Sellers prevented from using "Vintage", "Antique", "Victorian", etc. in their listings as punishment

[allen1853]

So I truly made a mistake listing a fossil walrus item, carved by a native American Eskimo in the 1970s with label and full provenance. I searched eBay for fossil walrus items and at the time thought it was an exception to their ivory policy since it was 1. Ancient Fossil and 2. Native Eskimo carved with 1970s provenance. My mistake. Ebay came down hard. Suspended my account for a week resulting in the loss of thousands in revenue. (This was after an agent lifted the suspension as unfair given all of the fossil walrus items listed at the time. This was reversed by a backroom fascist dictator.) I served my suspension costing me thousands of dollars.

But wait, eBay has given me a LIFETIME punishment, preventing me from using common words in my listings having nothing to do with ivory or marine mammals. It is a sadistic "gotcha" up yours seller punishment having nothing to do with the "crime". 

Initially I figured out the prohibited words were Vintage, Antique and Victorian (90% of my items are vintage or antique.) These restrictions came up when I tried to amend my promotional rate from the newly unsupported rate of 1% to 2%. The error message only said I could no longer use the word "bone" even for bone items acceptable for everyone else like bovine, camel and ox. The error says nothing about anything except "bone". When I called (the listing had no bone at all) I was told about also not being able to use Vintage or Antique. I ultimately figured out I could not use Victorian either. Wanting to "play by the rules" I called to ask for a list of words I could no longer use. I was told it was a "secret", I would have to figure it out for myself. 

Today I tried to revise a listing, removing bone, horn and carved. Still got error message. So I called again for help with the "offensive" word. Turned out to be EBONY. Ebony is a petrified black wood, having nothing to do with ivory, bone or marine mammals. So I again asked for a "complete" list of prohibited words. This time I got a partial list and was told it was not "secret". (One of the biggest frustrations with eBay is inconsistent info depending on which agent answers the call.) The list I was given was ebony, carved, horn, antique and vintage. I asked about bone. Yes bone. I asked about Victorian. No, let me check. Yes, Victorian too. What about elephant? No, I don't see it. Well trust me, I cannot use the word elephant either, not for a coloring book or a costume pin or anything. Finally I asked what about ivory? Oh no, you can't use that at all, not as a color, not for Ivory soap, not at all. 

Now this only applies to us Top Sellers with 18 years on eBay who currently have over 5000 positive feedbacks, who made a mistake. Most of you can still use these words. But if you dare make a mistake, beware, the sadistic back room dictators at eBay will punish you for life and make your lives miserable. 

[stacy_pme]

I had an off-white plastic bead necklace and I at first listed it as Ivory Color, not realizing the issue... and I think I changed it to off-white and it was fine...   So sometimes we all run into those problems and have to use different words.... Since Antique, Vintage, and Victorian are out.... have you tried other words?   Heirloom, Relic, Classic, etc?  Just curious how far they go 😉

Anyway, I would investigate other ways to possibly get out of the sanctions.  I'm sure there is a way, it's just tunneling through all the red tape... 

[stacy_pme]

YES, they are implementing these things now.... go to sell something and select "media mail", you get a notice... I got a notice selling in Guitar category (I am selling guitar straps), but there is a notice that comes up and talks about specific woods and CITES....  You have to actually read the notices, and click "list anyway".... So I would imagine they can try and stop you, but if you are determined to list something, then they just say OK... well you are going to pay for that 😛

[stacy_pme]

Thanks for posting this!  YES!  You are absolutely correct, and something I have argued before with others about.... some people seem to think Vintage is only 1970s and older.... when in fact 90s are now vintage 🙂  This also goes for cars, antique cars are 50 years or older.

[stacy_pme]

I would make a new bank account to go along with the new account 🙂

[isatwin74]

No they should not make a new account to sell what eBay has taken down unless they want to be permanently banned from selling. That new account will be linked.

[sextons-sweet-deals]

seems like this post has gotten off track a little.

Bone and ivory vs. vintage, antique, and Victorian.  Don't forget about primitive era!

Shoppers who are looking should already know what they are looking for and know what they want.  If they are looking for vintage, antique, primitive, or Victorian they know what they are looking for and know the history time period. 

[chapeau-noir]

@maxine*j  I know we can't go back in time and undo things, but think how much confusion we'd have saved had we just stuck to original usagess:   Vintage means "year" (orginally referring to wine) and the word is meaningless without a year.  "That's a vintage 1963 Underwood Typewriter."   Circa indicates an approximate date.  "That house was built circa 1900." 

In a literate interest group that would work great and be far more accurate, but we live in a post-literate society.  People can't even spell normal everyday words and reading comprehension is somewhere in the range of 8th grade, and with a current drive for state-mandated and controlled educational content, it's not going to improve. I think "20 years" for vintage is about the best we can hope for.

