Power Sellers Unite

psunite · Joined: 27 Jan 2005 Posts: 6213 Location: Columbus OH

EBay bidding to better police problem sellers Online auction site offering a range of penalties to handle more moderate infractions

EBay's enforcers cracked down last month on Julie Ann Brown, a marketing professor who sells prayer cards and Victorian paper in her spare time.

She had violated a policy against bidding on one of her own items, or "shill bidding," an incident she acknowledges took place but said was an accident that should be outweighed by years of good behavior.

In the past, her punishment would probably have been a warning, or she could have been kicked off the San Jose e-commerce giant. Instead, eBay used one of its newer strategies: It took the middle ground and charged Brown with the equivalent of a misdemeanor and suspended her auctions for a week and made her pass a test to prove that she was familiar with eBay's rules.

"I felt like I had the scarlet letter on me," Brown said.

An increasing number of eBay's 78 million users are facing similar, intermediate consequences for violating the Web site's rules. Gradually implemented during the past year, the policy is intended to educate and rehabilitate buyers and sellers and reserve more serious punishment for major offenders.
more.. link to news article

Pipphoe

It has to be said. This article is one big load of crap :twisted: I hope someday -- someday, someday, someday -- someone writes the real lowdown on what happens at eBay.

"We are learning our way through this," Cobb said

You've got to be kidding!!!

"These days, keeping a balance is especially important for eBay because its once-torrid growth is slowing and it needs all the users it can get. Investors are growing restless about the direction of the company, and have sent its shares down 45 percent since Jan. 1"

Really?? Then why is it destroying it's sellers so vigorously?

And the rest of the article -- well, maybe it would take a book or a mini-series to spell out the chaos and the reality of the situation over there.

I just wrote a note to the writer of this article. I couldn't resist. I've never done something like this before but this just got me so upset, especially after reading the pain of so many sellers on this board, other boards and on eBay itself :twisted:

dianne_dp · Joined: 20 Feb 2006 Posts: 26 Location: Monroe, NY

eBay is finally cracking down on a lot of problem sellers and its about time!! I sold on eBay for 4 years and even made Power Seller once! Due to ever increasing fees and unscrupulous sellers I had to close my store. Couldn't afford it anymore - One month alone my fees were over $400 for about $500 in sales! I was selling NEW silver jewelry. There were too many sellers low balling their prices and charging exhorbitant sh/h fees - I could not compete!

eBay is now supposedly cracking down on those sellers charging excessive shipping. Here's the link to read about it:
eBay's FAIR Shipping Charges Policy

While I agree that eBay treats small sellers like crap, there are a lot of sellers over there that need to be shut down. I purchased about 10 items on ebay about 2 months ago and had problems with 8 of them! I ordered clothing from one seller and the sizes were all wrong, and I didn't even receive one of the items I ordered. Seller refused to refund, I opened a paypal dispute, and paypal sided with the seller! I ordered a DVD, sent my check then the seller disappeared without sending my DVD. This is happening way too much and a crack down on bad sellers is necessary.

Either way, I don't buy or sell on eBay anymore due to all the problems!

I think eBay is finally seeing that they can't keep doing business the way they have.

nopaypal · Joined: 23 Feb 2006 Posts: 2008

Quote: › docWrite("quote")It has to be said. This article is one big load of crap
:lol: => cathy

they have 150 rules in place...& none of em seem to help! one of the penalties is filling out a questionnaire on ebay's rules? WOO HOO! that'll show em!
:roll:

the most inneresting thing in this article is that ebay is finally admitting things are slowing down & IT "needs all the users IT can get". hummm...
:!:

lhhgbh · Joined: 15 Jul 2006 Posts: 336

These slaps on the wrist never happened to me.. Over their stupid VERO program I wasnt slapped on the wrist and made to wait a week without any listings and then take some cheesy tutorial to get reinstated, I was suspended forever!!!! and my items were not even viable vero items!!! yet someone can have an "accidental shilling bid" and only get one week off? Thats BS... Im sorry but I dont buy her story and I think that its crap that for shil bidding you can be kicked off for a week, but yet be kicked off permanently for a company sending in one of their Vero warnings which are usually unsubstantiated or unproven.. They do not check into anything, they just cut your throat and leave you bleeding in the f-in street.. Here is my take on how Vero should be handled... (anyone who finds this post by searching Vero please fill free to comment...

