MY EBAY NIGHTMARE, A WARNING...THIS COULD HAPPEN TO YOU TOO!!

[cello10]

Hi everyone,

If you've read my previous posts you'll know that pretty much all the issues with ebay like the new feedback system or other various annoyances you hear about don't really bother me. As I've said in the past, overall I'm pretty thrilled with the opportunity ebay provides our company in terms of world wide sales. But something happened to me this week that has rocked my opinion of ebay.

Monday morning I received an email from ebay that an auction of mine for a Ferrari jacket had ended due to copyright violation, IE. Ferrari was claiming it was a fake. Now I have a contact at Ferrari in Italy whom I had been working with for over a year whom I would email pictures of items I found to get the ok or not ok as to whether they were legit before listing them. I hadn't been in contact with him for a few months because over time, in working with him, I had gotten to know what to look for to determine the authenticity. This is why I knew that my jacket was legit. I emailed the contact provided in the email from ebay at Ferrari with some additional pictures of the jacket, even though there were plenty in the listing itself to see clearly it was legit. During this communication I realized that my contact had moved to another department and was replaced by the guy who claimed my item was fake. After viewing my additional pictures he realized he had made a mistake and that the item was in fact legitimate. Now during this back and forth I received a second email from ebay identical to the first one. Following that came another email stating that my account had been suspended for 7 days. Once Ferrari guy realized his error he immediately notified ebay and my account was reinstated by 7pm the same day.

Ebay notified me that they had reinstated the listing for the Ferrari jacket as well, and that it was put into my ended items folder and that all I had to do was relist it. Now here's the kicker...but they deleted all my 1600 plus listings (auction and store items) and those they COULD NOT recover.

So now my store is empty (50% of my sales come from our store) and I have to redo 1600+ items from scratch, pictures and all. It's going to take me about a month of working overtime to get back on track and I no doubt will lose thousands of dollars all for something in which I was not at fault. After bitching to ebay's customer service department (if there is such a thing) I finally found one guy with a shred of compassion who actually offered some sort of apology and who reinstated a whopping 130 of my listings. My question is if they can recover 130 listings, INCLUDING the one that caused all this mess, then why can't they get all my store listings back into my ended items folder so I can simply relist? I'm completely sure they can, but obviously they just don't feel like it. I even emailed Isabel a couple of days ago explaining my situation and I haven't even got a response.

Last fall it was bothering me a little bit that we (quoting my new favourite bookseller) had too many of our eggs in one ebay basket. So in January we moved into an office which doubles as a store, open two days a week, and we've seen steady growth there. Today I am convinced I had a premonition back in the fall about what happened this week. This fiasco has only accelerated our efforts to find other ways outside of ebay to move our stuff and it is now our objective to reduce ebay to 25% of our sales channels within 2 years.

You know, I understand the need to protect the marketplace and I have no issues with the suspension...we were allowed to work it out and I was back on within hours, that's fine. But deleting all our auctions before allowing due process??? That is not only not fair, to me it borders on criminal. Those listings have to be somewhere.

The icing on the cake was later this week we received a call from the ebay seller outreach program wanting to sit down with us on the phone because we are a "top seller" and one of ebay's "most important" blah blah blah. They want to help us to take our business to the next level, meanwhile earlier in the week they took our business two steps backwards.

Bottom line we've decided we won't let ebay or anyone else for that matter take us hostage. I'm not a fool, I won't let the fact that I don't like them very much right now cloud me to the reality that I can still make money here. They use us and I for damn sure will continue to use them to line my pockets. But they've turned us into someone who wants to work less with them now. Someone's missing the boat over there.

If anyone has had any similiar experiences and actually has some ideas or tips on how I might be able to get those listings back I'd be appreciate any input.

[whoscloset]

oy. that sucks. 😞

Did you re-list the item before Ferrari gave the go ahead? That is the only way they would have suspended your account. You get a VERO notice that your item has been pulled due to copyright infringement and it warns right in the e-mail that if you re-list the item you will be suspended.

Never, never, never re-list a VEROed item until the claimant has contacted ebay and they give you the go ahead.

Have you been dealing with .com or .ca customer service reps? You will have a much better chance of a positive resolution with .ca than .com. You might want to e-mail Jordon Banks directly. He's pretty good about helping out with this stuff.

jordanb@ebay.com

Good Luck!

[cello10]

Hi Monique,

No I didn't relist it and still haven't.

As I said I am not even having issues with the suspension itself. If ebay is trying to keep things safe then that's fine. If I had done something wrong then I'm willing to accept the consequences. But the fact that I proved my item was legit and the fact that I was reinstated the same day means I was not doing anything wrong and therefore I should have my listings reinstated as well. Why should I be punished for someone else's error?

