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Sat Sept 1 2012 23:22:28

Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay

 By: Reader
Sponsored Link
Dear Ina,
I wanted to let you know of a situation which until recently I did not know existed. I recently attempted to list an old Life Magazine and it was rejected because it appeared to eBay that I was attempting to offer a payment method which violated eBay's payment and shipping policy.

The listing was rejected because in my description I listed the complete contents of the magazine which included an editorial on Western Union.

When I contacted eBay they stated that any use of the two words "Western Union" in conjunction with each other would result in the listing being rejected. They stated that even if I was to abbreviate the words it would be rejected! How ridiculous is that?

I have never in my 15 years on eBay ever offered this payment service! I had to completely remove the two words just in order to get it listed!

Just one more example of eBay's incoherent and inconsistent policy rules and regulations.

Reading EcommerceBytes Letters Blog: Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay
Comments (25) | Leave Comment | Permalink
Readers Comments

Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay   Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay
by: Steevo This user has validated their user name.
       
Sat Sep 1 23:52:51 2012
Just an example of how terribly unprofessional eBay Inc. has become.

You can't sell a magazine article about Western Union.  Imagine if you were selling a collectible money order!  They'd have a fit.

It's just completely unprofessional behavior.  

The kind of things people would think made sense if they had no business experience at all. They are absolutely winging it.  It's amazing that they are a public company, you would think there would have to be some amount of business experience required to be a public company.  

It's just baffling.  Mind blowing, really.  
Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay   Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay
by: NullApps This user has validated their user name.
       Web Site
Sun Sep 2 01:30:08 2012
I don't really blame eBay in this case.  There are three entities that deserve the blame.

1)  The scammers using Western Union.
2)  Western Union for providing an antiquated payment system that caters to scammers.
3)  The buyers that are dumb enough to be scammed and thus requiring protection from the marketplace.
Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay   Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay
by: Mr. Me This user has validated their user name.
       
Sun Sep 2 11:37:06 2012
I used to use Western union without problems whatsoever. Western union Bidpay was also a great service. Unfortunately the ebay nazis dont let the buyers and sellers decide for themselves how to conduct business, now everybody is $crewed 35 due to forced paypal. Let the buyers/sellers decide terms....  
Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay   Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay
This user has validated their user name. by: Al G
       
Sun Sep 2 11:47:11 2012
It's the programmers - stupid!

Try listing a railroad timetable for the California Zephyr listing Western Pacific/Union Pacific/Chicago&NorthWestern RRs & the item will get flagged for Western Union.
Sheesh!

I guess you can't sell the Western Union DVD or the pop song "Western Union" on eBarf either!
Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay   Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay
This user has validated their user name. by: Ric
       
Sun Sep 2 13:02:22 2012
Payment Method Paranoia is very strong with this one.
Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay   Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay
by: K&J This user has validated their user name.
       
Sun Sep 2 14:47:36 2012
There are 1666 listings with western union in title and 42,341 with western union in title and description as of this posting. If you put it in quotes there are 1309 title only and 2711 title and description. ????????? More to the story??
Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay   Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay
by: This a joke, right? This user has validated their user name.
       
Sun Sep 2 15:48:09 2012
I haven't tried it lately but you used to couldn't list a used New Orleans or New York shirt
Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay   Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay
This user has validated their user name. by: Philip Cohen
       Web Site
Sun Sep 2 16:14:46 2012
@K&J,

If "Western Union" is in either of the "title" lines that is obviously OK, but they are doing a simple search for same in the long description area; then, what else would you expect; after all, they are "simple" people ...
Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay   Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay
This user has validated their user name. by: iheartjacksparrow
       
Sun Sep 2 18:21:46 2012
A similar thing happened to me years ago when I was still selling on eBay. I had listed a magazine and detailed the featured articles. It was pulled by eBay because they said I was attempting to sell an artifact from a country the U.S. was currently fighting in. Which couldn't have been farther from the truth. It was a magazine published in the U.S.! I didn't bother to fight the decision because by then I knew it was useless to do so.
Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay   Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay
by: blaumann This user has validated their user name.
       
Mon Sep 3 00:04:31 2012
I once posted a racing news paper that included mention of a car sponsored by Cash Auto. I was not allowed to post.
BUT I see sellers still offering cash payment. Go figure.  
Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay   Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay
This user has validated their user name. by: Marie
       
Mon Sep 3 02:59:47 2012
This doesn't have to be a big deal unless one chooses to make it that.  Just don't use the words and list the darn thing.  

Something that is good to remember is that it is bots that are out there looking for various key words in listings, not actual people reading through the listing for violations.  Do you realize how many people Ebay would have to hire and pay to read every listing out there.  Now imagine what that would do to our fees as they would have to cover the costs, that's part of doing business.

So since that is a ridiculous expense, they wrote a program / bot to go look for potential problems.  They find some and miss others.  And therefore the rules are not applied evenly.  That certainly is a problem and I too have fallen victim to this type of situation.

But if you want to sell on Ebay or need to sell on Ebay, the you will have to work inside the rules and remove the two words.  Those words won't cost you a sale.
Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay   Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay
by: older but not wiser This user has validated their user name.
       
Mon Sep 3 08:15:30 2012
I recently listed a philatelic cover with an M.O.B. postmark. M.O.B. stands for Money Order Business. I put this in my listing in parenthesis. The listing was rejected for offering money orders as a form of payment. I tried using Mone(y) Order Business and was still rejected.  
Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay   Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay
by: bacpro This user has validated their user name.
       Web Site
Mon Sep 3 09:25:19 2012
WOW, I have dozens of Life magazines listed, but they don't sell anyway, try Yardsller

JB
Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay   Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay
This user has validated their user name. by: Al G
       
Mon Sep 3 09:30:28 2012
I think we all know that the "bots" do the looking on our listings. But, the programmers are responsible for them.

Also, I've noticed that only an insignificant portions of the listings are scanned, way less than 0.1% as evidenced from the occasion slap-on-the-wrist from my "legacy" inclusion of a obfuscated e-mail address.
Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay   Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay
by: Patricia This user has validated their user name.
       
Mon Sep 3 11:15:14 2012
Just shows they automate everything they can so they can save money!
Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay   Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay
by: comet This user has validated their user name.
       
Mon Sep 3 11:16:49 2012
And yet---I can give anyone here the item number of a listing that is LIVE at this minute WITH at least five or more "Policy Violations:

Offering to sell OFF of ebay

Live link to sellers email in HIGHLIGHTED blue letters that DOES open up an email form

Offering "choice" of two completely different items in the same listings WITH the prices for each

Stolen (and proven) images from at LEAST TWO other active ebay sellers (inc mine)

And more

Ebay has been repeatedly notified of this via numerous phone calls and numerous on-site "Report this item" submissions since 22 AUGUST 2012 and yet they REFUSE to remove it.

This is NOT a listing from a "mega" or "Diamond" seller.  The guy has 830 FB.  

He has a rep for theft of images dating back to at least early 2011 from outside of ebay motorcycle club sites.

His account has been in trouble many times for just exactly this thing before.

And yet--the bots have "missed" him

The ebay CSR's seem to not care a whit about his outrageous flaunting of the "rules" and "policy".

I have spent literally HOURS on the phone with countless CSR's and alleged "Supervisors" on this problem to absolutely NO avail.  They did take the item "down" once but it was back up again in a a matter of minutes and has now been posted under at least THREE different item numbers with the SAME info and stolen pics from at least two active ebay sellers.  

I had to threaten a court order to get my images taken down but the listing itself is STILL ACTIVE as of this AM.

I had to inform the other seller whose images were stolen of this theft as ebay refused to either take the images down or contact that seller.

So---who IS enforcing ebay "policy"?  Robots?  How have they MISSED these?  Humans?  Welll I would have to be blind deaf and incredibly stupid to think that ALL of the people I have spoken to at ebay did not NOTICE what I was pointing out to them on this listing.  And I am beginning to wonder if they even SEE the actual listings that we call about.

So this absurd "Western Union" boondoggle is not at all surprising to me.  

Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay   Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay
This user has validated their user name. by: Anonymous Annie
       
Mon Sep 3 11:26:17 2012
Oh dear! This reminds me of the time I tried to list an item that included the word ''cookie'' in the description.

The not-so-brilliant programmers of TurboLister assumed that ANY occurrence of the word ''cookie'' was an attempt by the seller to place a cookie on the buyer's web browser.

Little did they realize that some people sell: cookie cutters, cookie jars, cookie recipe books, cookie tins, cookie monster toys, labels for cookie-bags, etc etc.

Try as I might, TurboLister REFUSED to allow me to place the listing. (The work-around was to use embedded ASCII codes that did not contain the group of letters spelling c-o-o-k-i-e... but instead were HTML code that a browser would display as ''cookie''.)

Complete incompetence.
Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay   Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay
by: AngelaTC This user has validated their user name.
       
Mon Sep 3 11:50:14 2012
@Marie: " Do you realize how many people Ebay would have to hire and pay to read every listing out there?"

Uh, none?  Here's a better idea.  Hire one guy to do away with those silly rules that don't actually serve to protect anybody from anything.  
Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay   Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay
by: Brainiac jones This user has validated their user name.
       
Mon Sep 3 11:57:07 2012
Old news, this, but still funny.
Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay   Life Magazine Too Risky for eBay
by: moonmyst This user has validated their user name.
       
Mon Sep 3 12:08:00 2012
I agree with K & J.  There are all kinds of listings with the words "Western Union" in them. Either there's more to the original story or it was just an eBay glitch, which happens ALL the time. Case in point, I was listing a jewelry item and I got a warning message about how I was listing a banned item and my listing would probably be removed.  
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