Ebay has a Vero list of items which are not to be sold when concerning trademark issues... Now anyone can go to this list and see if their products are on there before listing (which is what I did for a few of my questionable items).. If the item isnt on the list then it should be okay to list it.. Now if said Corp finds that you are selling items that violate their trademark then they should file a complaint (which they do).. Here is where Ebay needs to improve... If the item isnt on the list, make the seller remove it.. Then put that company on the vero list, or if its just a product by the company then have sub categories with the kinds of products you cant resell on ebay.. For instance.. Gap may allow you to resell clothes bought from their store, but not allow you to create your own bags or clothes with the Gap logo on it.. Everytime a company reports a vero violation they should be added to the list.. All of the info concerning what can and cant be sold from that company can be part of the submission process... But for any company (most greedy) to just complain to Ebay about a listing they dont think should be resold and then for Ebay to shoot and not even ask questions later is just BS and suspension indefinitely for items that the seller has no way of knowing that it will violate vero or not is just stupid.. One day this rule will be changed, but until then its drastic and problematic at best...

Shill bidding, not shipping a product once its paid for and no refunds is plenty reason to be given the boot.. Yet too many sellers are given chances for blatantly robbing customers and then the silly corporate vero policy just gets you booted in a second.. I never got that...

dianne_dp · Joined: 20 Feb 2006 Posts: 26 Location: Monroe, NY

I got screwed by the VERO rules too. It was a word in my auction listing that had nothing to do with any trademark. They removed my listing without even looking at it and would not respond to any emails except with a canned unresponsive response!

lhhgbh · Joined: 15 Jul 2006 Posts: 336

Here are a couple of things I have heard happen:

someone went to a Gap store and purchased stuff from the clearance rack and sold them at their normal price (not even over the original price) and was canned for a trademark issue...

someone else was a licensed college apparrel seller with a store in a mall and sold stuff on Ebay as well and was given the boot when a college reported them even though they had documentation that was faxed in to support their claim they were NOT reinstated..

My own story... I bought some clothing items from a clothing vendor at wholesale.. These were vintage shirts from the early 90s (like older hilfiger, nike etc..) Even though we had around 900 feedbacks (in only 3 months i might add) with only 2 negative we were given the boot..

It makes you wonder if they even check those faxes that they tell you to send in... Also to note, a UK site reported that Ebay UK suspends around 2,000 sellers indefinately each week.. How can they think they will maintain a world dominance suspending so many people...

scrappingmemories · Joined: 21 Jul 2006 Posts: 14

I have been accussed of stealing my own work. Yes stealing my own work. Since I am a designer I was selling templates for candy wrappers. I had registered the items with vero. Then one day I get an email that all my items were pulled. They said I stole them from someone else. UM NOOO. I had them registered. I contacted them and asked them what their problem was- They deleted my items told my current buyers I was a fraud and accused me of stealing my own stuff. I was more than angry. But then when someone else stole my stuff and I reported them for it. eBay did nothing! Again with the automated emails. Its a bunch of crap. My wrapper business sometimes made us 2500 in sales and since it was digital it was almost all profit. Now I am lucky if I sell a few memberships a mo to my site. So I started this scrapbooking thing. Now more problems. Getting rid of paypal was the best thing I ever did, now I just need to figure out how to get things going on other sites and I will be set.

I submitted my feed to froogle today and reopened my yahoo shopping feed. You can still put your products in yahoos shopping search even if you don't have their store. Its pay per click but hey I called them on the phone and they were more than helpful and curtious and I hung up the phone feeling like I actually mattered. Imagine that.

Anna

GAELICTITCA · Joined: 25 Apr 2005 Posts: 1384

Fighting with Ebay for reinstatement is pretty much like banging
your head against a very large brick wall.

Had an account suspended awhile back when a VERO was given from
Warner Bros. that I was violating their rights by selling a lot of scripts
from the TV series "Quantum Leap". First came the notice that the
item had been removed and then right behind it was a suspension
notice from Ebay.

Now, I've been around long enough to know that you just don't put
anything from Warner Bros. on Ebay because it doesn't matter if it's
completely legit or not, Warner is going to complain, Ebay is going to
be a good lackey and pull it, and you're gonna get whacked.

But this was even beyond the pale because, you see, "Quantum Leap"
isn't even a Warner Bros. property! The series was produced by
Universal Studios!

I wrote to the anti-piracy division of Warner Bros. and got a very nice
and apologetic email from the head of the department apologizing for
their mistake. He wrote to the VERO division of Ebay and explained
that they were in error and that my item was not an infringement and
to please remove any black mark against the account for this incident.
He sent me a copy of the email he sent to VERO and it was quite clear.

So, what happens?

Nothing.

More emails to Ebay, and all I got were canned responses. Kept at it
and still got the same form letter until finally one came that said they
would no longer be obliged to respond to any communications from me
in the future.

