Weekly Chat with the eBay Community Team- 05.06.24 @2pm

[community-team@ebay]

Hi everybody!

The Community Chat will open at 2pm and will remain open until 3pm on Wednesday. After that it will be closed for further questions. Of course, we will continue to take care of answering any questions that may still be unanswered—We’ll get to everything as quickly as possible. 

Please ask your questions in the thread below. In order to be able to answer your questions as quickly as possible, we ask you to have one question per post. Of course, you can make as many posts as you like in the Chat- the more the merrier!

Our eBay Community Team is made up of marco@ebay and anita@ebay. Between us, we have knowledge in Buying, Selling, Fulfilment, Payments, and the Community itself. Anything we aren’t sure on we’ll know the people who will be! Please ask us any questions you may have and we’ll do all we can to support. 

To ask your question, click Reply in the lower-right corner of this post, type your question, and click Reply between 2pm and 3pm. The community team will answer each incoming question in chronological order, and will quote the original question in each answer. 

Please note that any reply without a question to the community team or discussion replies may be removed from the chat. We want to keep on track to get through as many questions as possible. We welcome all discussion to be moved to the discussion boards. 

If you missed the weekly chat time, please ask your question in the community boards and tag us or we will be back next week with another chat! 

Many thanks,

Your eBay Community Team

[marco@ebay]

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@eshopforce01 wrote:

When I click "Create a Listing" from a template, the page loads and lands on the description section instead of the top photo section as it used to.

---

Thanks for your reply, eshopforce01. 

Lovely, thanks for sharing that screenshot. I will flag this with the technical team to see if this is a techincal problem or this is the expected behaviour. Once they get back to me, I will post back here to let you know more. 👍

Thank you,

Marco

[vintagewatchpart]

Please can I get a response to my thread here:

https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Business-Seller-Board/Businesses-Operating-on-Private-Accounts/m-p/7...

I would be very grateful of this as once again it is about businesses operating on private accounts and the clear issues with the reporting system.

To quote from my thread:

---

I am now getting this is my response for reporting listings that have a business ltd company name and website address as a watermark:

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.

How do I escalate this further, what are the next steps?

I am annoyed because last week I had a batch of items removed for violating Ebay policy.

I did not know about the policy so I did not complain and got on with it. 

But a big fat can of worms is going to be opened soon because the reason my listings were removed are apparent in not just a handful of other items on the Ebay platform, but hundreds of thousands of items on the platform that account for a huge percentage of Ebays revenue. Tens of millions.

Why should I be victimised and have listings removed for violating policy when these accounts get to continue on the platform illegally tax dodging and violating policy?

I have paid Ebay nearly £130,000 in fees in the past 3 years alone, if I were operating as a private seller and saving on fees I could have shaved £100k off that I nearly paid off my mortgage.

This is not a level playing field, it needs to be addressed, so how do I escalate this further?

[marco@ebay]

---

@kempseykate wrote:

This is the message I received shortly after reporting a listing for fee evasion today:

What happened:

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.

The listing in question had only one photo, and that was a picture of the seller's name, address and contact details. The seller had a postage charge of £200 and stated they had put that so that no one hit the 'buy' button. (I can DM a community staffer the item number if you would like to check it out)

So, basically, if anyone wants to buy one of these, they just have to contact the seller on the number/email shown in the listing (there is no photo of the item), and the sale can then take place outside ebay with the seller not having to pay fees.

Apparently, according to the message, this is not in violation of ebay policy.

Can someone confirm that if I list the stuff I currently have on Facebook (collect only items) on ebay, with a picture of my contact details, £200 P&P and a message saying not to hit the 'buy' button, I will also not be falling foul of ebay policy?

---

Hi kempseykate, thanks for your question.

Without looking at the listing, I'd say that listing would be breaking policies. If you send me the item number here, I can send it for further review.

Thank you,

Marco

[anita@ebay]

---

@technthread wrote:

On eBay's fees for business sellers page (last updated 8th April) it says that Terapeak Sourcing Insights are only available to accounts with a basic shop or higher. My understanding is that Terapeak was recently renamed Product Research and is actually available to all users, private or business.

Some months I could save money on a pay as you sell account, but I have been paying more to keep access to Terapeak. Unless there is an updated business seller fee page that I am not seeing it looks like it needs an update. It is very misleading to someone weighing up the pros and cons of no shop vs a shop.

