New reporting system

[pg_kicks]

As with the new move by eBay to give private accounts free listings has anyone been able to report accounts that are clearly business, Im not meaning Jeff selling his collecting but the ones that are so painfully businesses that even a blind man galloping on a horse at Leopardstown would see.

Whenever I try and verify the user it just says this doesnt match so whilst we are being asked to report these accounts the system is actually broken at the front end so god knows what the backend looks like.

You'd have thought as they knew this was going to cause some anger from business accounts trading legally that the intelligent folks in management would have made sure everything was working before launching it.

dave@ebay 

 

[moldosgifts]

in case you all missed it heres the link

Online Customer Service - Report an issue with a seller (ebay.co.uk)

click violated polocies the either "Seller’s contact information isn't correct" or "Other "on next page 

Ive used it allot this week 

[santlache_sales]

Hilarious.

So eBay want us all to turn into a grass reporting private sellers who are businesses.....

Because eBay have designed a system that is wide open to fraudulent use, dodgy sellers and they are totally unable to police it, or more likely don't want to.

[howmuchtobid]

dave@ebay

Any news on this Dave?....... or should business sellers just move to private accounts like so many other businesses on Ebay? 

[pg_kicks]

That system has never actually resulted in anything though, thats the one the community team have asked us to use for the last 2 or 3 years and even though one certain seller is selling food on a private account and has we are a small family ran business in the about us its still going strong on a private account now selling zero fee's. I genuinely think the new system was never designed to work and they have left the error message in, least then its just a mistake and not down to the fact the team who designed the reporting are so bad at their job they couldnt even have it working for release.

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

I've just had a pretty staggering conversation with Ebay's customer service team (overseas).

I was told very openly private sellers are allowed to sell up to £80,000 a year or 3,000 transactions a year.

[pg_kicks]

Pointless even phoning them to be honest, they know even less than us. If eBay had any sense they'd close down the overseas call centres and just make the AI better on help, have a few stickies on here and employ a few more in UK/Ireland who can go off script for when its a genuine issue which isnt covered on the help pages. Philippines, South Africa and Albania are only useful when you need a basic question answered which is already on the help pages.

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

I understand where you are coming from and the overseas customer service is generally very very poor however I don't understand why Ebay allow it, it gives a terrible impression of the company as a whole.

As I said the guy I spoke to yesterday said private sellers can sell up to £80,000 a year or 3,000 transactions, I asked him where that information came from, he said it's UK law and they are in control, I told him that was total nonsense and asked him where it said that and he replied he didn't know the legal side of things. The guy pretty much said what he wanted regardless of any actual reality. It was basically a 5 - 10 minute conversation of total and utter fantasy.

[vintage-emporium-jedburgh]

get real guys 

 the report thing is little more than a placebo 

 if ebay really wanted to stop private sellers masquarading it would not occur in the first place

[pg_kicks]

They allow it because they will know very little of just how bad it is, all they will get is what the managers are telling them and that would have gone through 3 or 4 other managers. They tell you what you want to hear so you rate the call as good, its only when you later find out the info they gave you is wrong that you know how bad it is and its too late to rate the call/advice.

The Uk centres arent exactly great though, they can only do so much and as eBay has so many bugs they just have to pass it over to 3 levels below anyone who actually has any power so nothing is fixed in a timely matter.

[the-layer-laboratory]

If ebay wanted to sort out the mess they have created, they'd release reporting tools that don't fail at the first hurdle. It is literally impossible to make a report at the seller/shop level:

It's an utter disgrace for a self-declared tech company!

[nutrafituk]

Done here many times before over years without any results. The only new thing now we can see upon a report is 'This determination was made using automation or artificial intelligence'. It seems that eBay think if they use AI or other software tool to make a judgement they are allowed an error. We have started reporting eBay for being non-complaint to relevant institution, e.g. Trading Standards Agency and so on.

[dave@ebay]

Hi All,

This has been escalated and I can confirm it is a site issue. The Tech Team are currently working on a resolution. Ive added all here this thread to the report and Ill update it with any further reports the follow. 

I don't have a timescale for the fix but Ill let you know as soon as I have an update on this.

Thanks,

Dave

[pg_kicks]

Thanks for the update Dave but seriously why does it take a site as big as eBay over a week to fix something? It just shows how little they really care, they can say as much as they like about wanting a fair and equitable marketplace for all business sellers but they can not even fix the basics. I know you are only relaying what has been told but surely people need to get a kick up the **** or sacked for being so bad at their jobs they release a broken 'update' then dont fix it for well over a week? 

