Reporting listings in violation of policy

[cobwebcottage]

Has anyone had any success with reporting listings which breach the rules? 

Is it even worth the time and effort as everyone comes back with 
'We looked into your report and didn’t find the listing to be in violation of our policy. This determination was made using automation or artificial intelligence.'

Recently tried the report for partial bottles of perfume selling for around  £100 a bottle and 14  'items coming soon' all duplicate titles and no descriptions (obviously to use the recent promo).

After receiving  'we looked in to your report' messages for all of these, I thought I would see what happened when you appeal the decision and guess what? Error page, We looked everywhere. The link is broken.

It feels like Ebay doesn't want anyone to report any listings so why bother?

[tommystrezures]

Personally I would approach it slightly differently. Not sure it would work but why not as the question just list the item number with the question why does this not breach policy xyz?

[exponential_developments]

Had one removed yesterday, first one in 14 years, the company still has about 20 others though so will report those gradually.

[shopping-ferret]

This is one of my many gripes about the way Ebay is managed.  Over the years, I have reported listings so many times that clearly are breaking Ebay's policies yet I have never known of a single one removed.  I have reported things like used cosmetics.  I repeatedly reported these listings (all from the same seller who was selling scruffy looking used testers) to see if Ebay kept on ignoring the reports... which they did.   Then, recently I came across a seller who was selling some unbranded clothing and used descriptions and keyword spamming that they were 'like' and then mentioned a well known brand.   Surely, there was no way Ebay could deny this!!  It was in the title and in the photos and you could not miss the fact items were not as described!

This time I got a reply from Ebay saying:

Thanks again for reporting the listing(s) you found. 

'What happened:
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.'

...Well I was so sick of it and this only confirmed to me they ignore such reports.  Without going into full detail, I had an agent from escalations email me about another matter I had escalated and when I replied he actually responded.  Following my determination to not accept Ebay's nonsense, he had been instrumental in resolving 2 outstanding issues I had.  I thought I would ask him to help with the above seller and my failed reporting of policy violation.  He replied to me saying it had been passed to the relevant team and guess what?  This time, it was agreed there WAS a policy violation and all the listings were hence removed!!

So what does that say about either Ebay's practice on how they handle reports, or the intelligence and fit for purposefulness of the staff who deal with these reports?  I reckon they have so many, they cannot process them, so routinely just send an automated response like the one above.  I assume they cherry pick and probably only deal with reports like VERO or sales of knives etc, as they don't want any legal action against them!   Yet, I recently got a listing of mine removed and nobody at Ebay could tell me why.  I was furious.  Again I had to complain, appeal and then escalate and only then was I was told it could be relisted, but it had lost all the sales history I had built up with it, with hundreds of sales.  I had a couple hundred Watchers... all gone.  Since then, sales of that item have dropped dramatically.

Why have strict policies that are allowed to be violated... even when they are reported?   

[shopping-ferret]

Wow, I cannot believe Ebay permit this when it is so widespread too!  How on earth can they not be aware of it?  You are not permitted to advertise things for sale you don't stock but you have explained why they do this.  Thankfully this kind of practice will soon die down with the new law about Ebay sending reports to HMRC, so private sellers who are traders need to be careful!  Hopefully it will weed some of these specimens away, although all digital platforms have to do the same.

I have also noticed a lot of listings with items like a single £2 pen being advertised for £50!  I have even asked Ebay why but got some disinterested agent who was unable to give me an answer.   For a different reason to you, I am aware of this pretend private seller with about 400 items listed (defiitely trading) and all decent values - she sells one of the same products that originally I was the only one on Ebay selling.   When doing a search, I found that every time I do something different, say put up a new listing for the aforementioned product - she copies me.  She was literally stal king my shop!!!  She also undercuts me, which has impacted massively on my sales.  She even copied some of my photos I had taken myself and when I messaged her politely asking her to remove them... simply ignored me.  Of course Ebay were not remotely interested.  

I totally get how you feel.  I am looking to wind down also but have to keep going for another couple of years.