Please join Sharat Digumarti, Sr. Manager – Trust and Safety, in a discussion on how to keep eBay safe. Sharat will be discussing with you the initiatives taken by TnS to keep the site safe and future plans. If you have any questions on any trust or safety related topics, feel free to post them on this thread. Sharat will answer them during the Open House
Host: Sharat Digumarti, Sr. Manager – Trust and Safety Date: Thursday, 16th March 2005 Time: 4.00 pm to 5.00 pm (IST)
I hope this workshop had helped you get clarification on your Trust and Safety related questions.
Sharat enjoyed this interaction with you. We will be planning more such session in future. We will be locking this thread and archive it on this board.
If you have further thoughts/comments/feedback on TnS or other eBay areas, feel free to post them on other discussion boards.
Our product team is evaluating the functionalities related to instant payment. To some extent instant payment is available with the current PaisaPay function, however the challenge is making the online payment mandatory and some buyers and sellers have a various opinions around this
Its sad to know about your experience with a fake buyer, to address such situations the Buyer Requirement Tool should help you to block and limit purchased by single user
As you might know ebay is building a new feature called ebay express and we are testing this in the US.
We hope to offer solutions to our community which help them in building their business and reduce concerns
Regarding the fees being charged I request to contact our Customer Service who can provide assistance and as there seems to be uncompleted transaction you would get the necessary fee credit http://pages.ebay.in/help/contact_us/_base/index.html
Sellers who follow the Unpaid Item process get the fee credits for uncompleted transactions and as you might have not followed the process the Customer Support will be able to assist you
We are sorry to hear about your experience and hope you have tried establishing contact with the seller. I request you to visit the following page and follow the steps to be covered under the program. http://pages.ebay.in/help/confidence/problems-fraud.html
With the rollout of new consequence guidelines in Feb 06 sellers have ample opportunity to learn about listing policies and leverage the online tutorials. Until the violating user understands the policy by going through the tutorial, his ability to sell / list on the site is restricted. By this step, we strive to give opportunity to sellers who violate due to ignorance.
In this year we are informing the community of the new policies which are being launched and the date from which they would be effective. We believe this would help users to know the policy well in advance and take corrective measure appropriately.
The suspensions are stringent when user list Prohibited and Restricted Items and in cases of violations done with a clear intent.
Regarding your question on “clarification regarding Listing Violation”
I have answered in my earlier post the difficult in my giving a judgment on items which are either allowed or not allowed by just a Title or few words.
Both buyers and sellers are complaining regarding the abuse of High Shipping Charges and as mentioned in one of my earlier posts and we will announce in the next couple of weeks certain guidelines on these
There have been changes done to the Feedback System and is linked with UPI. In case there still has been an abuse of the new feedback system I request you to submit a request to Customer Service to review and remove the unjust feedback
In 2006 eBay is clearly focusing on improving user experience and there are numerous initiatives the CS team is working on. The format of Contact Us is a big area of improvement as changing it taken tremendous time and effort, hence Live Chat link is now available on the Homepage.
In terms of certain mails the content cannot be changed especially the one you mentioned on the acknowledgement when a user reports against a potential violation of a user or item due to the privacy agreement
Regarding your question on linked accounts and related response you received from CS
The linked accounts are a complex model and we cannot take action unless there is substantial proof. As you are aware ebay has over 180 million users and many accounts can be considered as linked accounts on 1 or 2 parameters.
We strive to high levels of accuracy and at times the team which investigates in situation of doubt the severity of the violation is noted and some do get a benefit of doubt.
During the linked accounts investigation the team may reach the users and ask for additional proof and also may monitor the account usage in taking action.
I hope our team work would be able to change your belief at some point
Regarding your suggestion / question on eBay’s “For Indian operations eBay has to take initiatives to book the culprits cheating thru their site”
You might not be aware, but eBay is actively working with Law Enforcement agencies all across the country. I request you to visit our Security Centre which has links to Law Enforcement (LE) and other resources http://pages.ebay.in/securitycentre/law_enforcement.html
We assist and fully support LE on case investigations and nabbing fraudsters. There have been successful case investigation and break through in catching fraudsters and these cases are with Law Enforcement. We don’t have the liberty to share specific details and their progress. However, one such successful case in Hyderabad was covered by the press
eBay would not be able to take every individual case to Law Enforcement and they need to be reported by the individual who is defrauded. As ebay is not party to the transaction hence we cannot lodge a case on user’s behalf and should not make a decision nor screen the complaints which users want to lodge with Law Enforcement.
