eBay Promoted Funkoween Presale Violations

[valueaddedresource]

tyler@ebay  brian@ebay brittanie@ebay 

Why is eBay actively promoting a Funko Pop Funkoween event where most listings are in violation of eBay's Presale Policies?

These are just a few examples but many of the 400+ listings eBay has included here don't follow the rules.

https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-policies/presale-listings-policy?id=4252 

https://www.ebay.com/e/artscollectibles/funkoween-2021 

[b4b4b4b]

I guess you saw this in the last post of this week's "weakly" chat ! :

@valueaddedresource if a buyer encounters a situation like this then they should contact customer service as there are times we can protect them when presale items violate our policy. 

...

There are times they can protect them ?? !!  How many people bought these things after the big Ebay Promotion !

[brian@ebay]

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@jonathankirkland wrote:

I'm also just catching up on this thread. Wow.

It's clear that multiple ebay employees have completely been ignoring everything in this thread for weeks now. Completely inexcusable.

Maybe Brian, Tyler, Brittanie etc are taking lessons from the overseas CSRs and "just telling you what you want to hear" in hopes you'll go away?

Glad that nobody here is just going away though. Outrageous and ridiculous that this has been allowed to go on for 3+ weeks now.

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@jonathankirkland We've provided an answer on this and continue to give answers in the past few weekly chats.

I want to be clear about what the Community teams role is. The Community team is here to answer general questions regarding eBay and eBay policy. We also actively gather and pass along member feedback to relevant teams within eBay to ensure the Communities voice is heard. There is also a large amount of 'behind the scenes' work that we manage, ranging from Community administration work to assisting other teams within eBay to build and launch boards so they can engage with users (a recent example being the Watches board), and other various projects. 

While the Community team can report such occurrences, we do not have the authority to take action on listings/accounts that violate policy. Members should use the report item link on listings and/or contact customer service with concerns regarding specific listing violations.

@gracieallen01 Last, I want to clarify that the Community team does and are still able to engage on the boards. The recent layout change has not impacted our ability to do this and we have not been given direction to not respond on the boards. While not intentional, there are times we miss threads we're tagged in and as such may not respond. Tagging us again a few days later is fine as we sometimes do need the reminder 😋

This year has been a particularly busy one for our team, so I apologize for any threads/tags we've missed!

[jonathankirkland]

I've been following this thread and it seemed to go unanswered for quite some time so it's good to know there are at least eyes on the situation still.

Thanks for updating.

[jonathankirkland]

I just want to add, that in my case, reporting listings has never done a thing.

I realize ebay cannot discuss actions taken against others, of course. But I have several times monitored clear violations in listings that I've reported and not once has any action been taken. I'd say maybe half a dozen users I've reported over the course of as many years and never once did I see anyone penalized from my reports.

This makes me feel like ebay either does not take reports seriously or will only act if there is perhaps more than one report or something. So sadly, I have little confidence in the report feature.

And just to be clear for anyone who may be reading I don't go out of my way to look for things that should be reported but if a situation arises where I run into someone who is blatantly violating policy and has been getting away with it and doing it on their listings then you can bet I will at least try to make sure they are reprimanded for doing so.

As I am sure everyone here is well aware, these people who do certain things and get away from it HURT EVERYONE since they are not playing fair.

[valueaddedresource]

brian@ebay  - after the chat closed you answered my concern about buyer's being stuck with no recourse on these presales by saying:

if a buyer encounters a situation like this then they should contact customer service as there are times we can protect them when presale items violate our policy.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Weekly-Discussion-with-eBay/Community-Chat-June23-1-00-pm-PT-General-T...

Per the terms of the eBay Money Back Guarantee, the latest that a buyer can report an item has not arrived is: 30 calendar days after the estimated or actual delivery/collection date has passed.

These listings have 30 day handling times, plus whatever time in transit added.

For example:  This listing is currently showing me estimated delivery by July 7th.  If I bought this right now, that would mean I would have until August 6th to open an INR if I didn't receive it.  However, the description says it won't even ship until September.

