Using ai images for physical items is basically false advertising

[mystic.j.crafts]

I am saying this as a seller and a buyer  of almost TEN years but: who in the world thought it be a good idea to use Gen(generative) ai images instead of basic photos to list their physical items?

…besides a scammer?

Those willfully doing it, What made them think a computer generation would beat out a quick pick on the phone? It’s worse than redundant. It will never be as accurate or as fast as just showing the actual thing. Gen ai is a statistical algorithm that got marketed as “artificial intelligence.”. A parrot program to some computer scientists. ( To preface this, I am not anti-tech, quite the opposite! I went to school for it. My knowledge of tech is why I have a searing hatred for generative ai SPECIFICALLY.) Gen ai  is the latest marketing craze and is being shoved into everything just so investors can break even. As we have seen in the last three years, especially with eBay’s latest attempts to “integrate” it here. Absolute useless features (especially to me) when you go past the shiny paint and empty promises. But fantastic scamware to all the wrong people.  Woe to those who fall for it, as many already have. 

I’ll make an example of why using ai images to advertise physical items is false advertising : Etsy.
God, ai image listings are real bad on Etsy, ridiculously so. I am tired of looking for patterns and plushies and seeing ai images that look NOTHING like the actual end result product- bonus points if the pattern is ai generated too!  😞  

And a bunch of them have never crochet before , let alone looked at a pattern, so more often than not they are selling people GIBBERISH. Oh yeah, ai stuff can’t be physically sold- because it’s of things that don’t exist. And if they DO write their own patterns and they HAVE tested their patterns and know what the item is supposed to look like- then they shouldn’t  use ai images to advertise! they’re literally selling themselves short. 

I knew I’d rue the day Etsy got the bright idea to integrate/allow ai on it’s platform.

It’s one thing to not control it, spammers are gonna spam. but Etsy ENCOURAGED it, despite it being counter-intuitive to everything they stand for. Then again , drop shippers managed to get on here so I am not entirely surprised we have another level of SCAMMING there. I have a trained eye, I can often (not always) tell if an image is ai. But not every one can , and that’s my greatest concern. Scammers rely on deceit, and thats all this tech will ever be to me. Deceiving. So I cannot stress enough how much of a bad idea it is to adversity anything with Gen ai imagery. Customers are already getting JIPPED.  

So if it’s super bad there, imagine how bad it could be here on EBay ? (They probably have fake crochet patterns and stuff here as we speak.) I am already seeing a post or two about how years old eBay posts are randomly getting ai pics on their listing. I hate eBay’s push into ai, its cumbersome, useless , redundant “tools” that most if any of us never asked for. ( I wanted to do store sales without a subscription but noooo, i get stuck with “use ai to write descriptions” instead!)  And what sucks most is that we can’t turn it off, we have no control on who’s forced to use these “tools” and who isn’t. I just want to sell stuff I made, I don’t want to be a guinea pig for this trash tech. (And yet it’s costing me regardless of if I use it, go figure.) I can write, I can read, I can think for myself. I don’t need an ai to write a description for MY product that I made by hand. and I certainly don’t need to deceive my customers with an ai pic that looks little like the work I am selling. As I said, false advertisement. 

You ever buy something and it not look as advertised? You get This sick feeling in the pit of your stomach, your heart sinks, you fee used. Yeah, I don’t want that for my buyers and I am disgusted by sellers who PURPOSEFULLY do that to their customers. I see folks willfully using ai images for their products to be no better. 

I take seller integrity VERY importantly. An undoctored photo is the most honest we can be online. just take a photo like we’ve been doing. 

[inhawaii]

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@mystic.j.crafts wrote:

yeah, I read that two years ago when this happened and somehow I still got the run around and lost 28 bucks.  I know what the garuntee said, I followed the directions, I try to be careful with my online purchases: I still got JIPPED. Stuff happens sometimes. No amount of rationalizing can undo the bull that happend to me. 

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No offense, but it's pretty hard to get ripped off as a buyer on ebay.

The policies heavily favor the buyer.

Sorry for what happened to you.

[chapeau-noir]

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@fbusoni wrote:

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@chapeau-noir wrote:

We had the TV-addicted, though. I knew kids who could barely function away from their TVs. Their entire household was like that.

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Very true.  

But at least the whole family was together, in the same room, becoming debilitated by the same thing.  😁

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Not with a TV in nearly every room. 😖

[gurlcat]

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@mystic.j.crafts wrote:

yeah, I read that two years ago when this happened and somehow I still got the run around and lost 28 bucks.  I know what the garuntee said, I followed the directions, I try to be careful with my online purchases: I still got JIPPED. Stuff happens sometimes. No amount of rationalizing can undo the bull that happend to me. 

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You didn't get the run around; you just picked the wrong reason for returning or maybe waited longer than a week like you said before.  There is nothing easier than getting your money back as a buyer on eBay, just look how many Community threads are by sellers who thought they were protected from returns by having "No Returns" on their listings, and then buyers forced returns without even having a legitimate complaint like you did, simply lied and SAID the item was not as described.  -A human doesn't even read the (typed) reason; a bot simply reads that it's an INAD return and that 'something' was typed, and automatically issues a free return label for the buyer, which comes out of the seller's money. 

I'm sincerely sorry you were tricked into buying fake silver jewelry -that is never okay.  But I can't really say I'm sorry you lost the chargeback.  Those should not be easy to win because that means the buyer gets to keep the item even if it's perfect and they just wanted it for free, literally ripping off sellers. 