Regarding your post on “If A Seller Is Offering 100% Moneyback Guarantee, On What Ground Can A Buyer Raise A SNAD Dispute Against The Seller ?”
As mentioned in my earlier response on Money Back works and the product is typically return if the buyer finds the effort worthwhile, else is likely to ignore
In terms of broken in transit I am sure you would have taken enough precaution and this case is an exception and broke during transit. Similarly there would always be both buyers and sellers who would be exceptions.
I would not like to classify the buyers who complain or give negative feedback as fraud. In case the transactions did not happen and you received negative feedback which has been resolved through the feedback changes we did in 2005
I request you to submit the case to the Customer Service to review your case as Feedback Extortion
I am not sure about the general statement you made about “no safety for both buyers and sellers’
Sellers are very safe as I am yet find sellers who are shipping goods without receiving the money in advance. Also many sellers offer Cash on Delivery and Money Back offers to build buyer confidence
Buyers are covered through our Buyer Protection Program currently upto Rs 10000/- and a maximum of 3 such claims in a period of 3 months. As mentioned in one of my earlier posts we are launching higher protection amount for PaisaPay transactions
The transactions between users are about confidence and ratings are one way of building confidence. We have done 2 changes to the Feedback System in the last 6 months and we are looking forward to more changes during this year
With our current systems majority of our transactions are very safe and we constantly review other verification methods
When we talked to few buyers regarding the money back offer, some of them complained the value of the product and cost to return the product was not a fruitful option and I think this would happen especially for low value items. In terms of feedback once given it cannot be edited.
In the end ebay is only platform in bringing buyer and sellers together and there could be instances of both buyers and sellers getting concerned at times, however with few precautions taken by buyers and sellers the experience will be smooth
Regarding your suggestion on “option in preferences which should say whether or not ebay should call on the contact number provided by the seller for any promotion being held at ebay.in”
I will inform our marketing team on your suggestion and I think there may be some settings in My eBay
I will discuss with our Training Team about including the Basic Policy education at various workshops and the various trainings done to sellers
I will not be able to comment on the process related to PaisaPay and some of the processes they have are to mitigate the risk
Regarding your question “Is using ODRINDIA viable for members who are selling / Buying low value Items”
The option to use is completely amongst buyers and sellers to use ODR India. We at ebay offer our the Dispute Console which majority of our user use to resolve their disputes
ODR India is a 3rd party option which we added so that users who want to settle any disputes outside of eBay
You are absolutely right in mentioning that for low value transactions one may not choose ODR and we shall monitor the usage in the 3 month pilot period
Regarding your question on “can a seller accept online bank transfer directly to his account as a payment method”
The sellers have complete flexibility is offering the various payment methods and buyers transferring money online is usual. The payments offered should be in compliance with the Safe Payments Policy http://pages.ebay.in/help/policies/safe-payments-policy.html
The PaisaPay is a service and some sellers only prefer to offer and reduce the steps of payment follow up, tracking receipt of payment etc
Regarding your question on – “Seller suspension and related reinstatement”
All suspension mails are sent with the reason for suspension and the duration. The user who has been suspended, should clarify by responding to the mail if at all the reason and the suspension period is not mentioned
The proof required has to be either faxed or sent to the PO Box address and they would reach the respective team. The concerned team might be located at any of the eBay Customer Service locations. Walking to the local office and showing the proof is not helpful in reviewing the reinstatement or answering the specific reason for suspension
At the moment I neither know why nor which account we are talking about and the severity of the violation which called for suspension. It is true that for certain kind of violations the tenure is indefinite as we cannot have such users on the platform
I will like to help you out with your question; however, I will recommend that you write to Customer Support via the Contact Us link with your specific query. We have a trained CS team to help our users.
However, in case CS is not able to give you satisfactory answers, feel free to mail the same to me. I will make sure that our CS team is well equipped to meet the needs of our user community.
Thanks for the great interaction we had today. Sharat had enjoyed the session.
Unfortunately, we have not been able to asnwer all questions posted on this thread. However, as I mentioned earlier, we will continue to post asnwers, and will request you to revisit the thread again in a day.