As this perk of having a shop is now open to all, I'm not seeing the benefit of a basic shop that I used to. I'm thinking an eBay packaging voucher for a basic shop for example would be a fair compromise, or maybe the fee should be reduced.

Just out of interest, do private sellers need 3 years of sales data and analytics on product research if they are just clearing out their wardrobe?

---

Hi @technthread , thanks for your feedback.

I'll pass that on and flag to the team to make sure the page is updated accurately.

As for the data, while private sellers may not be selling regularly, they may still want to go back and look at their sales history from previous years.

Thanks,

Anita

[marco@ebay]

---

@pg_kicks wrote:

Hi,

Could you please tell the senior management in whichever department are constantly looking into this, reviewing reports, etc that the staff and AI they have created is not fit for purpose, as I have mentioned numerous times I can supply you with a list of accounts who are breaking multiple policies yet eBays' world breaking AI and constant looking and reviewing is not fit for purpose as they are still allowing them to continue.

If you could tell me the same and or contact details of this department I will happily send a document outlining all their failures to comply with the law.

Regards

---

Hi pg_kicks, thanks for your message.

I will be happy to pass on your feedback. However, sharing contact details of different teams/staff members is not something that we would do, but thanks for sharing your feedback with us.

Thank you,

Marco

[kempseykate]

marco@ebay  I have just sent the item number by DM

[pg_kicks]

Thank you for the reply, and thank you for passing on the feedback for the 15th time. 

Shame you can not give me contact details on a department within eBay that would be improved by listening to its customers and not allowing people to break the law, I find it very confusing that eBay does not want to make the site compliant with very simple laws. 

Is there some department I can complain to and please do not just suggest customer services as everything one knows who has shown eBay any loyalty that just phoning up customers services is slightly pointless.

[marco@ebay]

---

@lincolnshiremarine wrote:

Marco

This is not fair at all, we spoke to ebay live chat to ask what we should do in this situation and they advised to ask the customer to raise an item not received case, they did not.  Then sent a message about leaving feedback if we did not meet their demands.  The item shows delivered on ebay and on the yodel tracking to the customers safe place.

We have had no email notification that the appeal has not been successful, we were told it would take 24 - 48 hours to be informed.  Are you now informing me that it will not be removed and someone has reviewed it again?

Best wishes

---

Hi lincolnshiremarine, thanks for your reply.

Sorry, I am probably not understanding correctly then, my bad for that. Did you not say that you applied for the feedback to be removed, but you got a message in around 10 minutes saying that your request was denied? If so, I'm afraid that the feedback will remain.

Thanks,

Marco

[nakedkeg]

Hi,

GSP seller protections, why do you put Seller funds on hold when an international buyer opens an item not received case, even though the tracking shows it was delivered to ebay's Gsp partner at Lichfield?

thanks

[marco@ebay]

---

@kempseykate wrote:

marco@ebay  I have just sent the item number by DM

---

Thanks for your reply, kempseykate.

This is much appreciated, I will looking into it right after the chat. Anything else, please feel free to let us know.

Thank you,

Marco

[krafty-kreations]

Could you please explain how we report these business sellers that are selling on private accounts as I do not see that option!

[marco@ebay]

---

@pg_kicks wrote:

Thank you for the reply, and thank you for passing on the feedback for the 15th time. 

Shame you can not give me contact details on a department within eBay that would be improved by listening to its customers and not allowing people to break the law, I find it very confusing that eBay does not want to make the site compliant with very simple laws. 

Is there some department I can complain to and please do not just suggest customer services as everything one knows who has shown eBay any loyalty that just phoning up customers services is slightly pointless.

---

Thanks for your reply, pg_kicks. 

I am happy to pass on your complaint as well, that's no problem at all. However, if you wish to lodge an official complaint, you'd need to contact our customer service team, so they can lodge your complaint.

Thank you,

Marco

[anita@ebay]

---

@vintagewatchpart wrote:

Please can I get a response to my thread here:

https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Business-Seller-Board/Businesses-Operating-on-Private-Accounts/m-p/7...

I would be very grateful of this as once again it is about businesses operating on private accounts and the clear issues with the reporting system.

To quote from my thread:

---

I am now getting this is my response for reporting listings that have a business ltd company name and website address as a watermark:

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.

How do I escalate this further, what are the next steps?

I am annoyed because last week I had a batch of items removed for violating Ebay policy.

I did not know about the policy so I did not complain and got on with it. 

