BEWARE - Priority Promotions Self-Activating
Summary: ett1954 is concerned about unexpected charges from priority ads on a low-priced item they listed, which activated without their consent. Despite cancelling the promotion, charges continued to accrue each day. They seek refunds and contact assistance from community moderators, noting difficulty due to lack of moderator response and questioning the effectiveness of the new forum format. Other participants discuss the potential involvement of AI in post moderation and express concerns about the current community support system's functionality. kat@ebay advises contacting customer support directly for billing issues.
Just checking my payment summary this morning to find payments taken for priority ads (pay per click) for a low priced one-off item that was listed (BIN) on 15th July. First payment taken on July 31st, another taken yesterday 1st August. This indicates it was activated on July 30th/31st.
This item was originally listed on 15th July and has not been revised in any way since then however it was found this morning a priority promotion activated with a £5 daily budget - this is a one-off item priced at £7.25!! Promoting this way would be a quick way to bankruptcy. I have never, or any intention of using pay per click. This listing already had a standard promotion running and still has. I would advise everyone to keep a close eye on their payment summary.
The listing has obviously now just been revised this morning to remove this 'ppc' promotion. In the meantime @kat@ebay ; @dave@ebay can one of you please initiate a refund for these two payments, and any subsequent payments that arise for today, and confirm. Item number is: 206414438458
theelench
·1 week agoI don't recall seeing Kat or Dave reply at all since this new format arrived. Are they still part of the Community Team ?
Is there a Community Team any more ?
I posted a comment on another thread at 10:56 last night. This morning I look-in at about 8 a.m to find a Notification that the "comment was approved 31 minutes ago", but no name to identify who approved it. Have The Team been replaced by an A.I bot ?
jonatjonatjonat
·1 week agoKat has previously responded.
Posts containing links and images certainly go through moderation. Though theres no evidence the moderation is via AI.
ett1954
OP1 week agoAlthough the promotion has not re-activated since I revised the listing for the second time yesterday morning there is another charge for yesterday (the highest yet) for the period before it was revised and the promotion cancelled again.
This listing was created and activated just less than 3 weeks ago. Since I checked yesterday the views counter had only risen by 1; this suggests that the one view (click) was charged at £1.37 which I find totally obscene.
@kat@ebay , @dave@ebay ; any news yet on the refunds / credits? With the fact that this new forum format is 'dead' with virtually no participation from members or moderators, I am now investigating to find the appropriate financial or industry regulator with whom to raise this matter.
kat@ebay
Hi @ett1954 ,
Thank you for your post.
As this involves fees and billing you will need to contact customer support through the contact option on your account here. They will need to review your account manually and if any refund is due they will need to process it. We are not able to process refunds on the community.
Thank you,
Kat
ett1954
OP6 days ago@kat@ebay ; thanks for your reply. I contacted customer support that afternoon, eventually, after being sent in circles by the AI bot. I was called by a knowledgeable gentleman from Utah in the US.
After he had checked my account he confirmed that I was due a refund and told me he had authorised a refund that would be sent to my account in the next 12-24 hours.
I also mentioned the current problem with business policies not working; specifically regarding BIN sales to Europe which were increased several weeks ago but are still being charged at the old rate. Coincidentally I has sold two items to a German buyer an hour or so before ringing him. After checking my sales and my business policy relating to those sales he was totally bemused as to why the postage was not being charged correctly; especially as it was amended several weeks ago. He assured me this would be passed to the appropriate team to look at this issue on my account.
Well, it is coming up to five full days since the 'promise' of a refund within 24 hours for the incorrectly charged promotional fees was made, and still nothing showing on my payments! - What now! Waste another 30 minutes of my life chasing it up I suppose. Is anyone looking at the business policy issue - who knows?
This situation is reminiscent of the issue I had with business policies in June when I was out of the country for 3 weeks. Dispatch times were changed according and within the 24 hours required for activation, according to the eBay help pages, to suddenly find that the amendment took more than 6 days to update. The result was six late dispatch flags on my account and a dearth in sales after being assured by a CS operative in Albania that there would be no impact on my account 'because it wasn't my fault'!
Kat, I am afraid I have no confidence in anything I am now told by CS operatives. I am away from the office on business at the end of this week for a couple of days, however, if the refund isn't forthcoming by the end of the week I intend to compose an email this coming weekend to Jamie Iannone's office outlining my experiences over the last few months. This platform is becoming too dysfunctional on which to run a business efficiently and effectively.
Thanks again for your response last week, it was appreciated, however I will leave it to you decide whether to forward my comments to the respective 'teams' as feedback.
4_bathrooms
·1 week ago · EditedI noticed early on that posts containing links or images are moderated. However, it seems all my posts are now moderated. If I post during normal UK working hours my posts take 5 - 10 minutes to be "approved". However, If I post outside normal UK working hours it can take an hour or longer for my posts to be approved.
So there is definitely some sort of human moderation taking place. I also suspect some regular posters come under more scrutiny than others due to their posting history.
ett1954
OP1 week ago"I also suspect some regular posters come under more scrutiny than others due to their posting history." - Sounds plausible. It took 7 hours from my opening post being submitted to receiving notification it had been approved, although it was submitted on a weekend.
ett1954
OP1 week agoAs expected this listing incurred another promotion cost for yesterday. Even though this was cancelled around nine hours into the day at some point afterwards the promotion has been reactivated resulting in a total cost yesterday double that of each of the previous two days. I have again revised and cancelled this pay per click promotion.
@kat@ebay ; @dave@ebay I would appreciate your speedy input into this and the subsequent costs refunded or credited asap. I don't really want the hassle of taking this matter further.