Has Anyone Else Seen eBay Edit Their Listings?

by: sasikat9

Hey Fleecebay edit away. We no longer care what you do. Can't hurt us.

by: iheartjacksparrow

So "just a venue" eBay is now editing sellers' listings? As if all the other intrusions into sellers' businesses isn't bad enough, they now want to make listings more eBay-ish? And at what point does the editing go too far? Will they edit starting prices? Return terms? Shipping costs? If there's a problem they should just cancel the listing and give the seller a warning, not take it upon themselves to make changes that the seller may be adverse to.

by: OnlyPollyPocket

What iheartjacksparrow said!

by: Rexford

When will some legal entity pull the hammer down on this arrogant out-of-control company?

by: TeddyElectron

I would be concerned eBay would change the item description resulting in an unhappy buyer upon receipt of the item or simply loss in sale price from an improperly described item.

by: serioussellers

Ditto to all of the above.

The alleged ''venue'' does not have employees with the necessary & required experience & expertise to ''fix'' the myriad deficiencies & problems of the site. It is virtually non-functioning for many ''small sellers'' -- except for those who have ''special'' status.  This alleged global venue certainly does not have experts who ''know'' a seller's items better than the seller him/herself. Perhaps the eBay Valet program has been surreptitiously expanded to include ALL listings on the site (is that perhaps the ultimate goal?). Next the eBay gremlins will be changing prices on the sellers' listings, editing/deleting photos, determining if offers will be accepted, etc.

Sometimes listing removals occur because the programs, programmers, CSRs, etc. do not ''understand'' what has been written in English (it probably happens to those listing in other languages as well). Our own experiences with a few removals over many years was that CSRs agreed that the stated ''reasons'' did not at all apply to our ''innocent'' listings, but we were always told that whatever the ''computer'' dictates cannot be corrected or undone (in regards to a removal).  Meanwhile those who steal our (& other sellers') listings (text & photographs) continue selling away no matter how many formal complaints are submitted.  Having corporate blinders on to fraud & deception of all varieties apparently creates a lot of free time that is available for ''editing''.

Why should anyone expect eBay's ''editing'' (or anything else it does) to be any more accurate & appropriate than eBay's search results (in which much of what is actually available remains in the black hole of intentional invisibility ... & much of what is shown in search results has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with the requested search) ?

On the listings that have been commandeered by eBay gremlins, will there be an eBay disclaimer stating that eBay has changed/edited the seller's listing so that eBay will thus accept all responsibility for the content & all legal & financial responsibility as a result of the alterations?? (We don't think so.)  

by: Ric

eBay holds their sellers responsible for the content and accuracy of their listings.

So, when eBay takes it upon themselves to make edits without consulting the seller, eBay should then be held responsible in the event of a problem.

Of course, there appears to be no such undertaking of responsibility on eBay's part, and eBay will likely still hold sellers to account even when eBay's unauthorized edits result in unhappy buyers.

If eBay was run by professionals with real world experience ( and it isn't ), the company would notify sellers that they are exempt from any issues which might arise after eBay takes it upon itself to change a sellers listing information.

by: toolguy

I do not want eBay editing my listings!

Take them down if they are in violation. . .

by: Marie

I completely agree with Ric.

I might add that IF Ebay is using employees that are not fluent in English or have English as their first language, who is to say that they are correct in what they are doing?  Furthermore, if Ebay is training these people in the same fashion they train [do not train] their CSRs, that could be big trouble too!?!?  If these people are not fully trained and/or to not fully understand the language, they could be doing real harm.  This is a very careless and volatile action for Ebay to take.

I also agree with Toolguy.  I do not want Ebay editing my listings.  If there is something wrong with them, take them down or notify me of the issues and give me 24/48 hours or something to correct them.  But that may be too logical for Ebay to handle.

While I have never had what happened in this article happen to me.  I have experienced in the last year of some smaller things being changed in my listings that I did not change.

I've had some listings no longer marked to charge sales tax when appropriate.

I've had some listings no longer offer worldwide shipping.  They were changed to just a handful of countries.  