But a big fat can of worms is going to be opened soon because the reason my listings were removed are apparent in not just a handful of other items on the Ebay platform, but hundreds of thousands of items on the platform that account for a huge percentage of Ebays revenue. Tens of millions.

Why should I be victimised and have listings removed for violating policy when these accounts get to continue on the platform illegally tax dodging and violating policy?

I have paid Ebay nearly £130,000 in fees in the past 3 years alone, if I were operating as a private seller and saving on fees I could have shaved £100k off that I nearly paid off my mortgage.

This is not a level playing field, it needs to be addressed, so how do I escalate this further?

---

 Hi @vintagewatchpart, thanks for your post.

This is something we are constantly looking into, and we have a team that is reviewing all these reports and taking the action. Please also note, that not all actions that we are taking will always be visible publicly to other users.

If you see sellers that might be potentially breaching our policies, please continue reporting them and it will be reviewed.
Please also make sure the right reporting reason is selected when reporting these to help take the right action.

We appreciate you sending these reports.


Thanks,
Anita

[technthread]

I expected someone to ask this but as they haven't I'll be the one. In a recent user agreement update there was an inserted section about simple delivery. ie eBay could add certain delivery options to listings. 

Has any part of this come in yet on any listings or is it still in the works? If there is any update it would be appreciated as there has been a bit of confusion over it. 

[cobwebcottage]

Hello Marco,

Could you please take a look at the whole account that @kempseykate has highlighted as it is not just one listing but all 120 that breach policy with £200 postage and 3 listings which are just screenshots of contact details.

I have also reported this seller in the past and had the same AI response. 

[lincolnshiremarine]

Hi Marco

We did a request for feedback removal and 10 minutes later said it would not be removed.  However,   we phoned CS after this, as at a loss why this was not removed, the CS agent agreed that we had done everything we were suppose to and saw the message to the buyer, asking them to raise a INR case, and we have copies of the ebay transcript advising us how to deal with this.

When we did this, the customer sent the threats to us.  If this feedback is not against ebay policy then what feedback do ebay class as a removal.  Everything ebay states is not allowed as in threats of negatitve feedback the customer has done.

so let me get this right........ when customers claims the item has not been delivered,  and it clearly shows it has on ebay tracking, the courier tracking and a photo, and they message us to send another one, and if we do not they will leave negatitve feedback,  which they do and ebay refuses to remove it, that is acceptable in ebays eyes? 

If so, then sellers has no protection from ebay at all.

Best wishes 

[sweetcharity.2013]

Is the unnecessary offers sent to me as a buyer on items that I may have looked at but not added to my Watch List going to continue? I find them a total waste of time and they do not improve my ebay experience one jot.

[pg_kicks]

Sorry but customer services are as much use as a chocolate fireguard, 75% chance you get somebody outside of the UK who obviously doesnt understand UK law (which is understandable) but then the 25% chance you get UK they still dont have a clue and its just passed up to a manager with a call centre who has zero influence so is ignored. If that would work it would have been solved when I made the complaints or the other 14 times you passed on my complaint. This is why I said please do not just tell me to contact customer services.

Could you please give me an address for eBay management where I can send a document outlining how eBay are allowing the law to be broken on their site and staff members are doing nothing to stop it, also how the reporting function is not fit for purpose. It needs to go higher than a minimum wage employee on the customer service phone line for obvious reasons.

[anita@ebay]

---

@nakedkeg wrote:

Hi,

GSP seller protections, why do you put Seller funds on hold when an international buyer opens an item not received case, even though the tracking shows it was delivered to ebay's Gsp partner at Lichfield?

thanks

---

Hi @nakedkeg, thanks for your post.

Great question. When the case is open, the funds will always be placed on hold until the case is resolved for security reasons.

While there is a seller protection for GSP orders, there might be some exceptions, for example situations that will invalidate the seller protection etc., so we hold the funds.

Thanks,

Anita

[marco@ebay]

---

@krafty-kreations wrote:

Could you please explain how we report these business sellers that are selling on private accounts as I do not see that option!

---

Thanks for your question, krafty-kreations.

If you go to "Report an issue with a seller" and click on "Report a seller", you will be taken to a page where you can select the reason of your report. There you will click on "The seller has violated one of eBay’s policies", then hit continue, and on the next one, click "Other", then please enter the seller's user ID and all the additional details that you wish, then click submit, and that will issue the report.

Thank you,

Marco