I'd appreciate a direct answer to a direct question here:

In this exact scenario, would September be a time when eBay would protect a buyer on a presale violation?

[valueaddedresource]

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@b4b4b4b wrote:

I guess you saw this in the last post of this week's "weakly" chat ! :

@valueaddedresource if a buyer encounters a situation like this then they should contact customer service as there are times we can protect them when presale items violate our policy. 

...

There are times they can protect them ?? !!  How many people bought these things after the big Ebay Promotion !

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@b4b4b4b  - I suspect the "times eBay can protect them" would be any time within the standard eBay Money Back Guarantee timeframe ( 30 calendar days after the latest estimated delivery date).

That's a convenient answer because it gives the appearance that buyers will be protected without addressing the fact that if these sales go wrong, the buyers likely won't realize that until September or October, which if they buy now will be well past that timeframe. 

[b4b4b4b]

yup !

[gracieallen01]

"@gracieallen01 Last, I want to clarify that the Community team does and are still able to engage on the boards. The recent layout change has not impacted our ability to do this and we have not been given direction to not respond on the boards. While not intentional, there are times we miss threads we're tagged in and as such may not respond. Tagging us again a few days later is fine as we sometimes do need the reminder.

This year has been a particularly busy one for our team, so I apologize for any threads/tags we've missed!"

Yes, I can imagine that it has been a busy year for you folks.  So much to do and still no extra time.  Could be time to think about asking ebay for some more help? 

My comment was elicited by the impression that there had been far less interaction with the threads - far fewer responses, unless it was a mention on the 'weekly' to tag one of you and you (whichever one was tagged) would contact the 'tagger'.   Or to contact CS - though, I often think they should check with the regulars on the forum for answers.  Hopefully ebay will ultimately  get a good crew there and you folks will have to put in less time coaching.

Thank you for your reassurance and I hope there is a good summer in sight for one and all.

[valueaddedresource]

As of today it has been exactly 4 weeks since I first reported this and there are still active listings in violation.

brittanie@ebay  brian@ebay  - I understand your role here in the community is limited in this issue and that you cannot take the listings down yourselves.  I appreciate you reporting the issue to the proper team and I understand that's about all you can really do in your roles.

However, it's clear that process has failed.  I have also reported listings as you requested and they are still active or allowed to continue until they are sold.  So clearly that process has also failed.

Where do we go from here? I can't accept that eBay's only answer is to just allow this to continue knowing there's a very real possibility these buyers will not be covered if something goes wrong.

Again, I understand you are doing all you can do, as am I by reporting the listings, but it's not working so where does this escalate to at this point? If you are not able to escalate it any further internally, where should I be escalating it externally?

[a_c_green]

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@valueaddedresource wrote:

As of today it has been exactly 4 weeks since I first reported this and there are still active listings in violation.

brittanie@ebay  brian@ebay  - I understand your role here in the community is limited in this issue and that you cannot take the listings down yourselves.  I appreciate you reporting the issue to the proper team and I understand that's about all you can really do in your roles.

[...]

Again, I understand you are doing all you can do, as am I by reporting the listings, but it's not working so where does this escalate to at this point? If you are not able to escalate it any further internally, where should I be escalating it externally?

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brittanie@ebay, brian@ebay: Let's make a point of preparing to discuss this in detail in Wednesday's Weekly Chat. Please send a heads-up to anyone else at your company who might need to be aware of these issues and who should look in on the Chat while it's going.

I'm thinking of two topics here, really: 

1. The continued appearance of listings in clear violation of eBay policy and Buyer Protection, with no explanation of how other sellers might get similar permission to run these out-of-bounds listings.
2. What escalation options are available to both eBay sellers and eBay Community reps (i.e. eBay employees) when questions and reports are simply ignored.

For the latter, I'm really more concerned about what eBay employees are supposed to do when they send in reports and... nothing... happens. Not even a reply to say that the issue is resolved, or denied, or whatever.

