An Ebay buyer took matters one step further. He bought a very rare WWII plane on Ebay for $150K. The seller however decided to sell to someone else for $250K. When you are talking about this sort of an amount, a warning email from Ebay is not that big a deal.

The jilted buyer took the seller to court and won. NSW Supreme Court held that the seller had to hand over the plane and that an Ebay sale/purchase constitutes a binding contract. Ebay rules already say that, but a court finding to that effect means that Ebay sales can be enforced through the legal system, although no doubt neither buyers nor sellers would want to do that for cheaper items.

Ebay’s excuse is the standard “we have 100 million items listed and don’t know anything about art”.  They are happy to take money for listing and selling fees, but don’t want to take responsibility for removing known fakes.  It’s nothing new - Ebay does little to remove genuinely fraudulent items, prefering to focus on minor listing violations.

This means that the buyers should be vigilent when purchasing on Ebay. If buying specialist items like artwork, it is important to know what you are buying, or risk getting ripped off.  There are a few steps you can take to avoid problems. Buying from a reputable seller who offers adequate assistance is the best way to stay safe, but if you are after a very expensive item (such a a $3K painting) and are unsure that it is genuine, it may be better to be safe than sorry.

Not wanting attention to be diverted to its competitor, Ebay pulled its ads on Google’s US site. A really mature response and one that is likely to promote constructive collaboration between the two companies, don’t you think?  Well, Google blinked first and cancelled the party, although Ebay is apparently yet to restore its ads.

It’s a funny little spat, but it shows Ebay’s determination to push its Paypal service no matter what. Don’t get me wrong, Paypal is convenient and easy to use. It is free for buyers. But sellers have to pay a fee. And those fees add up, pushing the asking prices higher, which isn’t so good for buyers.

I haven’t used Google Checkout, but a bit of competition is always healthy, even if it does occasionally lead to a giant company behaving like a temperamental child.

The stated aim is to reduce fraudulent emails where Ebayers are asked to click on a link (usually taking them to a fraudulent login page, which may also be virus or spyware infected).

So if your next Ebay invoice looks different - don’t panic.

So here’s my response. (Do you agree that it is fairly polite in the circumstances?)

“Dear [deleted],

Thank you for your response.

Out of 600 items listed, 1 item was in technical violation of Accepted Payments Policy, in that the auction page listed cash. It was an accident. When Ebay changed its policy, I had to manually edit more than a thousand items and I guess I missed a few along the way. Given that I list thousands of items every year, a couple of mistakes will happen. My policies and about me page clearly state that cash will only be accepted on pick-up and specifically caution buyers against sending cash in the mail. Therefore no Ebayers were in any way endangered by the inadvertent error.
The other 599 items were not in violation of any Ebay policy.

In relation to the one item in “breach” I received the following email from Ebay:

Dear irina3131,

Your account has been restricted from listing new items for approximately one day because of recent breaches of eBay policy. While your account is restricted you still have full access to other account functions such as sending emails, obtaining addresses and leaving feedback. To avoid account suspension, i.e. no access to your account, please comply with eBay policy at all times.

This restriction will be lifted after one day. While the restriction is active you may not register any new accounts.

Regards,

eBay

You will appreciate that the email refers to only one consequence of the breach - inability to list for one day. It says nothing about removing 599 items (more than 300 of which were listed some 2 hours previously).

Can you please provide me a copy of any policy or similar document that authorises Trust and Safety to remove 599 compliant items because one item is in technical breach? (and the breach is obviously a consequence of an error, because the remaining items do not state that cash is an accepted payment method)

I would also like to know why I was not notified that my items had been cancelled. Aside from the email set out above, I received no other communication from Ebay. Could you please provide me a copy of the policy that allows Ebay to remove 599 items without notifying the seller.

In relation to the policies I have requested - I am not after a reference to the Ebay User Agreement - I have read the Agreement and it does not shed light on the propriety or otherwise of what occurred.

While I am reassured that my listing fees have been credited, as a seller yourself you will no doubt appreciate the significant time investment involved in listing 600 items and the frustration involved in the lack of communication from Ebay (including a complete inability of Live Help to assist with the matter) and will understand my concerns about such an action on part of Ebay.

Thank you in advance for your response.