And something else that escapes me right now.  

by: pace306

There are a few different issues here:

1) the goons over in Trust & Safety.
2) the goons over in VERO
3) eBays complete and utter misunderstanding of copyright and fair use
4) eBays desire to not be sued
5) eBays refusal to back any of its sellers
6) a CLEAR policy for selling non branded items that have a branded item attached
7) various state, local and federal first sale doctrine type policies

should I go on?

eBay should NEVER edit any ones listings. Doing so makes them complicit in what ever was wrong and as others said so well - says what we sellers have said all along:  either you are part of the sale by interference (eBay) or you arent and you are just a venue.

eBay should NOT be editing anything - removal or leave it as is. They are SO AFRAID of being sued that they will do ANYTHING, and I mean ANYTHING.

The bottom line here is the same as with eBays other policies - only protect yourself, the hell with your seller - unless you can push a situation on him/her, lie cheat and steal to get your way, then tell anyone who will listen (courts, law enforcement) how great of a patriot you are since you do your best to "uphold the law".

eBay BS as usual.

by: Just My Humble View

I had an issue not long ago where eBay changed the category in which my item was listed. To an entirely incorrect category -- Gold Bullion. I can't recall the item, but it took forever for me to figure out that it was keying on a word or phrase in the title. I ended up revising the title to get it into the correct category.

Oh, and there was no notice whatsoever. It was simply re-categorized when I checked the listing.

by: Just My Humble View

I just remembered what it was. It was a 24 leaf thread gage set. The "24 Leaf" was what caused the clever computer programming to determine that this tool should be in gold bullion.

by: Garcia

Ebay is in no position to edit listings when it uses foreign speaking individuals to do it.  But since when does what sellers think or even what is legal bother Ebay?  It is not like they care. Someone should take this to court, but who wants to spend the money or even has it.  Ebay knows there is nothing its sellers can do.

by: windycityparrot

This is wrong on so many levels. EBay can happily hide my listings.

When they alter my listings they are altering my copyrighted content. I have no creative Commons license posted thus eBay is committing a copyright violation across state lines making it a felony.

If their level of customer support is any indication their overall knowledge of how e-commerce works on the Internet - their ignorance of copyright and tort law is not surprising

by: flybuy

I agree with ''IheartJackSparrow.''  Ebay is already ''suggesting'' what a starting price should be for an itme I did not sell which I do not appreciate.
Just another reason for sellers to migrate to Facebook and Instagram as well as set up their own websites.  

by: comments

To be honest this would be welcome for me. If a listing takedown and policy violation is the alternative I would much rather ebay remove a key word they feel is spamming.

by: The End

AGAIN : WENIG FAILS.
Step Down.

by: The End

Meanwhile :
In a category that had over 300,000 listings in the Hay Day, barely 20,000 items today.
WENIG : step down now.

by: Chicago48

No, I have no problem with EB editing a listing if they informed me ahead of time.
If you list on AMZ, many times they won't display your items with an "alert" which means something is missing or something needs fixing.  We forget that EB is not OUR website.  It's THEIR website and we're just renting the space.

by: lessthanthreerecords

This is a bit of a different case, but I had a listing removed (not edited) some time ago.  I was selling a collectible sticker for a rock group called Puscifer.  The sticker was used to promote an album called "V Is For Viagra."  I'm not a legal expert, but I know the band went through the proper channels to ensure they were using the "Viagra" name legally (perhaps it is protected as a parody, or something to that effect).  In any case, I used that term in the title and it was removed.  I called eBay and explained the situation.  The person I spoke to said that according to eBay's terms, I did not violate anything since the brand-name term used was directly connected to the item (despite the fact that it was not released by the brand in question).  However, I was told that eBay uses automated software to scan for such violations and that if I were to re-list it the same way, it would likely be pulled down again.  I asked if there could be any type of exception added to the software so that it would skip over that particular listing in my account, but I was told there was nothing they could do.  I ended up selling the sticker on a different site for the same price and paid less in fees.  Your loss, eBay!