eBay May Collapse Under Its Own Weight

I recently tried to sell a camera on eBay. Twice.

Both times it was removed after it closed. Both times I received an email that stated:

The results of the following listing(s) have been cancelled due to bidding activity that took place without the account owner’s authorization:

OK, I get that. Someone got phished and that means the winning bid was invalid, not to mention outlandish (in this case, over 2x the value of the camera). But they pull the entire listing and if you try to go to it, it’s ‘invalid’. At the very least, I should be able to see my own listing after the fact so I could at least try selling the item to one of the other legitimate buyers. But nope. Instead now that item doesn’t come up which has the added side-effect of making me look bad, when in fact I did nothing wrong except try to sell my camera.

What am I supposed to do now? Apparently, it’s up to me to completely relist my item:

Unfortunately, it is not possible for us to automatically relist these items for you. Instead, to relist these items you will need to start from the beginning of the listing process, either through the “Sell Your Item” process or through your third party listing service. We know that this is an inconvenience and we apologize for the negative impact it may cause you. We are working on tools to allow you to relist your items without starting from the beginning, but they are not available at this time.

You have got to be kidding me… I’m the one that got duped here. Why are you making it difficult for me, the victim? I did relist it the first time (which included having to unpack the item to get the damn information from the box again). This time though? It’s looking doubtful.

I think eBay has become an incredibly unsafe environment for both buyers and sellers, and I think it might be time to find some alternatives. Lately, almost every time I use eBay there’s someone trying to scam me or phish me. But this time having my listing removed twice is the worst I’ve experienced. What is my recourse here? Apparently not much:

Do not respond to this email, as your reply will not be received. If there are issues that have not been addressed by this message, you can contact us by clicking the “Help” link located at the top of most eBay pages and selecting “Contact Us” from the menu on the left hand side of the page.

Which I did, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to get back some response written by a robot if I’m even lucky enough to get that.

I know eBay is a huge target for scam artists, etc. but eBay doesn’t seem to be doing enough to truly help users deal with these situations. They are being largely reactive instead of proactive in their protection of users, and their actions are also a little over the top. Did they really need to totally remove my listing so that even I can’t get at it? Why would they not already have a tool to help me relist my item? It’s not like these types of incidents are a new occurrence on eBay. It could very well be they are losing the battle and these annoyances are merely symptoms of their trying to tread water while kicking sharks and swatting flies.

My bottom line is just that if they don’t get a handle on:

• Helping the victims in these incidents have quick and easy recourse
• Delivering more personable customer service than a form letter or a patent response that clearly didn’t read the original message
• Verifying users, and only allowing verified bidders to bid on a particular auction if the seller desires.

Then eBay is going to be in trouble (I think they probably already are). There is no air of trust these days, and they seem to be scrambling to keep up. The problem with that is that in the end, its the users that suffer because they’re so busy just trying to keep things at bay.I certainly know I don’t feel like relisting my item again because after two times in a row with an almost identical attack, I’m afraid it’s just going to happen again. Which is sad, because then I’m not 100% sure how I’m going to sell this camera… Craig’s list? Ugh.

Update: As expected, they never read the emails you send.

Dear eBay Member,

Thank you for contacting eBay regarding your account. The following information will help you reset a forgotten password and report unauthorized use of an eBay account. 

They have become a large corporate black hole.

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