Oh, yeah, you just got to love customer relations like that!

scrappingmemories · Joined: 21 Jul 2006 Posts: 14

So we add this all up and we can all agree why ebay sucks. Customer service sucks, Seller/ebay relations suck, and the fee hikes suck. So... Now we have to do something about it. I know it sounds silly to sit and think that a major corporation like ebay can go down or even that 1 or two people can make a differance. I am sure that ebay could give to S##t's less that I am gone. I didn't make them to much anyway. What really needs to happen is the big time sellers the one 's raking in the big feedback and profits need to put up a fuss. OR enough little sellers need to leave and take the buyers with them. What ever the case. there has to be a better way. I am taking the advice given on another post. Diversify then I will widdle the ones that don't work out. I could do 1 of two things. Sit here and create listings for ebay or sit and create listings that I can post on all these other sites. You know what. I am gonna do the later.

Well got to go. Need to figure out whats wrong with my google feed. I emailed them and waiting for a responce. I don't expect one soon either.

Best to everyone

Anna

lhhgbh · Joined: 15 Jul 2006 Posts: 336

First off, HUGE Quantum Leap fan so right away I was like, what?? Warner Bros.. Then I read more.. Thats BS! Now I know that even I had gotten the lawyers to email Ebay about mine they wouldnt have removed like they said they would....

As for not thinking that a major corp. like Ebay can go down just look at AOL... They refused to change with the times.. They had terrible CS.. They didnt listen to what the people wanted and they rose fees.. They are now fast sinking and trying to scramble around to find some other venue to tap into...

Ebay can and will go down with their BS CS and their fee hikes... Its only a matter of time...

drleadbasedpaint · Joined: 13 Jun 2006 Posts: 44

I am wondering why eBay is so upset with "problem" sellers. I'm up to my @ss in problem buyers. It'd be nice if eBay would do more to lower the expense of non-payers, false feedbacks, and false reports of damaged items. This would include some sort of recourse against competing sellers bidding / buying your stuff with no intention of paying, just to get it out of the way.

boogiebobsrecords

Issues with eBay:Rusty Warren ~ Banned In Boston LP removed for false embellishemt/promotion of the item. Banned is prohibited in listing. It's the actual title of the LP. ??? How stupid is this ?item upgrades added to description by either eBay or Auctiva's Mister Poster automatically on several occasions. We never use any upgrades and our templates were set up with none of these boxes checked. Ended items within 48 hours, Notified eBay on all occasions of error. Over $3000 charged to our account, eBay would do no better than offer a 50 % discount. So we got screwed out of around $1500. Safe Payment Policy Fiasco: Threating to end our listings because we had the following in over 4000 listings. If you choose (Buyer), you may also send cash in the mail. No solicitation just informing buyers of all their options. Even with the "If you choose" there, eBay still considered it solicitation. 80 hours wasted manually removing this text.Issue with Paypal seller protection policy: Spent $600 to open Merchant Account with our bank. Had it tested by PS support and eBay found the Account to be perfectly secure. Reading the instructions on EOA's and eBay invoices, it looked to me that I could use our Merchant Account Pay Now Button as Merchant Accounts are an accepted form of safe payment. How wrong I was ! Paypal is the ONLY payment button that is allowed. Discussed this with PS support for weeks and all I got was spin and told all I could insert was text (non linked) to direct buyers to the Merchant Account. I pay the same amount as everyone else and am getting less service even though I am following all their guidelines. Estimated loss of sales (75% each set of auctions). We put paypal back in the last auctions we ran and boy, what a difference. Still hate their rules, but wanted to compare Paypal vs. No Paypal. Estimated losses over the past 18 months (several thousand dollars).Lack of visibilty of store items in searchContinual Fee Gouging

It took us 7.5 years but we have finally completed the 4 F's with eBay.

Find 'Em, Feel 'Em, F 'Em, Forget "em.

Boogiebobs Records

GAELICTITCA · Joined: 25 Apr 2005 Posts: 1384

boogiebobsrecords wrote (View Post): › docWrite("quote")It took us 7.5 years but we have finally completed the 4 F's with eBay. Find 'Em, Feel 'Em, F 'Em, Forget "em.

Yeah, whereas Ebay's 4 F's are simply

F* 'em
F* 'em
F* 'em
F* 'em

It's going to be sweet when the great pendulum of the universe
finally swings in the other direction (For every action, there is an
equal and opposite reaction --- Ebay's waaaaaaay due for some
of that equal and opposite medicine!)

dianne_dp · Joined: 20 Feb 2006 Posts: 26 Location: Monroe, NY

You know, just to annoy eBay... One of the things I do is to always report any auction that I see with excessive shipping (you know the ones - price is .01 and shipping is $25).....Maybe if we all spent about 10 min doing this to ebay one day we could flood them with excessive shipping complaints just to give them too much work!! Start reporting all their "problem" auctions at once and wait for the fallout??? :twisted: