Question
In June, I had an auction that went 10 days without any viewers or watchers. I just could not believe it. Then, a couple of hours before the auction ended, I did a search on the title and flat could not find my listing. Oh my, my auction didn't Index. So, I chatted through Live Chat with eBay and was told the item was flagged, but no one could tell me why; just relist and I would get my listing fees back. Well, it was an expensive item and I had listed it on eBay's 20¢ day.
Yesterday, I listed the item again (but not through eBay's Relist feature). Now, 26 hours, the auction has NOT Indexed. I contact eBay CS and find out it has been Flagged, but CS could not tell me why, and we were disconnected before I got the email address to the flagging people on eBay. Why didn't eBay let me know that my item had been flagged and what the heck for. It's an item sold everyday on eBay. There is no weird script that eBay doesn't accept in the auction. I listed it the way I do all of my other auctions.
I wonder how many people have their items not indexed and eBay never lets them know. If this a way of filling their coffers with money from unknowing sellers? Do we have to start checking each and every auction that we list? I'm disturbed.
Has this happened to others here? If so, how did you solve the problem.
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I've had this happen numerous times. So have peeps on the ebay stores board. Don't hold your breath on a refund either.
Ebay sucks.
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I got a refund for the 1st listing.
What were you told about flagging? I think eBay should let the sellers know that the item has been flagged and why; and especially refund their darn money!
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Originally Posted by elizdale
In June, I had an auction that went 10 days without any viewers or watchers. I just could not believe it. Then, a couple of hours before the auction ended, I did a search on the title and flat could not find my listing. Oh my, my auction didn't Index...[snipped]...I wonder how many people have their items not indexed and eBay never lets them know. If this a way of filling their coffers with money from unknowing sellers? Do we have to start checking each and every auction that we list? I'm disturbed.
Has this happened to others here? If so, how did you solve the problem.
WHAT is this FLAGGING bullcrap?
Does it mean our auctions are NOT SHOWING UP ANYWHERE?
How long has this been going on?
In May I had a few particular items that never had A SINGLE WATCHER for DAYS on end. Sometimes it would run the whole week with like maybe 2 watchers.
WTF? those 2 watchers were ebay staff?
When I did keyword searches, SOMETIMES it would show and sometimes it wouldn't. Pisst about it but I didn't email ebay, and ASSUMED ebay's search function was temporarily snafu or under system 'maintenance'.
What is this flagging bull? Why aren't we being notified by ebay when this happens?
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Does the auction have any swear words in it?
For example, if a shirt is listed and the "r" is dropped inadvertantly, the auction will not index. If the title of a CD or book has the word "s-h-i-t" in it, and you write that in the description or title, bye bye listing. Search the word by item and description, and while there used to be hundreds of auctions come up, now NONE, NOUGHT, ZERO do, although Ebay will collect the fees, and to my knowledge do not give any warning that your auction is not worth the s-h-i-t that is written in it.
If anyone wants to buy the single "Too Drunk To F*ck" by The Dead Kennedys, they will never find it on Ebay by searching for it with it's actual title.
It is an insidious little trick. If they want to be censors supreme, that is one thing, but they are taking listing fees hand over fist by an absolute deception as the auctions can not be found, and (to my knowledge) there is no warning as you are listing that your auction defies any listing or search protocol. These words are in common cultural useage, and sometimes have direct input to an accurate description of an actual item, but the "prudes of Utah" (I am being facetious) appear to have taken the stand that anyone who uses such foul language is not entitled to the actual service that they have paid money for.
Bah (again), Kevin
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That exact thing happened to me last year on a Cabbage Patch lot that I listed. The entire first week, no one could figure out why it wouldn't index. I looked at it, eBay looked at it, half of DOUA looked at it. Yikes. Turns out I had done exactly what Kevin just said. I had a shirt in that lot and left out the r. Amazing......... Did get my fees refunded for both attempts.
Good luck hon,
Marjie
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Did get my fees refunded for both attempts.
But does anyone who isn't aware that the auction did not index, or does not enquire to Ebay about the fact?
I honestly believe that many auctions per year would fall into that category.
Kevin
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Well, I didn't see any swear words, but eBay may hear a few. The lady did hang up on my last night when I raised my voice to high.
I wrote to both the tech people, the cs people, the flagging people, and now to the help site people, and not one email has been sent back to me. I even wrote to Bill Cobb. They know good and well what they are doing and it's stealing. I think the FBI, the FTC, and everyone else especially the sellers about this thievery.
Since the auction isn't indexed, no one sees it except me. Today I contacted the rep at eBay Stores. It's an auction, but she helped more than anyone. She talked to the tech people and they admitted that there was an indexing problem that had been going on for about a week. Yeah right! What about when the same auction didn't index at the first of June? The eBay rep suggested closing the auction, but wanted to use the auction to try to find the problem. So, I told them I'd keep it up for the rest of the week. They are going to refund me.
A lady on the eBay Boards says that it has been happening to her all week. Another person wants to start a class action suit. To me, a class action suit only lines the legal beagles' pockets.
This is not the first time I could not find my items in search, but was too dumb to realize that they were not indexed. But, no more.
Gosh, I loved eBay and wish this didn't happen. I have lost all faith in their integrity, especially when they will not even answer emails. I have spent days contacting eBay to solve the issue. Just a waste of my time.
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Elizdale,
Does it show up on the "View Sellers Other Auctions" list? Does it show up on the "text only" sellers list?
I listed an auction last night while the text list was "Functionality Not Available", and My Ebay was not showing auctions, and it took more than an hour to show up after they began working again. This surprised me because I had always thought that the text list was a "live" reflection of the current status of all of my listings. Interestingly in that case, the auction did show up in both the Search and "View Sellers Other Auctions" long before it turned up in My Ebay and my Text Only sellers list.
Kind Regards, Kevin
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Long time lurker here, long time seller, seldom a poster....I had an indexing problem two weeks ago, contacted Live Help....it did get resolved but only because I pressed the issue. My listing was not showing on the auction page a good three hours after posting. First was told it probably wasn't indexed; it was showing in search but not on the listings page itself. They thought that would appease me. I pointed out it was showing in search but not on the page, then was told it was probably being indexed on another server which may be taking longer, but that didn't make sense to me since auctions listed before mine and after mine were showing on the page.So I pointed that out too and asked if mine would pop into the correct spot on the listing page when it was indexed....well, they asked me to hold on a minute while a techie looked into it...low and behold my listing miraculously appeared where it should be in just minutes. There is definately something going on with indexing, you just have to wonder how many auctions never show up on a listing page and it is unknown to the seller... what seller has time to check each listing to make sure it is!???