I was dealing with .com. I've sent a letter to Jordan, lets see what happens now.

[whoscloset]

Never deal with .com, even if you list there. I use .com for listing exclusively, but if I have a problem I report it to PS Support on .ca. They are MUCH more responsive than the .com people.

[grimsbygaming]

Cello, if I were you, I'd be upset with Ferrari more than anyone....their action seems to be the root cause of this mess. You might want to talk to a lawyer and see if you have a case for libel against Ferrari....I'm not sure how many thousands of dollars you will lose, but if I were in that situation, I'd be looking for somebody to compensate me.

[katiusciav]

Well now that would be VERY costly! especially when you're dealing with large companies like FERRARI, one person up against a huge company rarely ever succeeds, and is barely affordable.
i don't think the issue here is that ebay removed his listing (after all, they are just doing their part in trying to remove fraud/protect buyers which is what we want)...and they did after all re-instate his listing. but the fact that the rest of marcello's listings were deleted IS ebay's fault and they should TOTALLY take responsibility. marcello-when it comes to big companies (like ebay)...they usually tend to not want to deal with the situation, pass it along to someone else, etc...you have to be persistent with them and demand they reinstate/find all your lost listings. why should you have to create all that work because of THEIR error? they should take responsibility for their action. especially if you say they're commisioning you as a top seller-if they value you that much, they should be ashamed if they're not meeting your needs for something THEY did. you found out (which is usually the case) that one person at ebay was able to reinstate your listings, that means it CAN be done, and when the others tell you it can't be done, its probably just their laziness talking...
i don't know the chain of contacts with ebay and how you contact them, but i would stop emailing the first line of ebay workers and start moving all the way up the ladder of command and start stirring the pot a little...just because ebay is a larger company, doesn't mean they can push you or anyone else around...

[cello10]

Well so far I've emailed Isabel, Jordan and Bill Cobb. Haven't heard back from anyone as of yet.

I am ticked at Ferrari, thoses bozos don't even recognize their own stuff. My lawyer friend has looked into it and I defintely have a claim, but of course there will be challenges as the company is on another continent and the fees, although I might be able to find a lawyer who'd take a large cut of any settlement for representation. I just want my listings back and if I can get them then I'd leave it at that. If not, then I will be looking into my legal options.

[cello10]

Oh and I called powerseller support and of course that is not their department, but they have "escalated" my email requests to the appropriate department...great support.

[katiusciav]

keep sending them. they'll finally get the picture and want to get you off their back...

[jeffglobal]

What gets me the most is that legiatmate sellers like yourself eBay polices, however when it comes to legit bootleggers of virtually any item, you can always seem to find them on eBay, even when you're not looking for them. And more times than not, these auctions tend to close with winning bidders! It's really sad. As much as they claim they do, nobody at eBay seems to truly care to police the bootleggers on a regular basis, and always seem to go after the "good guys" instead. It's things like this that really turn legit and good-hearted sellers OFF of eBay -- as if all the fee hikes over the years is not enough to turn you off, you need to put up with bootleggers getting away with what feels like murder, while legit sellers seem to always have the eBay "big brother" watching over for them. Even when reporting bootleggers, they still almost always get away with it in the end for the most part. Truly sad.

[cello10]

Very true jeff...just from Asia alone (mostly Thailand and China where there are no laws against fakes) there are thousands of sellers moving millions of dollars worth of knock off everything into North America through ebay every month. And some of these sellers have been around for years with powerseller accounts in good standing. Obviously is ebay shut them all down they'd lose millions in fees.

At the same time we've had auctions ended every once in a while over the last couple of years that we knew we're ended incorrectly and when we'd contact the rights owner we'd never get a response...when we'd push ebay to make them speak to us we'd get a generic "Your item is not authentic" message and when we'd challenge the issue it was just more of the same, the runaround, so basically you realize it's not worth the time and effort. Here's what we've figured out. It appears many of the vero members are not just interested in policing for fakes. They've gotten to know the system and it seems, to us anyway, that they are using/and abusing the system to eliminate competition as well. For example, we sell used items. Ferrari took their cut on the jacket we were selling orginally when it was sold new. But when we were selling it as used, they weren't seeing anything from that sale. So for every time someone decides to spend their money on a good used item instead of buying new, manufacturers are technically losing on out on their trademarked name. In the real world tough luck baby. But it appears on ebay they can just file false vero complaints and then claim ignorance if the seller actually decides to push the issue. But most sellers won't because between the runaround and fear of these huge companies (and possible ebay suspension) makes it seems like a losing battle.

