eBay "liquidated" my antique blade!

Lee · Yesterday, 06:51 PM

I have no significant negative personal experience with eBay/Pitney-Bowes Global Shipping Program, but when I was selling Lew's collection I regularly read eBay's own shipping forum and other forums and I encountered many horror stories. Apparently, the GSP would repackage the items, so an original packer's care could become irrelevant for the onward journey. As I remember, one buyer of computer equipment was outraged at the seller because the item was thrown loose into a box and received broken. The seller claimed he had packed with care and a change in weight corroborated this claim. So, in the present case, a determination that there was a CITES issue likely was made when the item was opened for inspection at the GSP.

Lew had a nice collection of Sudanese arm daggers. eBay would reject them based on US government sanctions. They even provided a link to a government website that laid out detailed well targeted and reasonable restrictions that clearly did not apply to my listing. Fortunately, 'East African' substituted for 'Sudanese' reliably fixed my problem then. A friend has similar problems currently on Etsy.

I suspect that these marketplaces will move on from simple trigger words to using an AI process that can 'evaluate full text and images in a listing. I wonder if this will work any better.

Yesterday, 06:51 PM	#23
Lee EAAF Staff Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Upstate New York, USA Posts: 998	Hearsay I have no significant negative personal experience with eBay/Pitney-Bowes Global Shipping Program, but when I was selling Lew's collection I regularly read eBay's own shipping forum and other forums and I encountered many horror stories. Apparently, the GSP would repackage the items, so an original packer's care could become irrelevant for the onward journey. As I remember, one buyer of computer equipment was outraged at the seller because the item was thrown loose into a box and received broken. The seller claimed he had packed with care and a change in weight corroborated this claim. So, in the present case, a determination that there was a CITES issue likely was made when the item was opened for inspection at the GSP. Lew had a nice collection of Sudanese arm daggers. eBay would reject them based on US government sanctions. They even provided a link to a government website that laid out detailed well targeted and reasonable restrictions that clearly did not apply to my listing. Fortunately, 'East African' substituted for 'Sudanese' reliably fixed my problem then. A friend has similar problems currently on Etsy. I suspect that these marketplaces will move on from simple trigger words to using an AI process that can 'evaluate full text and images in a listing. I wonder if this will work any better.