I'm saying this as someone who worked in Tech Support and Customer Support for many years at a software company that you have heard of. It would be unthinkable for us to file a case and get no answer back from Engineering within a reasonable time. A manager who's ignoring reports from his own employees of the same company would not be a manager for very long. The difficulty of Community reps to get any useful (and timely) answers from a company the size of eBay is something that needs to be addressed.

[valueaddedresource]

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@a_c_green wrote:

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I'm saying this as someone who worked in Tech Support and Customer Support for many years at a software company that you have heard of. It would be unthinkable for us to file a case and get no answer back from Engineering within a reasonable time. A manager who's ignoring reports from his own employees of the same company would not be a manager for very long. The difficulty of Community reps to get any useful (and timely) answers from a company the size of eBay is something that needs to be addressed.

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@a_c_green  - I agree 1,000%!

I've put in my fair share of time in front line customer service and can't imagine how frustrating it must be to not get any answers or reasonable resolutions or have a path for escalation to provide useful and timely assistance.

You're absolutely right that needs to be addressed as well as the other issues at hand. 👍

[jonathankirkland]

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brittanie@ebay wrote:

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@valueaddedresourceIf you haven't already, please use the report item link on that listing so this goes to the correct team. The Community Team is not able to take action on any listing violations, nor speak to reports made on items. We absolutely want to see appropriate action taken, which is why we would want this to get to the correct team for review.

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I would like to suggest that, if possible, in the future, perhaps a member of the team who CAN take action possibly work with members of the community team, so that action on such things can be taken much faster.

Obviously you're not going to be able to take down thousands and thousands of bad listings but if there was perhaps a forum where some could be reported or something, even if it was done privately and not in the public eye, where immediate action could be taken, I feel it would be far more effective than using the report feature.

I've never once seen any action taken on anything I've reported. I've reported several over the years (not just for fun, but blatant violations). *sigh*

[downunder-61]

I especially liked > This year has been a particularly busy one for our team, so I apologize for any threads/tags we've missed

SHEESH - I WONDER WHY

[brian@ebay]

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@valueaddedresource wrote:

brian@ebay  - after the chat closed you answered my concern about buyer's being stuck with no recourse on these presales by saying:

if a buyer encounters a situation like this then they should contact customer service as there are times we can protect them when presale items violate our policy.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Weekly-Discussion-with-eBay/Community-Chat-June23-1-00-pm-PT-General-T...

Per the terms of the eBay Money Back Guarantee, the latest that a buyer can report an item has not arrived is: 30 calendar days after the estimated or actual delivery/collection date has passed.

These listings have 30 day handling times, plus whatever time in transit added.

For example:  This listing is currently showing me estimated delivery by July 7th.  If I bought this right now, that would mean I would have until August 6th to open an INR if I didn't receive it.  However, the description says it won't even ship until September.

I'd appreciate a direct answer to a direct question here:

In this exact scenario, would September be a time when eBay would protect a buyer on a presale violation?

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@valueaddedresource In this particular scenario the answer is yes. If others find themselves in a situation similar to this we would strongly encourage them to contact customer service so they can have the transaction reviewed.

[brian@ebay]

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@valueaddedresource wrote:

As of today it has been exactly 4 weeks since I first reported this and there are still active listings in violation.

brittanie@ebay  brian@ebay  - I understand your role here in the community is limited in this issue and that you cannot take the listings down yourselves.  I appreciate you reporting the issue to the proper team and I understand that's about all you can really do in your roles.

However, it's clear that process has failed.  I have also reported listings as you requested and they are still active or allowed to continue until they are sold.  So clearly that process has also failed.

Where do we go from here? I can't accept that eBay's only answer is to just allow this to continue knowing there's a very real possibility these buyers will not be covered if something goes wrong.

Again, I understand you are doing all you can do, as am I by reporting the listings, but it's not working so where does this escalate to at this point? If you are not able to escalate it any further internally, where should I be escalating it externally?

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@valueaddedresource I do not have a further recourse for you at this point in time.