We've been incredibly careful about the items we list and we thought we had a good handle on things. We just had no idea a suspension and even worse, loss of listings could occur on a falsely vero reported item. As I am now putting stuff back on, not only am I not listing fake items, I am also looking at individual items and wondering if they could be mistaken as fake and am second guessing about putting them on. This is not right, but to us our new reality is that what happened with Ferrari very well could happen again. It just seems we are so vulnerable and that doing business with ebay is like opening a store in a third world country, whereby hostiles can come in and take what's yours at a whim. Again this is why we've made it our objective to reduce our ebay sales to 25% of our total business within two years. Its sad we have to do this but we feel we've been left with no other choice.

UPDATE: 100 more of my listings were reinstated, unfortuntely many of them I had already redone:-(. 1400 to go. I am going to be sending emails to everyone from support to Izzy, Jordan and Bill Cobb and calling PS support everyday until I have them all back.

[engagingtreasures]

At the same time we've had auctions ended every once in a while over the last couple of years that we knew we're ended incorrectly and when we'd contact the rights owner we'd never get a response...when we'd push ebay to make them speak to us we'd get a generic "Your item is not authentic" message and when we'd challenge the issue it was just more of the same, the runaround, so basically you realize it's not worth the time and effort.

IT'S TRUE! I had a vintage Chanel handbag come in a few months back. I brought it to the Chanel store in Toronto and had the manager appraise the bag at $1800USD. VeRO owner ChanelUSA reported the listing and it was pulled. eBay refused to help me get in contact with ChanelUSA even though I got the purse appraised with certificate. I even had the manager of the Chanel store contact Chanel headquarters saying that he appraised it as genuine and still I cannot list it.

Not worth the time and effort INDEED! Why should I get to profit for something made by someone else?

[westernstargifts]

That really stinks, Marcello. It seems that on eBay you are guilty until proven innocent and then you might just as well be guilty since they do so little to correct the situation.

I think I will get back to spending more time building my website. I got sidetracked because I was doing well on eBay but this kind of treatment by eBay has changed my focus back to other areas. Thanks for sharing this with us. I will still use eBay too but will certainly not make it my main source of income.

I wish you the best of luck getting your listings reinstated and with your other store.:8}

[katiusciav]

that's ebay's/paypal's motto-freeze/take now, investigate later...at seller's expense mind you-guilty till proven innocent...

[cello10]

Hi everyone, I have an update for you (probably the final update).

Last Tuesday morning I finally sent an email to Bill Cobb, with carbon copies to Izzy, Jordan and customer support. The email once again explained my situation and I demanded to know why if some of my listings could be returned, why couldn't they all be? I also stated that ebay would not accept me, as a seller, treating my customers in this manner and in that case ebay should adhere to their own standards of expected customer service. I headed out on the road for the day to hunt down some merchandise and within an hour I checked my blackberry and I had responses from Izzy and Jordan. A short while after I got a few more emails from support with a bunch of my listings back. A little while after that I got a call from Lorenzo at ebay apologizing for the situation and asking me whether or not all my listings were back. I couldn't check as I was on the road, so he told me to call him later and gave me his direct line. When I did get home I saw that 900ish were back but still 700ish were missing. I had arrived back too late to call him, but I emailed him and by noon the next day I had all my stuff back.

It was really tricky to relist, as some of the ones I had gotten back earlier were mixed in with the rest in my unsold folder and I had to be careful not to relist items in double. But it got done eventually.

The next day I sent an email to Lorenzo, with cc's to Cobb, Izzy and Jordan. Here is a copy of that email...

Hi Lorenzo,

Ok I have relisted all that I am going to put back. However with 1 item to go I was blocked as listing too many items in one week. Can you please lift that restriction on my account as I have auction listings to do on Thursday afternoon (June 14th).

Thanks to all of you for your help over the last two days. I very much appreciate it. However I am still disappointed with the fact that it took a week and a half to get back in business basically. It should not have taken this long. This situation has strained my business. First there's been the immediate lost income. Secondly I was unable to make my buying trips last week and was limited to one this week as I had to redirect that time into getting some older items I had up for auction just to bring in a few bucks. Therefore with the ripple affect this week as well I won't have as much merchandise to auction off as usual. Thirdly I was unable to put scheduled time into our other developing business, our store and have lost some momentum there as well. All in all I will take a hit of a few thousand dollars at least before I am completely back on track. That's a lot for us, as we are not equipped with millions in working capital.

