AI running Ebay now, it will ruin your business
Summary: chipchopmod2 is frustrated with eBay's AI system that repeatedly takes down their listings, even after successful appeals. They describe a cycle where listings are removed for supposed policy violations, successfully appealed, and then taken down again after minor revisions. This issue has led to account restrictions, impacting their business. appletree23 shares a sentiment of skepticism about AI-driven systems, expressing concern that customer service might eventually become automated as well.
I am absolutely sick to death of eBay's AI taking down listings that have already been appealed, manually reviewed and approved by eBay. This is happening over and over again now and it's getting ridiculous.
A listing gets taken down for supposedly breaking a policy. I appeal it, someone at eBay actually reviews it and agrees that the listing is fine, the appeal is successful and the listing goes back up. You would think that would be the end of it. But no. If I then revise that listing, and I'm talking about something as stupid as changing a comma or a full stop, eBay apparently runs it through the same system again and takes the listing straight back down for the same reason.
Except now it gets even better. Because the listing has already been appealed once, the appeal button is greyed out, so I can't even appeal it again myself. I then have to phone eBay, explain the whole thing to someone, explain that the listing has already been appealed and approved by eBay, and get them to supposedly put through a manual appeal. Then nothing happens. No decision, no proper response, nothing gets sorted out. You phone again, get told this, that and the other, somebody will look into it, it's been escalated, wait for an email, etc etc, and still nothing happens.
Meanwhile my account gets restricted because eBay's own system has taken down a listing that eBay themselves have already reviewed and decided is allowed. How is this remotely acceptable? If a listing has been manually reviewed after an appeal and eBay has decided that it complies with the rules, surely that decision needs to be recorded against that listing so the automated system doesn't just come along and undo the decision the next time the seller changes a full stop. What is the point of having an appeal system if a successful appeal means absolutely nothing the next time the listing is revised? And what are sellers supposed to do when it happens a second time and eBay actually disables the appeal button?
I'm now getting account restrictions because of decisions that eBay has already decided were wrong the first time around. I'm running a genuine UK business. These listings are my livelihood. I cannot have listings disappearing and my selling account being restricted every time I make a perfectly legitimate revision because some automated system has decided to overrule a previous decision made by eBay itself.
Trying to get somebody at eBay to actually take ownership of the problem is impossible. You just go round and round in circles with customer service. This isn't really about one listing anymore. There is obviously something fundamentally wrong with the way automated enforcement, successful appeals and subsequent listing revisions are interacting.
Has anybody else had this happen? More importantly, has anybody actually managed to get through to somebody at eBay who can fix the underlying problem rather than just putting through yet another manual appeal that disappears into nowhere?
vintagechinashop
·2 weeks agoEBay is becoming vinted Personally I think we will all eventually go back to selling at Boot sales again it’s less hassle
appletree23
·2 weeks agoNot had this happen to me personally but doesn't surprise me because as you say it's turning it into an AI driven nightmare, and no doubt in the end even the customer service will be an AI robot, if it isn't already.