Private accounts

[no1forbargains]

When are they going to stop Private accs being used as a business account its crazy, just put a limit on private accounts i.e. max listings of 100     what's your thoughts?

[lovewoodbridge]

Well, if they do that then I will be another seller (and buyer) leaving ebay.

100 listings is absolutely no use to me selling a personal collection of thousands of post cards.

[naughteesclothingltd]

Limiting people to 100 listings isn't going to solve this. There are people selling 15 or 20 items with multiple quantities and they are obviously operating as a business (buying goods in bulk for resale or having goods made and shipped from a third party).

So they'll never go above a 100 item threshold.

There needs to be an easier way to report these people to both eBay and HMRC. I'm pay so much tax (VAT, corporation, import duties and then finally personal income tax) yet these people just get away with it.

[edwardian-dreams]

Maybe limit brand new items to 100 ?

or some other amount, don’t know 

as already stated many private sellers can have hundreds of items

hobbies and collections are not a crime ,

also

we live in  a hoarders consumerist world

our houses are stuffed with stuff

were not all business sellers masquerading 

all in all it’s pretty easy to see the ones taking the pee

[the_book_seekers]

ebay has introduced simple delivery and buyer protection fee which has made it more awkward for these sellers to operate on private accounts, but not yet impossible. ebay has said it will 'level the playing field'. 

They have a lot more work to do. When and whether they will do it is debatable as it will most likely involve further upset to private sellers. Following SD and BPF ebay may not wish to go there any time soon.

[lucy_farmer]

I've never worked out why it's so 'difficult' for ebay to set up an AI bot of some sort to spot these.

Ebay can so easily stop private sellers and buyers swapping contact details; anything with @ in it (for email addys) is immediately stopped. Anything with phone numbers in is also instantly blocked.

So why is it so hard for a bot to spot the words 'brand new' if they appear more than a handful of times on the same private seller's listings? (a *few* brand new, unwanted presents and the like would be just fine. But 43 of the same thing? That's an account taking the p)

Or spot accounts saying 'personalised' or 'made to order' or 'choose your size' etc?

Or even private accounts with 'market', 'outlet' or 'store' in their actual user name?  (I've seen all of those...)

OK, I admit I know nothing about computing and bots. But I just can't see why it's so easy to do when stopping 'off-ebay' trading,  but impossible to stop p-taking accounts.

[superchallenge]

Couldn't agree more.

I tried to send a reply to a buyer yesterday that contained the phrase "We often send out offers and coupons, so add the item to your watchlist!" and it got blocked for attempting to enable an off-eBay transactions.

Turns out the offending word was "offers." It turns out that I can't use that word in my listing text now either, for the same reason. Ironically, I'm trying to say "Sorry, but we don't accept offers on our items" so I'm as far away from trying to facilitate an off-site sale as I could possibly be.

They can spot that, but they can't see private seller bigbobs247discountwarehouse selling 300 brand new mousetraps and 150 spatulas with the text "WHY NOT COME VISIT OUR RETAIL STORE?" in their seller description.

[lucy_farmer]

'They can spot that, but they can't see private seller bigbobs247discountwarehouse selling 300 brand new mousetraps and 150 spatulas with the text "WHY NOT COME VISIT OUR RETAIL STORE?" in their seller description.'

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Exactly , in a flippin' nutshell!!

I've been moaning on about the sheer illogicallity of this bollo**s for years

[jokers_toybox]

I had a chat about this at a recent eBay event at ascot, hopefully if what they said is true it WILL be a LOT easier to report these accounts

[magpiecorner1]

I saw an account yesterday, a private seller with over 4000 listings - and absolutely no evidence to think that he is anything but a private seller!  But reduce his listings to 100 and I'd imagine a great deal of extra stuff going to landfill.

Personally, I think the Government should pro actively encourage us to sell on second hand goods, heck we should be exempt from tax and exempt from all but a wee eBay cost.  Chuck in free postage by Royal Mail, why not?

Of course include all upcycling, repair and reuse of materials, just as long as they don't bring back ragging for rugs or rara skirts,  I'm all in!   

It would go a lot further to getting towards nett zero than giving Milliband the keys to the exchequer to come up with hair-brained ideas to spend millions achieving not very much.  And the balance of payments would swing like a shuggy boat!

Or they could just, heck, make a rule that only used items, or single handmade items, can be sold by private sellers.   Yes, as a business seller selling used items they would still be competition for the likes of me, but I'd just be happy being a part of the charge to nett zero and paying no tax!!!!

(Now, where's that vintage WWII helmet and old piece of parapet).

[magpiecorner1]

You can't name other people's accounts - ask those monitoring the site to remove your post.

[naughteesclothingltd]

It's a made up name to show as an example. No such seller exists in eBay at the moment with the username bigbobs247discountwarehouse 

[gemini-project]

I can see it now eBay set up AI to find sellers using the wrong type of account then AI gets this back.

"What happened:
We looked into your report and didn’t find the seller to be in violation.  This determination was made by a customer service agent.

If you continue in these unfounded reports you will be unplugged."

🤣

[superchallenge]

Seriously?