Monday, September 17, 2007

The eBay description system, how it screws you when you make a mistake, and how to screw it back.

This post is about how to change eBay listing descriptions after the ad has already been posted and either sales or bids have taken place.

You are not supposed to do this. eBay does not allow you to change the description of an item once somebody has made a purchase or a bid has taken place. So, what is one to do after you realize that a mistake has been made? You may have already contacted the bidders and they may be ok with it. However, you will never get the listing fees back for that one.

Easy. Post your description as a picture, host your own picture (which you can legally do) and then simply change the picture at will in your own server. The image will be refreshed accordingly and the new description, image, text, heck.. even the entire ad if you post it as a picture, will be changed.

This is something that came to me while I was dealing with counterfeit Chinese scum that was shamelessly copying my ads and then trying to defraud users by selling them at ridiculously cheap prices. It is one thing to simply copy and paste the text, but they were even using my own hosted images.

I complained to eBay. I pointed the offending listings, the offending user IDs, and even provided them with the pattern these people were using to systematically create new identities as they were being shut down. What did eBay do? Nothing. 48 hours after I reported auctions that were scams the listings were still there.

As I banged my head against the wall trying to think how to deal with these assholes (both eBay and the Chinese) it finally came to me:

First, change all my pictures and place them in a randomly named folder. Use this folder for all new listings and keep changing names once a month while deleting the older folders in order to prevent people from using the images.

Then, take the currently usurped images and change them for your favorite goatse image, or something similar.

Sit down, watch and enjoy.

So, while I reported that a certain set of ads was fraudulent and being used to collect other people's money, nothing happened.

However, when a sexually explicit image showed up in the above mentioned listings, the entire ads were quickly taken down and the users banned within 2 hours. At least I know what gets their attention.

This was done so easily that the next conclusion came up naturally: I could use the same method to change my auction listings in the middle of the run.

Now all my listings are images. They do not look like images. They look like text. I first compose them in Dreamweaver, make sure they look ok, and then capture a screenshot. Save the screenshot and insert it as an image. It looks beautiful and perfect (and it gives me complete control over the layout). You have to make sure any keywords are appropriately described in the title and subtitle, as the text in the image will not be captured by the search engine, but that is a small price to pay for the privilege.

Now you can change anything you want in mid-flight. Did you forget to mention you do not sell to certain countries after receiving an unwanted bid? Go ahead and insert it in your image. Do you want to change payment requirements in the middle of a run? Go ahead, knock yourself out. Do you just want to screw with someone's head and switch a real watch for a fake replica? It's never been easier!

Needless to say this is not a technique that can be abused by legitimate sellers. Eventually you will get hit with a negative and pissed off users will pile up, but it comes to show a very fun loophole that eBay has left out of the system.

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