How to Block a seller - Feature Request?

[beerdid]

I want to be able to block sellers.

eBay is a bit of a wide west and there are sellers i keep on ordering from who i have bought fake stuff from beofre and I just want to block them (and all their aliases) so I can't purchase from them again.

Purchasing from them again is really annoying, they know I will return their fake product so they don't send it out, I have to wait ages for it to not turn up and get a refund.  I don't know all their identities, so I repurchase again from another one of their identities. 

I want to block all sorts of sellers, the unethical one who sell fake goods, the ones that do listings just to get noticed, a 99p Sim Pin and an option on buying Hosereels, those who spam keywords, the one that list items at exhorbitant prices to make their other listing at a grossly over inflated price look like good value.

[m25jet]

Unfortunately eBay do not provide buyers with an option to stop the search results from showing items from blacklisted sellers, even though they give sellers the right to block buyers from purchasing from them using the Blocked Bidders List.  Personally I feel that it would be a very good move if eBay were to introduce a Blacklisted Sellers List to which buyers could add the User IDs of any sellers whose listings they did not want to show up in the search results; however, eBay are not in the habit of making changes to the site that are widely popular with, and extremely beneficial to, hundreds of thousands of site users.

In view of the above the best you could do at present in order to keep track of sellers that you do not wish to buy from would be to purchase a notebook split into sections from A - Z, in which you could write down the User IDs of any sellers that you have previously had a bad buyer experience with and do not wish to purchase from again.  If you were to do that then when you have the search results up in front of you check out the seller's User ID, make reference to your own book of blacklisted sellers, and if the advert you are looking at displays the User ID of one of the sellers named in that book then steer clear of that seller and see if you can find the same item being advertised for sale by a seller that you have not yet added to your Blacklisted Sellers book.

[eburtonlab]

You cannot simply block a seller the way that a seller can block a bidder or buyer, but you can exclude the seller's items from appearing in a specific search.

From your search results, go to the Advanced Search page to the seller section, select "only show items from" and then check "exclude". Enter up to ten seller usernames separated by commas and hit "search". Then bookmark or save the search results.

If you use the bookmarked or saved search results as the basis for further searches, you can continue to exclude those sellers' items from your results.

[thamespathwalker]

The following quote by 'eburtonlab' is, if as I am sure it is correct, a pity; "You cannot simply block a seller the way that a seller can block a bidder or buyer, but you can exclude the seller's items from appearing in a specific search." eBay really should enable a buyer to block a seller from any sort of further and continuing communication. How many buyers like me, have left genuine negative feedback on a purchased item, only to be repeatedly pestered and bribed by a constant string of messages, to remove the feedback. The nuisance this has created for me as a buyer on two recent purchases should not have to be tolerated and is unacceptable. eBay is clearly on the side of sellers in this respect. I've been bribed with a £50 Amazon voucher on one occasion and have been inundated with messages offering special offers and privileges, on another despite requests to desist.

[eburtonlab]

Previously it was possible to block a user from sending messages from the message page, though with the new chat-style format, the block option seems to be missing; the "report message" link remains.

It might be worth trying to block a user by adding the user to your "Blocked Buyer List" even if you are not actually a seller at all. My understanding is that the BBL, in addition to preventing users from buying from you, also blocks all communication from users on the list.

[m25jet]

@eburtonlab wrote:

Previously it was possible to block a user from sending messages from the message page, though with the new chat-style format, the block option seems to be missing; the "report message" link remains.

It might be worth trying to block a user by adding the user to your "Blocked Buyer List" even if you are not actually a seller at all. My understanding is that the BBL, in addition to preventing users from buying from you, also blocks all communication from users on the list.

It does if you've also got the Don't Allow Blocked Buyers To Contact Me option activated in your Selling Preferences, but if you haven't activated the option to block messages from people who have been added to your Blocked Bidders List then messages from blocked buyers will stil be able to get through to you.

[thamespathwalker]

Thanks for that idea and for authenticating my experience . I’ll certainly try that strategy. But it’s only ever going to be a post hoc thing following in my experience giving negative feedback to a seller. It makes you wary of doing so and stacks the odds in favour of sellers getting away with sharp practice and selling goods not fit for purpose.

Sent from my iPhone

[eburtonlab]

if you've also got the Don't Allow Blocked Buyers To Contact Me option activated in your Selling Preferences

My understanding is that that setting no longer matters; regardless of the setting, blocked users cannot communicate with the users that have blocked them, apparently.

There was some extended discussion of this on the US community boards and about the problems this could lead to for sellers blocking a user during a transaction.