Hidden listings due to policy violations

[droverscroft]

Since 1st March, I have had a total of 5 listings hidden "due to policy violations". I have had a total of 3 prolonged chats with support (after spending a lot of time getting past the bot) and appealed all 5 .

The listings have been active and unchanged for years. It was only when I have recently upadated stock that the system seems to have checked them and flagged them as violating policy.

After my first chat I learned that the violation was apparently due to including a URL to an external site where I might be trying to sell outwith ebay.

The only links on the listings were to other ebay items that I was selling. None-the-less, I removed them from the listings. I was told that I needed to wait 24 hours before the changes would be validated. To speed up geting the listings online, I created new listings identical to the old ones, but with no links. These were immediately blocked as well (after ebay charging me a listing fee for all of them)

Appeals are supposed to be resolved in 24 hours. I have had no response to any of them. I have been promised by 3 agents now that they would minitor my case and update me in 24 hours. None of them have done so. This stared on 1st March. Eight days ago.

Is this something that anybody else has experienced recently? And is this response ebay normal? The support agents I have been in touch with don't seem to be able to do anything and are not prepared to follow the issue through (the last one wouldn't even put me through to a supervisor - he's going to email me in 24hrs as well apparently) I don't know where to turn now and I'm ready to give up on the whole ebay thing.

[ile136yz]

Did you list as 'Sell Similar' & change the Titles slightly? 

This would give the items a new eBay reference number & not be connected to the original listings.

[droverscroft]

"Sell similar" was not available from these hidden listings. I actually created entirely new listings and copied ther text from the original listings. The titles are the same (this could apply to many listimgs accross ebay in any case) but the reference numbers are different - they are new listings.

[theseedcellar2014]

It looks like I have the same sort of issue.

No problem with listings that have been on Ebay since 2013. Then in Nov 24 some got pulled on policy violations. I spoke to seller support and made some changes and some were put back on. However, since then I've had more pulled and I've been told every time they are not policy violations but they can't put them back on and needed to re-do them as new listings. So just had all my listings pulled again on a Food Policy Violation but I don't sell my products as food items. Appeals done but now nothing from Ebay for 5 days so far....
So in total I have older listings that show in my account as violations even though seller support confirmed they are not violations they just could not re-instate them. Along with 5 more listings now that I'm waiting on appeals with no contact from Ebay.
Plus the new 'Easy' way to get support is not easy at all just going round in circles with the automated assistance that is pretty useless. How does anyone get to speak to an actual person on seller support these days????What a great way to do business!!!!

[cobwebcottage]

Use this link. You should get a call back in roughly 2 minutes. Make sure you ask them to put you through to the policy dept.

eBay Customer Service

[4_bathrooms]

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@theseedcellar2014 wrote:

So just had all my listings pulled again on a Food Policy Violation but I don't sell my products as food items. 

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As your listings have been pulled I can't see the nature of what you were selling. If you were selling seeds intended to be grown into mature plants (including seeds for things that can be eaten when mature) then no, they are not defined as food. However, if you were selling anything intended to be chewed or ingested as sold then legally it is either classed as a food or a medicinal product.

[droverscroft]

It took more than a week for ebay to deal with it and put the listings back on. No proper explanation from them and they failed to get back to me countless times when they had promised to do so. Utterly useless "support". No I know where all those fees go anyway

[4_bathrooms]

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@droverscroft wrote:

It took more than a week for ebay to deal with it and put the listings back on. No proper explanation from them and they failed to get back to me countless times when they had promised to do so. Utterly useless "support". No I know where all those fees go anyway

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I believe the poster I was replying to had a different problem to yourself; their listings were reportedly pulled due to violating eBay's food policy.

In your case you mentioned the listings had been "active and unchanged for years" and were removed due to including a URL to an external site. When you originally created the listings did you use any sort of free third-party template design tool? A lot of the templates created by such tools included a (small) hyperlink to the service's website in the footer of the template.

[droverscroft]

No, no template tool and, as I say, the listing remained blocked with absolutely no URL's anywere in the code. I guess they have an AI checking the listings and just getting it wrong, as AI's so often do