Lack Of Consistency

outbidder

I have to say that Ebay are so inconsistent that I can imagine they have very general guidelines about EVERYTHING to do with their site.

I recently sold some Kama Sutra sets on there that I got cheap at WH Smiths. There was nothing very "adult" about the packs and there was nothing (apart from the book) that you couldn't let a child see.

Suddenly out of the blue I receive an email saying they had removed my latest listing because it was deemed inappropriate...now I have a suspicion that someone told on me and to be honest, it never even crossed my mind that there might be a problem (on www.Ebay.com they even have a mature audiences section!!!) but apparently it was against their listing policies.

Now not wanting to get suspended I am reluctant to relist it however...would it not just get lost amongst the other 200+ items on the UK site that I found when just doing a search for "kama sutra"????

I am all for having policies in place but should they not apply to all? Do I now have to go and report each one of those listings to get Ebay to enforce the policy that I apparently breached?

Makes you see red when it's one rule for one...

Anyway, just thought I would get that off my chest and let you know that if you list any similar items, there is the possibility that you may list on a day when Ebay decide to enforce their policy but you may just get lucky and list on a day when they couldn't care less.

On another point, I also, having had an id of *www.outbidder.co.uk* for 2 years, now been asked to change my ID as it is against their policy to have a website name in your ID. Now why it took them 2 years to pick up on this I am not sure. What annoyed me was it takes them 24 months to ask me to change it yet they give me 24 HOURS to make the change, otherwise they would force me to have a generic ID for 30 days...

...so I changed it to www_dot_outbidder_dot_co_dot_uk. No web address ni there. But what's this? A few hours after I had changed my ID (well within the 24 they gave me) and already havnig received an email saying the chaneg to my ID had been made, MY ID GETS RESET TO A GENERIC NAME!!!! I'm really trying not to take this personally but are Ebay really coming across as a company that is trying to attract custom? Maybe it's because my website is for auctions LOL

So now for 30 days, I am known as userxxxxxx where they just put the date after the word "user" and I am stuck with that for 30 days. I can see why they don't allow the word "Ebay" in usernames either, likely because they would receive too much blasphemy alongside it in user names.

Ok, I'm off for some more prozac now and to get back into that comfy white jacket that does up nicely at the back.

Outtathaway

Yeah I've noticed some inconsistancies too. If you look on this forum there was a thread where people were complaining that eBay were removing listing of Genuine DVDs because of Vero, yet they don't seem to care about the hundreds of fakes that are being sold on there

lemming64

kinda taking the !!!!!! with the www_dot username, it clearly is a web address just written as you would say it. Yeh they should of been quicker about picking it up but if its against the rules it against the rules.

especially when the web address is a site which is meant to be a competitor to their own.

loracan1

From the forums on ebay I'm led to believe they don't enforce their listings rules unless someone complains. Possibly a competitor?

Outtathaway

An idea you could try is when you can change your ID to outbiddercouk as I believe that DVD.co.uk sell on ebay as dvdcouk

soolin

Ebay UK have quite clear guidelines about the listing of adult items, they cannot be listed. In fact anything borderline is dodgy, other sellers have reported mainstream films rated 15 being pulled as the titles implied they contained adult material.

However as someone has already said they don't police themselves so rely on other users to report listings that don't comply. All that has happened is that someone has reported your listing and ebay have checked it, found it breaks the rules and removed it.

The other listings are still there because no one has reported them yet.You almost certainly haven't been singled out for attention, for every one adult item you see probably dozens of others have been removed and you just didn't see them. As for 'kama sutra' it implies an adult content and that is enough to get the auction pulled.

It is also worth remembering that just because someone else has listed something doesn't mean it is OK to do the same.

FInally, ebay will just pull the items and warn you off, if you try to use paypal they will put a hold on your account and you will have problems getting your money out.

Soo

outbidder

@ Outtathaway: Yes I had a Vero problem with them last year - they pulled a listing I had for some theme park tickets and I think it was because I had used the park's logo in the listing.

I doubt they would let me get away with outbiddercouk as it's not a lot different to the one I did change it to.

@ lemming64: Taking the pi$$ maybe but it is still not a web address. Try typing it into a browser and see how far you get.

@ soolin: "don't police themselves so rely on other users to report listings that don't comply"
You have to wonder how effective their fraud prevention programme is if they don't even do any policing themselves. They can't rely on software checks forever, especially when I can find more listings of fakes of any particular movie than the genuine article, but I guess so long as they get their fees and can afford more private jets, they are not going to be too vigilant ;-) It's actually to their financial gain to turn a blind eye to listings that are against their policies but I couldn't legally suggest in a forum that they did that...

"just because someone else has listed something doesn't mean it is OK to do the same"
I wasn't implying that I should be allowed because there are other listings on there. Quite the contrary. As I said in my post, it didn't occur to me there would be an issue but now I have discovered there is then it should be a policy that applies to ALL listings, not just those that people decide to snitch on. Yeah, yeah, they have trillions of listings, can't properly police, blah, blah, but there is a superb facility that allows them to reduce those trillions to a more manageable level - it's called "the search box". :-)

Try entering "backup copy" or "fake" or "replica" or any other term that common sense would suggest and search through titles and descriptions. Rocket science it ain't. When I went to sell a CD recently it took me a good while to find a listing that was an actual original of it because of so many "backup copies". :-(

lemming64

lemming64: Taking the pi$$ maybe but it is still not a web address. Try typing it into a browser and see how far you get

dude seriously, the people there aren't dumb, yes there rules says web address, but when someone clearly is taking the !!!!!! by replacing the .'s with dot it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what it is meant to be, if you want to bend the rules, they can bend them right back, its their site they can do what they like in all fairness.

outbidder

I know they are not dumb Dude. That's why I said they would likely not go for outbiddercouk either.

I just received an email from them which I think sums up what has been said very nicely:

========================================================
Hello,

We have received your email and apologise for the delay in our response
to your inquiry regarding similar violating listings.

We understand your concern. We do investigate every listing that is
reported to us. However, since we do not actively monitor our site for
questionable or prohibited items, we rely on our members to report them
to us.

Please note that, even if a seller is not reported to us, it does not
lessen the seriousness of the violations for those sellers whose
listings have been reported and subsequently ended. Repeat offences of
such violations can result in the loss of ones eBay registered status.

If you come across a listing that seems questionable, we ask that you
report it to us via the form at the following page:

http://pages.ebay.co.uk//help/contact_inline/index.html

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your
cooperation.
I trust that the above information answers your query to your
satisfaction.

Kind regards,

Steve Staunton
eBay Customer Support
========================================================

so it seems they don't check listings.

Straight from the horses mouth.

Right now onto taking down the item numbers of those 200 listings...

soolin

"Right now onto taking down the item numbers of those 200 listings..."

Just open 2 ebay browsing pages and cut and paste from one to the other. You can report 10 items at a time and then just click back and report another 10.

Soo