We had a great time interacting with you and hope to have more such sessions.
The payment methods are offered by each seller and vary from seller to sellers. I suggest you to use the feature ‘Ask Seller Question’ before purchasing the product
"sapana@ebay.com" said "However, we will continue to respond to as many posts as possible and request users to revisit this Open House to check responses to their posts in the next 1 day"
it was very nice to hear that, and see your committment towards the ebay community. thank you very much as i really hope to see a resolution to all the issues raised here.
this was a really good experience... thanx a lot ebay!.. rather than stereotyped prerecorded answers, Sharat and sapana actually spoke to the point... wish even the CS team did the same.. btw sapana, can i have ur email id...so that you can forward my concern regarding ebay motors to u so that u can follow it up...?
"yash@ebay.com" said When an account access on ebay is restricted the user is asked for some kind of proof and I believe which should not be a concern when pc's are shared
i would like to infor you that my friend, whose suspension story i mentioned in my earlier post, was never asked fo any proof. even though he himself went to your lower parel office with his passport as proof. they just calmly told him to reply back to the suspension email. he can prove it, but ebay does not want any proofs.
i am sorry that we have not been able to answer all community questions in the scheduled hour.
However, we will continue to respond to as many posts as possible and request users to revisit this Open House to check responses to their posts in the next 1 day
On credit card/debit cards there are mixed opinions and I have even seen a post from a seller raising concern on SMS verification as the user needs to disclose his mobile number.
I can only say that for the moment we dont have any specific timeline on launching such a functionality on ebay
hi Sharat, i have a short story to tell here, and it would be great if i get a reply. i am current, but slightly new seller on eBay India, but I am writing from a newly created ID as i have some major relevations to make, and i am scared (and have been warned by the number of such posts on the community boards) that ebay will take action against my account. so i donot want to reveal my real identity. i am really scared of selling on ebay as many sellers are being suspended for no reasons/faults. i know many big and very old sellers who have been suspended for some mistakes they did when ebay india was very new, a time when even the baazee team did not understand the ebay policies, or some new policies which were created.
a seller on ebay, who is a very good friend of mine, was suspended just because his ID was linked to his friend's ID. he had himself taught his friend to sell on eBay, and they both used to login from my friend's office. somewhere in november 2005, his friend's ID was suspended for some reasons. but his ID was not touched, and as he was getting good sales, he created another ID to expand his sales. suddenly, some time back, his ID too was blocked stating that he had violated term 9 of ebay's policy which is on "Abusing eBay", as his ID was "Linked to a previously suspended user", his friend in this case. there was no more communication from ebay as to the exact reasons.
my friend even went to the ebay india office to prove that he is a different person. He mailed them at least 20 times saying that he is legally a different person from the suspended seller, a different legal entity, has a different bank account, and therefore should not be linked to the suspended seller. but the trust and safety team will accept none of this and just answers with a pre-drafted answer which tells him that his ID is “indefinitely” suspended.
does this mean that a person’s friends and relatives are all banned from using ebay if he violates any rules! don’t you think they should be given a nother chance to prove their genuinity. in an announcement on the 3rd of feb, you have yourself stated the words "We recognized that some of our policies were hard to understand, even for me. So last year, we spent several months rewriting our policy pages in straightforward language to make policies easier to understand. Now each page includes: a clear statement of the policy and why we have it; examples that illustrate what is and isn’t allowed; and a list of the possible consequences of violating the policy."
If the head of baazee’s legal dept. cannot understand ebay’s terms, the sellers are just in no position to. this does go to show that we sellers were in a very tight position to understand and change our selling policies in such a short span of time. Now what about old sellers who have been suspended due to such policies, and made some more mistakes which aggravated their suspensions. SHOULD THEY NOT BE GIVEN ANOTHER CHANCE TO PROVE THEIR GENUINITY???
Regarding your suggestion on reduction of eBay fee, unfortunately Sharat is not the best person to asnwer the same.
I will suggest you to post a separate thread on this topic, and I will forward your suggestion to the relevant team.
Thanks for posting your photograph; it is great to see our community members. We always read your posts. However, Since the photograph size is big, users on dial up will have difficulty in loading the page. May I will request you to reduce the size of the photograph?
you had given the suggestion on better education of new sellers on eBay Policies some time back as well. We have made some progress in the same and I will like to share it with you.