Kind regards
Irina”

I don’t expect a response, but I had to send it…

Hello Irina,

Thanks for taking the time to get in touch with me, and I hope you’re
doing well. I’m [deleted], and I’m glad I’ve got the chance to address your
concerns about your listings, which unfortunately had to be ended early.

I’m very sorry to hear that your listings had to be ended early. As a
seller myself, I know how frustrating this can be. I just want to assure
you that the listing fees for these listings have been credited to your
account already. The reason behind this action, is an unfortunate
violation of eBay’s Accepted Payments policy.

The Accepted Payments policy was put into place in order to protect the
eBay community from potentially hazardous forms of payment.
Specifically, sellers are prohibited from soliciting those forms of
payment which cannot be traced or tracked. This includes Western Union
money orders and cash sent in the mail. Obviously, a member is allowed
to specify that they’ll accept cash on delivery, or cash on pick-up, but
this has to be expressly stated in the listing. Simply stating, “Cash”,
means that a buyer overseas could pay by cash, which would have to be
mailed, which not accepted.

I encourage you to learn more about this policy, and you can view the
pertinent Help Page here:

http://pages.ebay.com.au/help/policies/accepted-payments-policy.html

I hope I’ve answered all your concerns, and thanks again for writing in.

Best Wishes,

[deleted]
Trust & Safety Team
Note the rather pathetic attempt to create an illusion of sympathy or understanding by stating that he himself is a seller. Even if it is true (and not part of the template response), somehow I doubt that Trust and Safety cancel their own listings.

So no, I’m not feeling warm and fuzzy

My response will be set out in the next post - this one is too long already.

Now for one more gripe:

The bloody ridiculous part is this - although Ebay are so zealous to pull all of my items because of an error that doesn’t do anyone any harm in one, they do nothing about the plainly misleading conduct of some sellers and the hundreds of miscategorised listings.

For example, how would you like this if you were a buyer:
- In the Bracelets > Natural Gemstones
> amethyst category - only 18 of 61 items listed have any genuine amethyst in them
> emerald category - only 4 of 24 items listed have any emerald in them (there’s one more that                                         claims to be natural emerald, but there is no description and  I’m 99.9% sure its fake). Most of                                         the other listings are by certain Chinese sellers who call jade “emerald”
> ruby category - only 5 of 35 items listed have any ruby in them (plus there are a few that are                                         blatently misleading)

and my favourite - the sapphire category - of 223 items listed only 14 are sapphire bracelets!

I reported all those items. Anyone want to place bets on how many of these Ebay has cancelled or will cancel?

This morning I called PowerSeller support. A guy by the name of Dean answered. I explained to Dean that all my listings have vanished.

Oh, he says, there is a note on your file that Trust and Safety have cancelled all your listings.
What!? What do you mean they cancelled all my listings?
Well, one of your items was in breach of Ebay policy because it listed “cash” as an accepted Payment.
So I explain to him that
1. The listing had an error - when you have 600 items listed, you can make one mistake once in a while. Anyway, my policy page and my about me page which my listings refer buyers to clearly state that you CAN’T pay cash, unless you pick up the item. The fact that the remaining 599 items DO NOT list cash as a payment method clearly shows that this is an inadvertent error.
2. I had received an email that the particular item was cancelled and that I could not list NEW ITEMS for one day. The email said absolutely nothing about my other items!

For my readers here, let me paste the text of the email received:
“Dear irina3131,

Your account has been restricted from listing new items for approximately one day because of recent breaches of eBay policy. While your account is restricted you still have full access to other account functions such as sending emails, obtaining addresses and leaving feedback. To avoid account suspension, i.e. no access to your account, please comply with eBay policy at all times.

This restriction will be lifted after one day. While the restriction is active you may not register any new accounts.

Regards,

eBay”

This information does not concern Dean one bit. Well, he says, they have cancelled your other items.
Are you telling me that Trust and Safety cancelled 599 items, without telling me, because one item was in technical breach of a policy?
Sure.

I’m still having trouble believing it. Surely not even Ebay can engage in such outrageous behaviour. So I try again:
How could they have sent me an email about one item and then cancelled 599 items without event informing me?  They told me that the “consequence” of the violation was that I can’t list for a day, then they went ahead and did something completely different? Is that what you are saying?
Yes, says Dean, sounding about as concerned as if we were discussing what we had for breakfast. Its the policy, they can do that.
They can pull 599 of items that comply in every way with Ebay policy because 1 item had an innocent error in it?
Yes. The policy has been in place one and a half years and you had an item that was pulled earlier, so they can take harsher actions.

