Listing removed by Artificial Intelligence !!!

[musicharmonyandrhythm]

Hello Ebay sellers, I want to share with you a worrying situation that I experienced today.
I have been a small seller on Ebay for 20 years with a perfect record this morning I received an email from Ebay informing me that one of the CDs I am selling was potentially counterfeit which is totally false, and that this desicion was motivated by artificial intelligence!!!!!
I communicated with Ebay and after 30 minutes of conversation with 3 representatives, I was informed that I could appeal and that a decision would be communicated to me in the coming days, 5 minutes later I received an email telling me  that my product was relist, without any additional explanation.

Have you ever had a similar experience?

Thanks

[flipistics]

That's ... both interesting and disturbing. You seem to have a number of import CDs from Japan and other regions. Was it one of those, or one of the ones from North America?

[musicharmonyandrhythm]

The cd is a Canadian one, bought on Ebay a year ago, just got a new email from Ebay to advice that the item 

was removed again, I give up, I don't have another 30 minutes to spend with people who don't know what they are doing.....

[ricarmic]

The problem with the "AI" (aka "bots") stuff is that it doesn't always understand context.

I sell stamps. At one time "Ivory Coast" stamps were a problem because one can't sell "Ivory" on ebay. 

My point is that it might be a word that you're using in your title and/or description which is causing the bots to misunderstand what's being sold. Finding out what word(s) are causing it will be the challenging part, especially if it is an important word needed for folks to find it.

PS If you have kept stuff that gives you a way to see what the title was when you bought it, try using that wording instead.

[musicharmonyandrhythm]

Thank you for your reply, I finally spoke again with an Ebay rep and he told me that I should just forget about this product, because if the artificial intelligence had determined that the product was counterfeit, Ebay will remove it every time I'm going to list it, which is curious knowing that Ebay sells thousands of counterfeit products every day....

[teenytrinkets]

I've had a couple of removals recently for the same reason (under the cosmetics category, and not very expensive). I took different photos and relisted with slightly different descriptions, and thankfully sold them before they were pulled again. I think these days it's just al luck of the draw what gets pulled.

[2nd-time-around-jewelry]

I have had a few items removed in the past including one today.  These are pieces of jewelry carved from cow or ox bone not ivory.  But the bots removed the item even though it was listed for a long time & there are thousands of similar listings that are not removed.  So I just changed the wording & relisted.  Also you can not even use the word ivory to describe a color. I have had to substitute cream or off white. It is very frustrating as eBay does not go after all the people using the same words but only some. Not consistant at all.

[femmefan1946]

The phone reps have a terrible reputation for getting you off the phone as soon as possible even if that means giving you the advice you want to hear instead of the advice you need to have.


https://www.facebook.com/eBayForBusiness/ — Message button in upper right on landing page.

https://www.instagram.com/ebayforsellers/


https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/How-do-I-contact-Customer-Support/m-p/32016431#M1783851 -> Automated Assistant, type AGENT -> enter. You will then get more options.


The social media Chat accounts are covered by trained eBay employees with some authority.
And you get a transcript so you can compare what you heard with what you were told.
 

In this case you got the right story. Don't try to relist that particular CD .  But the Chat reps get their pay directly from eBay not a third party.

And buying it on eBay is not a guarantee of authenticity, although Lord knows they try.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@2nd-time-around-jewelry wrote:

I have had a few items removed in the past including one today.  These are pieces of jewelry carved from cow or ox bone not ivory.  But the bots removed the item even though it was listed for a long time & there are thousands of similar listings that are not removed.  So I just changed the wording & relisted.  Also you can not even use the word ivory to describe a color. I have had to substitute cream or off white. It is very frustrating as eBay does not go after all the people using the same words but only some. Not consistant at all.

---

@2nd-time-around-jewelry 

@teenytrinkets 

There are the same kind of double standards with product recalls. You can report low volume sellers selling items with official recalls and items will be pulled in a few days. If the seller is a power seller, the item will not be removed. 

-Lotz

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

My post is assuming that you only sell genuine items, and that you're not looking to circumvent eBay's policies.

eBay apparently uses bots to spot counterfeit items. It is a huge liability to sellers of media because counterfeit in this context doesn't mean what you and I think it means. 

Counterfeit in this context doesn' t mean eBay is sure that your item is counterfeit. It means that something related to your listing caused the bot to dispute whether an item is genuine, and until your item is proven genuine it is not allowed to be re-listed. Your account also receives a policy violation strike, which can lead to a suspension. It is essentially, guilty until proven innocent. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to appeal, and I don't think I have ever been able to find any concrete advice on how to prove the legitimacy of an item.

eBay won't even accept things like detailed pictures of the matrix/IFPI codes, along with screen shots of the copy protection or pressing info from the disc that can be read by programs like Nero Info Tool.

