Impossible to re-write searches without wildcards

[randygar]

I have 46 saved searches that use wildcards.  Some are simply impossible to re-write without them.  For example, I have a search for SMC VV5Q17*.  It's very good at matching things like "VV5Q1702UIB970117", "VV5Q17ULB970007", and "VV5Q1702UIB97011", all of which are actual part numbers, from actual items currently listed, returned by this search.  There is no possible way to enumerate the part numbers that could be returned by this search - there's tens of thousands of them.  I can't eliminate the term, as SMC makes a few thousand similar items that I do not want to find and do not want to wade through. 

What kind of drugs are the people at ebay doing to make them think users want fewer features? If someone doesn't find the feature useful, they can simply not use it.  How can anyone with a straight face claim they are improving my results by doing this?

Should I just delete my searches and give up?  I can not think of any possible way to perform these searches without wildcards.  Create a few hundred saved searches each of which is just a copy-paste from a product catalog of (part number 1,part number 2, etc) until reaching the length limit? 

It's not just part numbers.  For other searches, I use them to find common different spellings or punctuations, none of which ebay's "helpful" use of synonyms could find, and if I enumerate them, I just get a message that my search is too long.  Ebay's synonym-matching returns far, far, far more irrelevant results than wildcards ever has.  If they want to get rid of things just for the sake of getting rid of things, stop making me need to quote random words in order to make searches return what I wanted!

Is there even someone we can write to about this idiocy?  The phone answering people can't do anything, and contact information for anyone else gets fewer and further between every year...

--Randy

[randygar]

Welp, looks like they did it today...  Now my searches that returned a full page of items return nothing at all.  If their reason for removing it is server load, that just shows how many people are using them!  Ebay seriously needs some competition.  Idiocy like this would never pass if they had a competitor who would jump on it.

--Randy

[psychic_pilot]

Everyone who wants the wildcard search back ought to email eBay customer support and report this "technical problem/site issue". Maybe then they'll realise the mistake they're making..

[berntd]

The support told me to make suggetion to have a wildcard feature added (!!)

Like here:

http://pages.ebay.com.au/help/account/suggestions.html

I did that but I amk not hopeful.

Here is what they told me the reason was for removing the wildcards:

"Our research has shown that this type of search can sometimes include unexpected variations that clutter search results and the use of specific terms to expand one’s search is a much more effective method. That may be why only a very small percentage of very sophisticated shoppers on eBay used this functionality. We’ve also recently implemented enhancements to search on eBay that enables us to take into account many variations in naming and spelling in search results. By removing the wildcard (*) advanced search functionality, we are now able to more efficiently deliver search results faster"

@ebay

You are supposed to strive to please ALL your customers ALL of the time, not most of your customers most of the time.

[gooseclam]

This is quite typical behaviour by the kids that run ebay. If you asked them what a free text search was they would not know. The internet has developed techniques for searching which have become standards. Oh no not ebay - they know better.

The whole point of wildcards is to search for things you only know part of the spelling of. How does ebay suggest you do this.