You're completely right about one's own age being a point of dating. I'm fairly savvy about era, despite knowing little about antiques but having sold a fair amount of vintage, and I'm still taken aback that the JNCO jeans I wear are now 'vintage' - even though I've been wearing them since 1995 (they wear well).  I recall back in the 70s, being told by someone that their apartment building was 'quite old' - 'older than I am, anyway' - she was in her early 20s. I guess at that point everything is supposed to be 'new' or something because we were ourselves relatively new.

[maxine*j]

@chapeau-noir 

Yes, the statistics are pretty grim:  21% of adults in the U.S. are illiterate.  Of the 79% who are literate, 54% of them have a literacy level below the 6th Grade.  Among current students, 66% are not not reading at their grade levels and the requirements at each grade level are notably lower than when I was in school, back when mammoths roamed near the school playgound.

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[mendocinosocialclub]

I had a posting removed as 'offensive material' violation and couldn't figure out why, literally cutesy item: ceramic white cats. I was thinking who is offended and reporting cats & kitten art sculptures??

Is it a doggo? Pounding their paws on keyboards, demanding though 'report this item' that all cats be taken down ?!

Turns out, no. It's the bots. I had to call eBay and ask the rep what was in my listing that was offensive. After a brief hold, she came back on and told me, "Yes sir, I see it was because it was in violation of Nazi materials."

I said "Whuuuuut?? There's no way, 100% no way. I don't sell anything like that. Are you sure you're looking at one of my items?"

She reads me the title. Yes, ok, that's my item. I don't understand how ceramic cats are a Nazi items - can you explain? Brief hold. She comes back and reads part of my description to me:

"The Geo. Zoltan Lefton Company, later just Lefton, mark is found on pottery, porcelain, glass, and other wares imported by the Lefton Company. George Zoltan Lefton fled Nazi Hungary in 1939 and came to the United States making the Southside of Chicago his home. He became known as "The China King" after founding his porcelain imports giftware company in 1941 as one of the first businesses to open in the Merchandise Mart."

I say "Ohhhhhh. Because I used the word Nazi in my description? Surely you can see by the context he actually had to run away from the Nazis. This is not a Nazi item, or pro-Nazi in any way, shape or form."

She told me she could understand that, but the bots detect words and that's that. I offered feedback that eBays developers realllllllyyyy need to work on their AI if that's how that bots are set-up to screen posts. That's it. Sometimes it's not really about the item, or your description because when it's removed -- the bots don't know 'context,'  just a word or sequence of words that matches and = the posting will be pulled.

Just mentioning in case it helps anybody trying to find the logic. 👍

[wastingtime101]

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@ci1000 wrote:

He should never been allowed to list the item in the first place.

 If eBay has the technology to take you down and punish you after the fact it's logical that they have the technology to take you down and cut you off when you are listing an item that is a possible violation.

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Speaking specifically about ivory/bone:

eBay usually flashes a pop-up window warning you about policy violations when certain keywords are used, and that pop-up links to the policy. Sellers have to manually bypass that warning to publish. They leave it to us to read the policy and make sure our items aren't restricted.

OP said they searched and found other listings (not yet caught), and used that to make a determination about listing.

[winter-garden]

I  had a listing removed about a year ago .. it was a miniature painting on celluloid, that I described looked like ivory, but was celluloid.  Because I used the word ivory, the listing was removed.  Since that time I am unable to use the following words in any of my listing titles or descriptions: Victorian, ebony, bone, carved, horn, ivory, or cow.  Those are just the words I know about .. discovered through process of elimination, revising listings until the "offensive" word was removed.  Which took hours of time .. hours of stupid, wasted time.  For the third time I contacted ebay tonight to again try to find out why there are so many words in the English language I am unable to use .. 90% of what I sell is Victorian era; I list lace that is ivory colored; the ebony keys of a piano were offensive; a carved Madonna (made of wood) was disallowed; a German putz cow figurine (made of leather and wood) was verboten; anything bone colored was forbidden. After 30 frustrating minutes of being read the "rules" of forbidden materials, I could not learn the list of words disallowed, or how long this restriction would be applied to my account.  After selling on ebay for 23 years, 50 listings a week, every week; ebay has been punishing me for the last year for an offense I didn't even commit .. that is NON-APPEALABLE and could last FOREVER, I was told.  This is insanity!  And, most frustrating, it is impossible to get any help from ebay .. ever.  Although I keep trying, ever faithful that things will change .. that there will be human beings instead of BOTS in charge .. calling when there are system errors, or can't send invoices, or create shipping labels.  Why do we even try? By now, folks, we should all have learned .. as Albert Einstein observed, "“ The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”.

[kh-leslie]

Hi everyone,

Due to the age of this thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread HERE if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.

Thank you for understanding.