[albertabrightalberta]

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@mystic.j.crafts wrote:

yeah, I read that two years ago when this happened and somehow I still got the run around and lost 28 bucks.  I know what the garuntee said, I followed the directions, I try to be careful with my online purchases: I still got JIPPED. Stuff happens sometimes. No amount of rationalizing can undo the bull that happend to me. 

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If you bought an item that wasn't as described even 2 years ago and didn't get a refund, you didn't open a return request properly. 

Just emailing the seller and having the seller refuse isn't the correct way to have opened a return request for a NAD (not as described) item.

[gurlcat]

Brace yourself because even though you have No Returns on your handmade items, one day you will probably see a notification in your inbox saying a buyer wants to return the item because "it smells like smoke" or "color looks different than the photos" or even "&^#GFEYEW" -doesn't matter what they write or if their photo is even OF the item you sent.   Humans don't check any of that.  But you must issue that return label because if you let it time out, eBay will step in and not only snatch the money but give you a 'Case closed without seller resolution' strike, and those are HEAVY, only takes a couple before you're in Below Standard status. 

Here's an oldie but goodie.  Poor ducks.  Poor seller. 

[mystic.j.crafts]

Its fine, I’ve been informed by other comments that I probably applied for the wrong thing when reporting. So that sucks and I was super frustrated about it but it is what it is, I know better know and luckily, haven’t experienced it since. I appreciate your sympathy.  

[mystic.j.crafts]

Fair enough. With how some explained it to me here, I probably did pick the wrong reason.  And it sucks because I LOVE silver jewelry and I was so excited about it. It’s just lame. Luckily I haven’t experienced it since, then again I’ve shopped wearily after that. 

[mystic.j.crafts]

That would explain it. I followed the wrong set of instructions cus it’s rare I experience a bad buy. Sucks it was a pricey lesson, but it could have been worse. 

[mystic.j.crafts]

Gruesome. More humans should be in this system because this is ridiculous. 

But luckily I’ve been prepared. Honestly, i just put up the “no returns” thing because I make crochet ware and I don’t want the item back after it’s been sold. Theres no telling what happend to it between shipment and what got on it. I’d rather just make another one, even if i could just clean and resell the returned item. It wouldn’t feel right. 

But understandable, I’ll keep that in mind as I go. 

[inhawaii]

That seller @bigdeals.etc used to come here to the selling board a lot years ago.

We were buddies.

Haven't seen him on the boards in years.

He doesn't reply to DMs.

I hope he's ok. 

[gurlcat]

I'm concerned about Robbie, hasn't posted since January, had his store on vacation through Spring, and now it's closed.

[gurlcat]

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@mystic.j.crafts wrote:

Gruesome. More humans should be in this system because this is ridiculous. 

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In theory I agree .... however more humans would mean more cost to the company, which would mean higher fees for us.  Then there'd be another kind of "RIDICULOUS!" hollering (already is for the amount of fees we pay now -every day at least one new post about them, even though the fees haven't risen in quite a while now). 

If you ever get any kind of return or buyer writing to you, seeming to try to get you to refund them, or anything else that doesn't sit right, be sure to come HERE before you do anything else.  We can give you more accurate answers than the overseas phone reps -they're almost worthless.  And if you have a situation we can't 'guide' you out of, like something has already happened and it would absolutely take an eBay employee to do something about it, someone here will probably recommend you go to eBay on social media, which (surprisingly) IS worth doing -those employees are Americans, many of them sellers themselves, and they have more knowledge and power to fix things than the phone reps. 

But definitely come here first, because you absolutely should handle anything you can, yourself.  I worry about the social media reps getting too much work for things they're not needed for, and end up having that option taken away if it requires too much labor pay. 

[ekmadonna]

And now we have the PHONE ADDICTED and SOCIAL MEDIA ADDICTED. 100x worse in my opinion.

[sreu3058]

Ugh, that duck picture is awful.  That’s the MN state bird, I grew up there, and find that picture offensive (I am not a snowflake, just saying) And, I don’t get the joke/ shirt sizes?

If someone wants to return, I am very kind about it, because I want my product back.  And, why not?  I don’t think I care any more / have enough sales that I know I make most people happy, and confident I have a good product.  These days it seems most of my business is return customers.  I just do the best I can, and take one sale at a time.

And, I think every one at one time or another has made a bad purchase.  You learn from it!

[gurlcat]

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@sreu3058 wrote:

Ugh, that duck picture is awful.  That’s the MN state bird, I grew up there, and find that picture offensive (I am not a snowflake, just saying) And, I don’t get the joke/ shirt sizes?

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It wasn't a joke; that photo was what a buyer submitted as their "evidence" photo in their return, claiming that the seller sent the wrong size of shirts. 

The point being, there is almost no point in requiring a buyer photo for an INAD return, because the software is going to issue that free return label to the buyer, regardless of what their complaint is, or what image they upload. 

But I say "almost no point" because if a seller knows what they are doing, they can thwart a scam attempt if part of the scam involves a false photo.  I had one where the buyer couldn't have even seen the earrings they bought yet, because they lived in another country, used a freight forwarder, and they started the return before the package had even arrived at the FF!  The earrings were turquoise colored so they just took an insanely closeup photo of something that color, probably one of the plastic pebbles that they returned instead of the earrings.  Their false photo was part of how I got eBay to deny their refund and also kick them off the platform.