To be honest, I no longer feel safe doing business on ebay, or at least doing so much of our business. I feel just too vulnerable. How do I know this won't happen again? Do I have to live in constant fear of negligent rights owners not knowing their own merchandise? At the same time, while I do my utmost best not to list anything that isn't authentic, what if I make an honest mistake? I have quite a good handle on identifying legitimate merchandise, but I am only human, it is possible I could make an honest mistake. For either of these situations am I going to be shut down again just like that? I cannot afford many more situations like this past week and a half. Therefore I have come to the conclusion that I cannot afford to partner as much of my business with you as I had planned. It's unfortunate, because I have put my heart and soul into my ebay business, I have been a very proud powerseller and have thoroughly loved being part of the ebay community. I have very ambitious goals for our business and I had planned for ebay to be a big part of it. But as business people yourselves, I am sure you can understand how it is an entirely unwise move to allow oneself to be that vulnerable.

Again Lorenzo can you please have the listing restriction lifted on my account, I really need to list my auctions Thursday afternoon/this week and cannot afford any more lost revenues.

Sincerely,
Marcello Biocchi
cello10


Lorenzo's reply was another apology and he acknowledged that it shouldn't have taken a week and a half to get my stuff back and that they are putting in measures to make sure situations like mine don't happen again. He reiterated how the vero program is very necessary because of all the fake merchandise being moved on ebay. Again I don't have a problem with vero, I have a problem with a week and a half to get your listings back when you're proven innocent. He finished up the email saying that it was unfortunate that I was no longer considering ebay as much in growing our business and that if there was anything they could do to change my view, they'd be willing to help.

In the end, although I did get my stuff back, it's not like ebay did all that much for me to make things right. I'm still out a few grand at least for something in which I was not at fault. While Izzy, Jordan and Lorenzo were all very nice and I appreciate the help they provided, I can't help wondering why my first emails went unanswered by them and it was only after they were cc'd on a message to Cobb did I get any action. Did the realization that their initial inaction was being put before Mr. Cobb get them moving? I'll never really know, but it makes me wonder. I also feel ebay should of did a little more to compensate me in some way. Maybe a $500 fee credit to help recoup some losses. The 500 bucks would be a drop in a drop in a drop in a bucket for ebay (and a tax write-off), but would be quite helpful for us and it would have gone a long way in restoring our belief that ebay really values us as a seller. A little money where their mouth is would of made a big difference in our eyes.

The happy ending is that we've already discovered some promising new non-ebay angles for our business and like all negative experiences in life, there's a great opportunity wrapped in it and we are and will continue to find it. Thank you everyone for all your support during this situation.

March
tradermarch.com

[whoscloset]

Glad it worked out in the long run although I completely understand your frustration with the time it took.

Did the realization that their initial inaction was being put before Mr. Cobb get them moving?

From my experience I have to answer with a resounding NO. I have sent messages over issues to Bill Cobb, .com support, Jordon and .ca support. Any responses received from Bill Cobb's office come weeks later and are form crap sent out by his minions. I think you will find that you have yet to received your response from the e-mail sent to him.

I have found that the .ca team is much more responsive and flexible with regard to helping out with problems. It can sometimes take a few days to get a response...but it is still a response that is 100 times more helpful and effective than you will ever get from .com. Many of my American friends have come to envy the fact that we can actually get some action from the .ca crew.

JMHO based upon my experiences.

[cello10]

Actually, just to give credit where it is due, I did receive a response from Beckett (an assistant)on behalf of Bill Cobb quite quickly (same day) and he looked into my account and listed all the items that had been put back and asked me if that was all of them and that if it wasn't to let him know and he would fix it. He also apologized of course. I have to say that while it was one of Cobb's minions, it was not a form letter at all, quite personal and as I said he referenced up to date specifics of my account. I never got back to him though as I dealt with Lorenzo to fix things.

[jakeeangel]

Wow what an ordeal. I'm so sorry. 😞 Why not suggest some sort of financial compensation to Lorenzo? He asked if there was something else he could do right? That would be it. You took a hit in the wallet because of them. Ask for compensation. Why not? All he can say is no.

I'd even go so far as to explain what you did above, that it would go a long way in showing that eBay cares about it's sellers. You're sorry? Great! Pay me back some of the money you cost me.

---

[cello10]

Sent that email today Jake!...Great minds think alike!

Won't be holding my breath though:-), but worth a shot.

[duujogl]

Marcello, I'm glad to hear that your listings were finally reinstated but sorry you had to jump through so many hoops to get it done! It doesn't speak well for eBay at all.

I hope your email suggesting compensation also mentioned that you've been discussing the situation on the PS board and that such compensation would also go a long way in helping restore some of the confidence of the whole powerseller community. I think your situation has made us all feel more vulnerable to ebay's whims.

Glenda