Please bear with me. I need to spew a bit of venom and at least here I know that it may be seen and acknowledged, which is more than I can say for its chances with "customer service" at ebay.

I listed an auction last Sunday, to end tomorrow night. No problem with the listing (or so I thought) and it had garnered a half dozen or so bids by last night with 19 watchers). It was up to $36 or so, with the likelihood of going up a bit more in these last two days.

So I went to check on it this morning and I'm greeted with a notice that We appreciate that you chose eBay to list the following auction-style listing(s): _____ However, your listing was in violation of eBay's Paypal Payments policy and has been removed from eBay. We have credited all associated fees to your account and notified eBay users associated with the transaction that it has been cancelled.

Yes, they explained "why", although I don't buy it. And besides, my real beef is that if I was in violation, why the hell don't they tell me when I list it and prevent the listing from going through from the beginning?

So now to make matters worse, I tried to call eBay. Well, you can guess where this is going. No human. A voice message that says to use the live chat function. So I did. Only to find out that they can't deal with "violation" issues in Live Chat and that I should email the appropriate department. So I just sent this to them:

--------------------

My auction was cancelled with one day to go and I am very upset. If a rule was violated, why accept the listing at all?

Meanwhile I am unable to speak with someone about this by phone and I am losing valuable listing time in the last days of the auction. There was no indication of there being a possible problem with the listing until all of a sudden it is cancelled! At least I would expect a warning and an opportunity to change the necessary information.

I have no way to contact the people who bid on the item already and of course I can't edit the listing because there were bids on it. It is a vicious cycle and I am extremely frustrated and upset with ebay right now.

And frankly I still don't understand why I can't mention that I have two Paypal accounts. I am allowed to have two, so why can't I mention that.

If I can't, then fine. delete the reference to Paypal. Just please get my listing back up or please provide me with the email addresses of those who have already bid so that I can explain that it was your fault for cancelling the auction and not mine.

How do you propose to rectify this situation? If I relist the item "obeying the rules", will you contact all my previous bidders and re-instate their bids.

-----------------

I fully expect a reply of "Sorry. Those are the rules." or some such thing. God forbid it's possible to have a dialog. And oh yeah, I can expect a reply in 24 to 48 hours.

AAArrrrrggghhhhhh!!!!!!!!

[/rant] (for now)

They don't screen listing.

Someone complained, or its a mistake.

Re-word or alter the auction if it is borderline with the eBay rules, or it was completely, unequivocally a mistake, just re-list it and cross your fingers (after you have sent your email.)

They will do nothing to help you, this i am sure of. Better to fly under the radar.

Are you selling body fluids again?

The rule you violated is about splitting payments between accounts to avoid fees. This has been part of the PayPal UA for years, and part of the eBay UA since at least last August. Yes, you may have 2 accounts, but you cannot direct CC payments to one account and nonCC payments to the other in order to avoid fees. In fact, if you are caught doing so, PayPal may assess fees on payments received by the personal account to recover their fees.

No, eBay will not give you email addresses of your bidders. You would not be permitted to contact them anayway, as that is considered spam and abuse of the "contact an eBay member" system. No, eBay will not reinstate bids. You can relist if you want, but it's as if the prior auction never happened.

eBay does not check auctions for compatibility with the rules before listing. It's your responsibility as a seller to make sure your listing is in accordance with all rules. Your auction was taken down because it was reported as in violation. It was either a potential bidder or a competitor who took it down. Ignorance of the rule is not grounds to whine.

As papercup says, someone complained. Are you sure the reason for cancelling was because you mentioned you had two accounts? The usual reason for cancellation is if you say you will charge the buyer the PayPal charges as that is against their rules.

This was the offending line:

I do accept Paypal, but because I have two accounts, if you are the winning bidder please contact me before you pay so I can let you know which account to use.

My problem is that I am not a business and as such I don't do a lot of auctions. The direct transfer with no associated fees was great, but now if I want to accept an occasional credit card, I have to upgrade my account and will then be charged fees on ALL transactions, not just credit card payments. Yes, of course I'm trying to get around paying unnecessary fees.

My point is that for the effort they made to cancel the auction, couldn't they have said "change the terms or else we'll cancel the auction?" At least give me the chance to amend it.

You had a chance to amend it. You've had since at least last August to get it right. Why should you get any preferential treatment for violating the rules?

eBay doesn't work on the wanting system. they work on the "we expect you to know and follow our rules and if you don't we'll take down your auction" system. Either deal with that, or don't sell on eBay.

Well perhaps if it had been mentioned in my previous auctions as recently as a week ago, I'd have known. Since it didn't create a problem then, I saw no reason to think it would be a problem.

Evidently, I was lucky.

And just out of curiosity, who would complain? It would certainly not cause a bidder/buyer any undue hardship.

The reason it wasn't "mentioned" as a problem in your previous auction is simply because it was not reported. You had the misfortune to be reported this time. Simple as that. eBay relies on users to report auctions in violation. They don't have employees checking each auction for adherence to listing rules.

It may very well have been a competitor. Your avoiding fees sure does affect their businesses, as you can undercut them when you can essentially earn a 3% higher profit by avoiding those fees.

It may have been a bidder/browser. They know that it's against the rules to split payments between accounts, and don't want to deal with the hassles of sellers who don't know the rules.

