Trying to Police eBay

[rubrtoe]

reply to friend: it's a royal pain to report any seller to the ebay idiots. They'll ask what item I bought and I'll say none and then they won't let me. This is rampant on Ebay because of this. Ebay is so brain dead! The sellers ARE their reputation, but eBay provides no effective way for honest sellers to help police the bad 1s.

[tellmemama]

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@plumbingspecials wrote:
tellmemama
What you are talking about is reporting a listing, not reporting a seller.
Buyers cannot report a seller if they have not purchased from that seller. Buyers can open a case against a seller IF the seller sends them an item other than what is described (SNAD), or if the item is not received (INR). It is still the buyer's responsibility to read the listing, because a false SNAD is a violation of policy. Opening a case against a seller is the only way you can "report" a seller, therefore, a transaction is required.

You, as a buyer, can report listings, but be aware of what listing policies are before you do. And that you are policing eBay on your own time for free. So, just because something is offensive to you, that does not mean someone else won't want it. If the item is not "authentic", eBay has procedures for reporting such.

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Agreed but in effect I did report the seller.  Granted it had to be done through FB but I posed the question to them "how is this seller able to blatantly disregard the policy of search manipulation while the rest of us are not?".  I followed up by sending a link of their active listings and they were removed within a few hours.  Would it work with some of the favored mega sellers?  Probably not.

Like I said, I'm no eBay monitor.  If I were, there are hundreds of listings I could report just like anyone else.  But if I'm annoyed with dozens of non related items from the same seller in any given search, I'm sure other buyers are as well.  Especially new buyers.  And if someone is clearly ignoring the rules the rest of us would be slammed for not following, they deserve what they get.

Now if it only worked with the chosen ones who spam the cookbook category...

[myescape]

your being refunded alerted ebay about your seller.Other sellers are not your concern unless you buy from them

[ted_200]

eBay cannot allow potential buyers to report a seller if there is no transaction. Not true.  Otherwise, sellers would be putting each other out of business.  This has happened in the past.  But it is eBay that makes the final determination, not whoever reported the listing.  It's nothing personal against buyers.  eBay assumes that buyers are reading descriptions and using common sense when purchasing.  No, they do not.

[ted_200]

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@best_vintage_photos wrote:

There are much bigger issues in this world than listings on eBay. Just saying . . . .

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Tell that to the guy who bought $12K in fake gold bars. 

[ted_200]

What you are talking about is reporting a listing, not reporting a seller.

I don't see the difference.  Back when eBay would act on reported listings, users could - and did - report every single listing from a seller, there even used to be a capability to do that in one single report in my category.   When eBay would confirm all the items were fake, or the other policy violation reported was accurate, all of the listings would go away, and often the User ID would go NARU as well.

Now, sellers blatently violate policies, and unless they get a lot of unresolved disputes, eBay does not care.  Reporting the listings is useless. 

[duchess-at-speakeasy]

The eBay MBG takes care of buyers who receive an item that is substandard, damaged or otherwise "not as described." Even if you are not a buyer, it's very easy to report miscategorized items or keyword spamming. There's a "report this item" link in each listing. I've phoned eBay's Customer Service department only twice -- each time to report a hijacked account that was selling high-priced merchandise, mostly with photos and text belonging to other fairly recent listings in other parts of the country. The words "hijack," "fraud," and similar buzz words do get eBay's attention! In both instances, the U.S.-based CSRs took my report seriously and, within an hour, the bogus listings were removed. ~~C~~

[vintagecraze50]

I think the op did the right thing by reporting,  but the real police work of this is that if the seller is really selling fake leather handbags then Ebay really does not need to do anything. Ebay BUYERS police this site by leaving appropriate negative feedback for a bad buying experience. Subsequent buyers then see the fake leather neg and go somewhere else to buy their product.  Ebay has better things to do--like keep the site running properly and other important issues to attend to.

[ersatz_sobriquet]

Apparently the public image on facebook is far more important in ebay's eyes to their reputation than the reported listings and this board. 

[emerald40]

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@plumbingspecials wrote:

If you did not purchase something from a seller on eBay, you don't GET to report them.You have to be a paying member to complain.

________________________________________________________

And even then they will not do anything about it.

I was in a transaction with what turned out to be a scam seller.  After I bought it, he tried to talk me out of paying through paypal because he said there was something wrong with the account.  Then he said paypal would be fine, but refused to send tracking information.  Then I found where he had literally copied and pasted another seller's listing.

Ebay confirmed it was a scam but would not do anything about it.  After I got my money back, he just listed it again and again until the negatives just piled up.

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[7606dennis]

If I understand correctly, you are attempting to report a seller with which you've had no transaction and eBay won't let you?  What, precisely, were you trying to report the seller for if you hadn't purchased anything from them?  Were you trying to report the listing for some policy violation or something like that?  Did you use the report this listing link?  Was the issue you wanted to report in the list of reportable things?

[*eponymous*]

Wasting your time is your business, but eBay is not going to thank you or appreciate your intention.

[ted_200]

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@*eponymous* wrote:

Wasting your time is your business, but eBay is not going to thank you or appreciate your intention.

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Here's why I wasted my time doing this in the past:

Virtually everyone who collects in my field has been ripped off, probably more than once.  Mail order is especially notorious for rip offs, if you don't deal with the right people.

Everyone was a low-information noob when they started out. 

Everyone who collects is one day going to liquidate their holdings (or their heirs will do it). 

When noobs get ripped off, they often quit collecting. 

If noobs leave the hobby in large numbers, that will depress the popularity of the hobby, and result in depressed prices when it comes time to do that liquidating.

As a current seller on this platform, the same dynamic holds true... the more scammy listings on it, and the more buyers who get scammed, the more people will avoid this platform for their buying.  That's bad for my bottom line, bad for bottom line of other honest sellers on the platform, and bad for the hobby. 

It's bad for eBay too, but they still aren't buying into that reality, so I've pretty much stopped wasting my time.

[tellmemama]

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@ersatz_sobriquet wrote:

Apparently the public image on facebook is far more important in ebay's eyes to their reputation than the reported listings and this board. 

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That may be true.  It's pretty rare but I've found whenever I have a problem, I just go right to Facebook and send an instant (private) message.  Respond time is usually within an hour and I really like having a "paper trail" of what was said.

Plus you are almost always guaranteed a US based rep.

[plumbingspecials]

Yeah, I have a hard time getting eBay to shut down scam buyers, too.

[best_vintage_photos]

@best_vintage_photos wrote:

There are much bigger issues in this world than listings on eBay. Just saying . . . .

"Tell that to the guy who bought $12K in fake gold bars."

Yeah, saw that post. He should have checked them right away. 

It is hard for me to feel any sympathy for someone who can afford to spend 12 grand on gold bars, and not even take the time to check them right away. That is no one's fault but his own. I am sure he has learned a valuable lesson.

By the way, there are bigger issues than some idiot losing 12 grand too.