The site is full of bugs and its costing us, all we ask for is a safe and working site, surely thats not much to ask for? Is there a reason why they cant fix it in a timely manner or even why they released it in the first place?

[dave@ebay]

Hi @pg_kicks 

There are a few different factors when a tech issue is triaged. For example, does it impact the running of the site, does it stop buyers or sellers being able to operate on the site, how many users are impacted etc. It could be that the issue is caused by another that has to be resolved first. Once the team figure out the basics it then goes into a queue to be worked on based on the severity of the issue. 

It is absolutely not the case that we don't care. I'm sure you can understand with a site as large as this, something that on the surface can seem like a simple fix may have any number of underlying tasks that are needed to resolve the issue. 

Thanks,

Dave

[pg_kicks]

I understand that it may not be a simple delete a letter and it works but come on it's a brand new reporting system which eBay claim they are trying to crack down on and it's never actually worked, it was released broken so if eBay are releasing systems that are broken nobody is checking them so in short they aren't really caring. This reporting system is alerting eBay to accounts breaking laws and policies on their site, what is more serious than those?

My trust in eBay is as low as it can possibly be, the account I alerted you to is still functioning as a private account, in short eBay don't take law breaking and policing breaking seriously, I'd love to be proven otherwise but I have proof they genuinely don't, they talk a good game but the actions say complete opposite.

A site this size should have great coding/developers, it blows my mind how many bugs the site is riddled with. 

[nutrafituk]

There is also another way to deal with that by making it clearly visible (batch?) what account is business and what is private. That would make it it easy to pick up on those being 'reluctant' to register their business. I am  aware eBay add 'business seller' - it should have been highlighted significantly. Just looking at a 'private account' that has sold 6,200+ items in 6 years, listing descriptions are copies of ours, and they have duplicates... I am going to give eBay a limited time upon report to deal with that - if they fail to resolve that I will report both the seller and eBay to HMRC and Trading Standards Agency. Let us see how that goes down.

[leadhills_scot]

So your technical lot decide to put up annoying coloured banners at the top of pages instead of sorting out issues. 

[nutrafituk]

So we have heard back from eBay already - upon reporting a 'private seller':

'We looked into your report and didn’t find the listing to be in violation of our policy. This determination was made by a customer service agent.'

Thousands of units sold, private account, failing to display legally reqiured information, also 'Vitamins and supplements' fall within eBay's Prescription and over-the-counter drugs policy for some reason that clearly states: Private sellers are not allowed to sell

I can bet they are not even register with their local council to sell these products as required.

Just to remind here's eBay's latest promise:

More steps to address false private sellers

At eBay, we are dedicated to ensuring a fair and equitable marketplace for all business sellers. To achieve this, we monitor trading activities, and we’ll continuously help business sellers using a private account to transition to a business account, or restrict selling activity as necessary. In addition, we’ve reduced the number of free listings available to private sellers.

Over the next few months, we'll be ramping up our marketing initiatives to highlight the benefits of using eBay for both sellers and buyers, and showcase what makes it such a unique marketplace. Our goal is to continuously attract new customers and ensure they receive exceptional service.

Both reported to HMRC, MHRA, Trading Standards Agency and Food & Safety Authority. Happy to do it with every single report until they get it right.

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

As has already been said, it hasn't worked from day one so why was it put live ?

[pg_kicks]

The big issue is eBay will have 'staff' who check these who dont actually know what they are checking for, I've gave Dave an account that has sold over 19k food items and has we are a business in the about us, its still active on a private account, I know Dave can only repeat what eBay says so I actually feel for him as its like shouting at the person on the tills at M&S when they have no control but as the higher ups are never available to speak to their customers he is our only point of contact.

eBay could do a lot, put a banner in blue across all private account listings stating you dont have many consumer rights and in green for businesses highlighting what rights they get, obviously this will cost eBay money or the people doing the work might get confused and mix them up. Really eBay should stop any changes and just fix the issues, the car is broken down but eBay are deciding to buy flashy new wheels and a new paint job instead of fixing the engine.

Hopefully your reports actually work, I've done a few myself but as most agencies are so poorly funded I dont hold my breathe, maybe if the media got onto it eBay would make the site safe.