Cracking down on bait-and-switch listings

[andor9438]

I waste a lot of time looking at listings sorted by "Price + postage, lowest first" only to find that the low price on the listing is for an item that has nothing to do with the thing I'm looking for.

An example: I was looking for an electric display turntable. The listing showed $8.06 to $23.72 in the search results.

 

I opened the listing and selected the Colors - White Matte was $23.72, and so was Black Matte, White Mirror and Black Mirrored versions. The $8.06 "color" was a non-motorised, non-rotating watch display which was not what I searched for.

 

 

In other words, I got suckered in with a promise on a low price thinking it was for the thing I wanted to buy when it wasn't. It's unethical, annoying and probably illegal in some jurisdictions. It's also an incredibly common tactic on eBay.

I have lost faith in the accuracy of eBay listings and I've started to look elsewhere for my products, rather than having my time wasted. Will eBay start cracking down on this practice?

[andor9438]

Also worth noting that every other result I looked at for this search used the same tactic, rendering my Sort by Lowest completely useless.

[sandypebbles]

No, eBay will not crack down on variation listings, which they allow

You were not 'suckered in'  learn how to use the site

eBay do not read listings and are not going to read your post on the member to member forum, which has been done to death by people who don't know basics 

If it is illegal, go report it to the police

Better yet, avoid listings from dodgy sellers registered in China

And to answer the usual question when someone objects to factual information

No, I do not work for nor get paid by eBay

[sugar249]

Tell me whats illegal, once you select the item you want it tells you the price for that. 

And personally I prefer Judge Judy to the police.

I guess it's similar to a motor car dealer where the big sign says X dollars,  oh but wait you want wheels and an engine with that, well thats X plus, plus plus.

PS.   I get paid 10 times as much as Sandypebbles by Ebay, so impartial comments.

I do disagree with 1 comment from Sandy, Ebay do read here,  but they don't take any action on your rants or queries, there are formal channels for those.

[countessalmirena]

I think you may be looking with an unrealistic price in mind.

There are items I wouldn’t buy on eBay - unless the seller is an Australian business known to me as an authorised seller of that item. Electronic items are a no-no if they’re being sold by an overseas seller, esp. Chinese sellers for purely practical and reasonable reasons. (Items manufactured in whackadoodle fashion of cheapest possible raw materials where components do not meet minimum product specifications, product itself doesn’t meet Australian standards, safety issues and quality control lack and an unbranded knockoff claiming specs and functions it doesn’t have…)

To avoid these listings in your search results, set your minimum price at a REALISTIC value.

I should mention that eBay permits “listings with variations”. It’s supposed to allow variations in an item (colour or size and so on), but it is sometimes abused in the way you’ve mentioned… but while eBay AU will crack down on Australian registered sellers for doing it, they neither can nor will with Chinese registered sellers… and eBay.cn give their sellers a lot more leeway and help than is the case for eBay.com.au.

You can complain and nothing will change. You’ll be much more effective if you just don’t buy from such sellers. For electronic items, but Australian.

[sugar249]

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@countessalmirena wrote:

You can complain and nothing will change. You’ll be much more effective if you just don’t buy from such sellers. For electronic items, but Australian.

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It's interesting OP has a propensity to purchase from sellers with poor feedback scores, 

[countessalmirena]

There’s that assumption in Australian consumers… or at least enough of us to form a pattern: the incredible bargain is just as good as the item at around RRP.

And of course it’s not! The outside of an electronic item can look very similar to high-end products, but inside - oh no. 

[gutterpunkz05]

No matter what you believe, it is not bait and switch, and is perfectly legal.  A mere glimpse shows it is a multi variation listing, if you dont like them, dont use them.

[springyzone]

I agree, these types of ads are sometimes extremely annoying.

Variation listings are quite legitimate, legal, but as countess said, they are meant to be for variations of the same item. Maybe a different colour or different size and so on.

What you were looking at, in my opinion, breaks the spirit of law a little bit.

Ebay doesn't seem keen to crack down on the practice, so you just need to be aware and assume the product you're looking for is usually going to be at the higher end of the price range. That's how those ads usually work. 

You can usually pick these types of ads at a glance, the price range should alert you to the fact something is going on. $8-$26 range? That's never going to be for the same item.  

I don't know who the various sellers were but by the looks of it, one at least is based in Australia as it said Australian seller. The other that said Australian stock, that stock could be in a warehouse here, it probably is, but the words would alert me to the fact it is most likely a Chinese seller. A Countess says, the chinese sellers on ebay have more leeway.

I think a lot of people believe they'll get great bargains by buying from a Chinese seller because everything over there is 'cheap' but that hasn't exactly been my experience. An $8 price would probably be unrealistic for what you were after or for any sort of quality. You may pick up something similar cheaply eg on temu, but I would trust ebay more than that site.

[gutterpunkz05]

Buyers need to understand, that listing headings does not equate to a description, that is why there is a specific description field in the listing.

Headings are key words, designed to gain attention.