I am determined to try and find some sanity in the conversation
Dean, I say, I list THOUSANDS of items every year. When Ebay changed their policy I had to manually edit over a thousand listings. When that happens, you are bound to make a couple of mistakes. So you are saying that, because in one and a half years, and thousands of items listed, there were a couple of errors that were technically in breach of Ebay policy (although my policy pages ensure that there is no substantive breach anyway), Trust and Safety can cancel 599 listings, just like that, and not even tell me?!
Yes, he says, we have policies that allow them to cancel listings.
Where do I find a copy of this policy please? Can you email me a copy.
No. You can look at the User Agreement.

Needless to say the User Agreement contains nothing about Ebay policies for cancelling 599 items on a whim.
Dean is obviously getting tired of this discussion.

There isn’t anything I can do. You have to contact Trust and Safety.
Well I sent them an email, but they take very long to respond. Could you put me through to the department?
No.
Could you please give me a phone number I can call?
No they can only be contacted by email.
So you are saying that I can’t even talk to the people who decided to disappear 599 of my listings?!
Yes, its for legal reasons.
I am a lawyer and for the life of me I cannot think of any legal reasons why I can’t talk to the people who just cancelled 599 of my listings without telling me.
Everyone is a lawyer on the phone, Dean snarls. Apparently he is finding this all very amusing.

It is all I can do to stop myself from saying “google my name you f-wit and you’ll see that this one is a lawyer on and off the phone!”
Perhaps realising that his conduct has not been quite in the spirit of the “recognised, respected and rewarded” mantra of powerseller support, Dean offers to “bump” my email in the Trust and Safety queue and we terminate our conversation.

I send another email to Trust and Safety detailing the situation and asking for someone to contact me.

At this time, I have had no contact (phone or email) from Trust and Safety, Powerseller support or anyone at Ebay.

The record of our discussion below should give you an idea of how “helpful” the “live help” really is:

Harry M.

Hello and welcome to eBay General Support Live Chat. My name is Harry.

May I start by getting your User ID please?

10:56:31 PM irina3131

irina3131

10:56:46 PM Harry M.

Thank you and how may I assist you today?

10:57:01 PM irina3131

Harry, all my active items are missing. I had 600 and none of them are showing.

10:57:11 PM irina3131

I’m freaking out here

10:57:51 PM Harry M.

When did you list these items?

10:58:15 PM irina3131

Some were store items listed a week or so ago. About 300 were listed yesterday (the free listing day)

10:58:32 PM irina3131

some have been there for longer than that

10:59:50 PM irina3131

For all its worth - none of them have actually ended - I checked, they are not in unsold items either

11:00:21 PM Harry M.

Can you please verify your name, address, phone number, email and date of birth please?

11:01:09 PM irina3131

sure: …

11:01:29 PM irina3131

sorry, forgot phone number: …

11:02:21 PM Harry M.

Thank you. One moment please.

11:02:27 PM irina3131

thanks Harry

11:05:31 PM Harry M.

No problem. Thank you for waiting. I that the items are in your Unsold section. You will need to contact our Trust and Safety Department in regards to this issue. you can e-mail them at aurswebhelp@ebay.com.

11:06:55 PM irina3131

Harry, no those items aren’t in the unsold section. All the items that are in Unsold have ended on or before 6 May (ie before this problem happened). Most of them have been relisted

11:07:52 PM Harry M.

I am sorry but you will need to contact Trust and Safety and address this problem with them.

11:08:02 PM Harry M.

I do not have access to this information.

11:08:23 PM irina3131

I don’t understand - what information?

11:09:05 PM Harry M.

As to why the items are not active. You will need to contact Trust and Safety and they will be able to assist you further.

End of bloody story! I did email trust and safety, but they promise you a very “prompt” 36 hour response.

So if you are visiting my store and seeing absolutely nothing - you know why. Hopefully tomorrow I can call Powerseller support and find out what the heck they have done with all my listings. In the meantime - I suggest you head over to Oztion - I have more stuff listed there and at better prices.

Thanks for reading

I hope that Ebayers will not consider buying such items. Purchasing items made of ivory encourages poaching of elephants and endangering a continued existence of these species.