"We’ve allowed buyers to make offers to help you sell" NO HELP!!!

[laawesome2017]

I'm new to ebay and I have noticed Ebay allowing offers on my items. I don't want this. I price my items at an excellent price and most of what I sell are handmade. I don't want to sell any lower. Ebay sends me an email and I have to go to 'manage my offers' on every single item. How do I stop this from happening all together.

Thanks Lisa xoxox

[vintagealpaca]

Here is an update. I've just sold an item at the full price that eBay changed to consider offers at half the listed price late last week. So clearly taking their recommendation would not have been in my best interest. I'm now outraged to find this morning that an item they applied offers to late last week, which I rejected via their manage offers function, has today been discounted again. 

It's a recommendation when sellers have a choice, so having made it clear I won't accept offers on that item, twice, they flat out ignore me and apply the function again, so clearly it's not a recommendation, it's been forced on us. eBay terms require sellers to take 100% responsibility for their listings, so the idea that they can just go in and change those listings when you've made your terms absolutely clear is simply not on. We cannot take responsibility for listings we do not control.

[springyzone]

I agree.

They should be free to recommend anything they like but to make a change to a listing is rude.

as i said, I think down the track this might be something that will happen to ads that are relisted which is still rude but at least sellers then would know the score, instead of coming across this by surprise.

I think the key to this is ebay is not doing it because it is in the seller's best interests, they are doing it because it is in their own interest. They want stuff ticking over and giving them commission and it doesn't matter to them if it sells for less-any sale is commission. They probably don't want anything that might look to be slow moving as they are paying for the site.

Just because they might recommend a best offer, it doesn't mean it would never sell at the full price.

[countessalmirena]

vintagealpaca, are you saying that the Best Offer function was not only added to your listing, but that an automatic acceptance of half the item's listed Buy Now price was actioned????

(The number of question marks indicates my tentative outrage if that's so. Tentative because that seems impossible for eBay to do in terms of your rights, and also because outrage is over-used and should be reserved for the truly heinous.)

[digital*ghost]

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@countessalmirenawrote:

vintagealpaca, are you saying that the Best Offer function was not only added to your listing, but that an automatic acceptance of half the item's listed Buy Now price was actioned????

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Not answering for the OP, but that apparently happened to another seller. I'm not 100% sure of the circumstances (the hows and whys), though, because they voluntarily had best offer on listings before so may have set up auto-acceptance options which then were re-applied when best offer was added to the listings again.

However that still ultimately means best offer was added back to their listings without their knowledge or approval, then an offer was subsequently made and accepted, which would not have happened without eBay's interference. 

[countessalmirena]

digital*ghost, did that seller refuse to sell the item on the basis of his never having authorised the acceptance of the offer?

eBay can set up user agreements until the bos taurus return to their domicile; if it is an unfair contract (and it appears that coercing a seller into fulfilling a sale when the seller set up the terms of sale in an explicitly different form and did not agree to or was not aware of changes enforced upon that sale by eBay would come under a term causing detriment if enforced, as well as illustrating a significant imbalance between the seller's rights and obligations and those of eBay), it may be something worth fighting. There's no guarantee of success, though - so options that cost little would be the way to go as an initial strategy.

Anyone who makes a complaint to eBay would be well advised to have the conversation on loudspeaker, have a witness present, and take notes. The first step in resolving an issue like this is to contact the business... but if it's an endemic problem, implemented by stealth, inevitably there are going to be many people who don't even realise what's happened to their listings, or are aware of remedies. That means that if the telephone conversation does not resolve the problem, that's actually a step forward to solve this issue as an "at large" problem.

Anyway, for those who have enough coal to light a fire in their belly, that's a crusade the outcome of which is not set in stone.

[vintagealpaca]

Yes it was added to my listing, and also added was the recommendation that I consider offers at half the listed price, so it is for all items they target - half listed price.  Each morning I check my email to find out what they have done, supposedly in my best interest. And having reversed that change they have made on my listing, by using the "manage offers" function to remove their changes, a few days later eBay has gone in and reversed, my reversal, on that item!

So what can I say, outrage factor high for me anyway, again today, I had to go in and reverse an item, that I had already reversed because eBay has targetted it a second time! 

I consider this harassment, directly contravenes my expressed wishes on the terms of the sale, and takes the control of the listing, for which I am supposed to be 100% responsible, out of my hands. And they do all this because it means more money for eBay, better value for the buyers, so they attract more, all at the seller's expense. 

[melbourneclearance]

I would call ebay and demand compensation. I am pretty good in harassing ebay and calling them several times a day if I have to when they have done something wrong. And this sounds like a major wrong. Call them and demand compensation and don't stop until they give you one. Apparently the biggest compensation they can give is $50, but don't stop at that if that amount does not cover your loss.

[digital*ghost]

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@countessalmirena wrote:

digital*ghost, did that seller refuse to sell the item on the basis of his never having authorised the acceptance of the offer?

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That I don't know for sure, unfortunately. (I posted a warning in a group elsewhere recently about eBay doing this, and someone else just replied and said - in a nutshell - that it explained what had happened to their listings and confirmed an offer had already been made and accepted, but they didn't post any more details other than what I've mentioned. 

I'm still utterly aghast eBay hasn't withdrawn this new "initiative", TBH. It is deliberate listing interference and while I'm not surprised someone at eBay came up with it, I am surprised no one has had an "oh, shiiiiiiiii........." moment and put a stop to it, yet. >_> 

If anyone wants me to complain on their behalf, gimme a shout. 

[countessalmirena]

It cannot be an endorceable contract in law, at least.

However, eBay is unlikely to concern itself with that unless they dismiss complaints by aggrieved sellers who subsequently made a complaint (preferably en masse) to the ACCC. I know that "I'm taking this to the ACCC!!!!!" is seen (probably correctly in most cases) as a bit of a toothless toddler tantrum, but that's not to decry the instances when such a complaint has legitimacy.

[countessalmirena]

enforceable, not endorceable.

Wretched fingers.