Whoever it was, you'll never know. But now you understand this rule, and because you had your fees refunded (I'm guessing - they usually don't withhold them on the first violation) you're basically out nothing but time.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/08/2006 05:50PM by TL.

I understand your frustration. It's happened to me just like this several times. But you did break rules that you should have known.

WHen people ask my advise about doing biz on ebay, the first thing I say is to read ALL of the terms of agreement. You gotta know the rules of the game before you play.

What you should be doing is have two ebay acounts each associated with the proper paypal account.

TL: Fair enough. I can accept your explanation, although as an only occasional seller with 100% positive feedback, I don't think the "hassle" factor applies.

hal: That's the reason I opened the Premier account in addition to my personal account. But evidently I don't have quite the flexibility I had hoped for.

How do you determine which account to use for a listing? Do you pretty much guess which item(s) are more likely to be purchased with a credit card?




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/08/2006 06:32PM by wurm.

>How do you determine which account to use for a listing? Do you pretty much guess which item(s) are more likely to be purchased with a credit card?

Use the premier. eBay and PayPal rules specify that you if you accept PayPal at all, you must accept CCs via PayPal. If you list with a personal account, and your buyer tries to use a CC, you have to upgrade.

I wouldn't follow Hal's suggestion of using 2 eBay accounts each with separate PayPal accounts (1 personal, one premier). That's because as noted above, the first time you get a CC payment on that personal account, you have to upgrade. It's a direct violation of the PayPal UA to have more than 2 accounts. You can have up to one premier and up to one personal but no more.

eBay's view is that if you sell on eBay, you're conducting business. I understand it's not fun to have to take into account the 2.9% you'll be paying for PayPal fees, but look at it as a cost of doing business. Up your starting price to account for the fee, or pad the handling fee a bit.

Also remember that whe you use your credit card, the biz you give it to also has to pay 2-3% - more like 4% for amex. You shouldn't expect this service for free.

Most of my auctions are for $200 or more, I expect to pay fees for my transactions.

TL Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> or pad the handling fee a
> bit.

I guess I just have to be more selective about which rule to break. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.) Seems they don't enforce the exhorbitant shipping fees rule very often, either.

Seriously, though, thank you for the input.

And hal, I have no problem at all with paying a fee for accepting a credit card. It's that whole thing about once you do that, ALL your transactions are then subject to the fees that they otherwise wouldn't be.

Anyway, this poor horse has been beaten beyond death. Thanks again.

There's a difference between a reasonable handling fee and fee avoidance via an exorbitant handling fee. If you're selling some item for 50 bucks (incl. shipping), then you're paying about $1.80 to PayPal. So bump the handling fee up a buck or so to help defray it. As long as the handling fee is reasonable in comparison to the competition, and aren't so high it'll raise eyebrows, go for it.

They will not give a warning before cancelling. I've never
had a listing pulled and I'm sitting at 2500 feedback with 2
negatives. I did get a guys listing pulled not long ago for
copying my description word for word on a very high dollar
item. If it had been an item that was say $50 or so I
wouldn't have said anything. I suspect like the others said
another seller probably got it pulled. As far as bumping up
the handling fee you can do that but don't go too far and
scare off bidders. As far as talking to someone there's always
Live Chat with eBay people. That's the way I have to do it.
My account was hacked a few days ago and Live Chat worked
great. They did call me to verify that they had the actual
account owner on line. Play by the rules.

---

Grateful11

In fairness, ebay did email a reply back to me this evening. It was lengthy, cordial, made its point, and acknowledged my frustration. It was more than I expected.

As for bumping up handling, etc. , I know how I feel when I see outrageous shipping and handling charges, and I just won't bid on the item, so I'm hesitant about padding there.

BTW, Grateful11, I tried the Chat after being sent there via phone. Unfortunately my problem wasn't covered by the Chat protocol, as I was informed after waiting several minutes for someone.

Final question: If it were you, would you acknowledge the cancelled auction in the new listing in the form of a little apology or would you just ignore it and move on as if nothing happened?

I would pretend it never happened. After all, the previous one is no longer in the databases, and unless you tell people it was taken down before, they aren't going to have any clue.

pad your shipping, just do it less than your competitors.

wurm Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Final question: If it were you, would you
> acknowledge the cancelled auction in the new
> listing in the form of a little apology or would
> you just ignore it and move on as if nothing
> happened?

There is nothing to gain by mentioning the cancelled acution, and there may actually be a policy against mentioning action taken by eBay.

If you disagree with eBay's/Paypal's policies, don't use them.

---

I suffer from the same sensitivity that you do. A few nuggets of wisdom were shared with me and I'm "trying" to incorporate them into my life. First, remember that nobody can hurt your feelings unless you let them. You can always reject what is being forced on you emotionally.
Second, nothing changes unless you change it. If you don't want the behavior to be repeated then you need to take action. Otherwise the kid has learned that his behavior is the way to get things done, because everyone lets him get away with it.
In the meantime I sympathize because I've been there.
-beerman

Final question: If it were you, would you acknowledge the cancelled auction in the new listing in the form of a little apology or would you just ignore it and move on as if nothing happened?

gawd no!

They'll think you're a criminal. Ebayers are PARANOID. Chances are good that you'll get a whole new group of bidders this time anyway. If someone emails and asks - tell them the honest truth.