After the Enhanced consequences guidelines were rolled out, a new seller who violates due to ignorance of policy, is asked to go through a tutorial to understand the policy. Until the tutorial is cleared, the seller's ability to list and sell on site gets restricted.
Regarding your suggestion on Policy education in eBay Academy seminars, the team is already working to understand how they can incorporate the same. In addition to the same, in our various forms of training, the teams are trying to ensure that our sellers are equipped to understand the basic eBay policies.
If you have further suggestions on improving seller education, feel free to post them here.
is it that same problem, of the page not refreshing again, or is it that the ebay team has stoppe replying? i see so many posts below which really need to be answered, and were written even before this discussion's start time of 4pm. i really hope that all these important questions are replied before this discussion is stopped due to time constraints
thanx sharat....these arent my queries alone..but the queries of several sellers..... i still notice u havent answered me on the compulsory credit card / bank account debit, before confirmation of a bid by a buyer..as in the other auction / shopping sites
Dear Yash, I would like to know whether or not a seller can accept a online bank transfer directly to his account as a payment method? The payment is clearly reflected in buyers statement which can be used for payment proof also. It also makes the product cost lower by 3.5%. Thanks,
You have said that you would be trying ODR for 3 months.
Do you think it would be viable for members who are selling / Buying low value Items, I mean after the promotional fee offer is over.( Or where first few case are free of cost)
Where the transaction amount is just 500 odd rupees. .
the issues i have raised are universal...not limited to me.. if u read my posts on this discussion..it deals abt feedback, frauds and more. we are losing out on customers and revenue on acocunt of these. as regards ebay motors, its been 21 days since i asked CS the question thru livehelp / email. as of date they havent given me an answer. this is also for the benfit of sellers.. who at times do not have proof of purchase / ownership - in the case of unused passenger items purchased from inbound passengers ie. perfumes, mobiles, laptops, electronics etc.
in an announcement on the 3rd of feb, you have yourself stated the words "We recognized that some of our policies were hard to understand, even for me. So last year, we spent several months rewriting our policy pages in straightforward language to make policies easier to understand. Now each page includes: a clear statement of the policy and why we have it; examples that illustrate what is and isn’t allowed; and a list of the possible consequences of violating the policy."
If the head of baazee’s legal dept. cannot understand ebay’s terms, the sellers are just in no position to. this does go to show that we sellers were in a very tight position to understand and change our selling policies in such a short span of time. Now what about old sellers who have been suspended due to such policies, and made some more mistakes which aggravated their suspensions. SHOULD THEY NOT BE GIVEN ANOTHER CHANCE TO PROVE THEIR GENUINITY???
I request you to check the Policies on Prohibited and Restricted Items and in terms of the brands/words would not be feasible to be shared
Piracy – We don’t allow items will are in Copyright violation and there is a specific program for Right Owners who report violating items
IP addresses – It’s a valid suggestion and works only to a limited extend, The new feature in Buyer Requirements helps sellers to block users who are not SMS verified and this will help in blocking users from outside India
Seller Suspension – We have rolled out new consequences guidelines in Feb’06 which will help sellers to reduce their concerns related to suspensions.
Shipping Charges – We are taking actions on high shipping charges and did a small change in the listing view by changing the column of Shipping Charges next to Item price which earlier used to be the last column. In the next couple of weeks we are rolling some clear guidelines to sellers who are violating this. Unfortunately sellers have full control and some of them seem to be abusing this
ODR India – This a pilot we are trying with ODR India for 3 months. We have scheduled ODR India team to be on the boards in the next week and interact with our users. Unlike US we don’t have many 3 party solution providers for ecommerce
Questions related to items – Many at times the CS team faces challenge in replying for these questions as most users sent the title or a word. When taking action as a violation both the item, description has to be understood to give clear answer
Dear Ebay team, There should be a option in preferences which should say whether or not ebay should call on the contact number provided by the seller for any promotion being held at ebay.in currently. I get many calls from ebay during the afternoon which is bad because I have to work during the night hours. Thanks,
I would like to mention one more point. Ebay should teach sellers and buyers about the policy voilation at the workshop held at different cities. The workshop gives very basic and simple overview of the ebay. Thanks,
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