It is apparently automated. You can appeal, but through all my reading I don't think I have ever heard of an appeal being accepted. I am surprised that your original appeal resulted in the claim being overturned. Maybe that was a mistake. In the future, if you appeal and your claim is overturned, maybe it would still be a good idea to remove the item just to avoid the possibility of a strike. 

The only info eBay will really give you is provide detailed photos and information with your listing to help the buyer know an item is genuine, but even listings with photos of every single part of DVD/CD (front, back, spine, discs) can get hit with these. 

Keep in mind, these aren't VERO claims. This is something entirely different.

Your account can only get a handful of these claims before you're at risk of being suspended. So it is a major liability, but because eBay doesn't give out information on why your item was hit, there is no way to comply with whatever policy is broken. It's not like a VERO claim where you know the issue had to do with the rights holder contacting eBay, and then you have an avenue to possibly resolve it. 

There is no real advice anyone can give you. The only advice would be don't re-list the item and hope for the best. Even if you sell genuine items, there is no way that I know of to completely avoid getting caught up in these strikes, and even a few of these strikes can be hugely detrimental to your account. It really sucks, and I wish they had a better system. 

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

It is possible that their system catches a lot of counterfeit items, or that they are required to do this for their own legal liability, but the downside is that it creates a very high liability for anybody who sells genuine pre-owned media since it is pretty clear that those selling in good faith can get caught up in the item sweeps with no real recourse to remove the strikes. 

The way to look at it is that whatever secret metric or algorithm they use to pull items means they don't know if your item is genuine. Until they know whether it is genuine, you cannot list it, but there also doesn't seem to be a clear and objective way to prove it is genuine. It really sucks, and I wish they had a more straight forward way to allow sellers to provide information that can prove the item is not counterfeit. 

That is assuming that is even the reason it was removed, and it wasn't a different aspect of the title or listing. But they don't share information because they are afraid that people who operate in bad faith will learn to avoid the algorithm. That makes it impossible for good faith sellers to comply, because they don't even know what they didn't comply with in the first place. 

No selling platform is going to be perfect, but it's a major concern and liability for people who sell genuine pre-owned media who want to continue selling and comply with the policies of the website. I'd like to think or at least I would hope that there is a legitimate reason for why they handle things this way, because it seems to pose a major liability to sellers. 

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

What timing OP,

I got hit with one of these this morning for a CD. In order to avoid the possibility of another false strike, I decided to remove my entire inventory of 2000+ (genuine, not counterfeit) CDs from eBay, it is absolutely not worth the risk to my account when it is automated like this. I'll have to think about whether I want to re-list them, sell them in lots, or just move them to a different platform.

I sent an appeal with detailed photos and info about the CD like the IFPI code and matrix code, but based on past experience, I highly doubt the strike will be removed. 

No platform is perfect, but this system was already a big influence in choosing to move nearly 4000 DVDs off of eBay and diversify so that I am on multiple platforms. It's too risky putting all my eggs in one basket when an automated system can issue counterfeit strikes that seem to be difficult or nearly impossible to successfully appeal, even if the item has detailed photographs.

You have to keep in mind the context of these strikes is that you can have 10k-20k items life time sold or listed on eBay, and you might get 1 strike a year. That sounds like a small amount, but they don't seem to scale up like defects. Once you get 2 or 3, you're at risk of suspensions. 

The only supposed actionable advice I have received is never use stock images, even if eBay allows them for media. The problem with this advice is that it contradicts past strikes I have received, or the OP here received, where the items in hand were photographed. I wish they would come up with something a bit more objective. If they do have objective criteria, they don't share it with the sellers because they are worried about bad actors using it to circumvent the AI. I have zero issues with not using stock images, but the issue is whether it's worth putting the time into photographing future listings that may ultimately be removed if my account receives the very small amount of strikes required to trigger a suspension. 

[dee_doo]

Most likely a competitor...  I know for a fact that someone in Greece is selling counterfeit DVD and ebay allows it, go figure.

[fergua3]

After seeing some of the bizarre Ebay search results the last few weeks, i've concluded that Ebay's AI isn't very I.

I hope that it doesn't end up running the show on here...

[darak10]

the weird part about your experience is that I have gone thru this when listing items that a number of other sellers have for sale on here and my copy gets turfed as allegedly counterfeit while the other copy(ies) remains, when its the same bloody item, and I know it is.  Some sellers have a workaround for being able to list  counterfeit items on here that are not being sniffed out.  Many of these are from Chinese sellers, but Ive noticed theres loads from Italian sellers as well.