the Internet has gotten very weird lately.